Welcome to Day 1433 of our Wisdom-Trek, and thank you for joining me.This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to WisdomAugmented Reality - How Will It Impact Our World – Ask GrampsWisdom - the final frontier to true knowledge. Welcome to Wisdom-Trek! Where our mission is to create a legacy of wisdom, to seek out discernment and insights, to boldly grow where few have chosen to grow before. Hello, my friend, I am Guthrie Chamberlain, your captain on our journey to increase Wisdom and Create a Living Legacy. Thank you for joining us today as we explore wisdom on our 2nd millennium of podcasts. Today is Day 1433 of our Trek, and our focus on Fridays is the future technological and societal advances, so we call it Futuristic Fridays. My personality is one that has always been very future-oriented. Since my childhood, I have yearned for the exploration and discovery of new technologies and advancements for the future. I grew up with the original Star Trek series, and even today, while I am on my 64th revolution around the sun, I still dream of traveling in space. Each week we will explore rapidly converging technologies and advancements, which will radically change our lives. At times, the topics may sound like something out of a science fiction novel, but each area that we explore is already well on its way of becoming a reality over the next couple of decades.


To keep with our theme of “Ask Gramps,” I will put our weekly topics in the form of a question to get us on track. So this week’s question is: Hey Gramps, what is Augmented Reality, and how will it impact our world in the future?


Augmented Reality – How It Will Impact Our World


Last week on Futuristic Friday, we explored how Sensors and the Internet of Things (referred to as IoT) will track and measure all types of information in every aspect of our lives. Augmented Reality (or AR) will be one of the connections or sensors which will provide information to and from our world. Our world is in a disruptive mode, which will speed up the exponential technology that is changing our world today. I am using some of the information mentioned in Peter Diamandis’s blogs and book “The Future is Faster Than You Think.”


Augmented Reality is about to add a digital intelligence layer to our every surrounding, transforming retail, manufacturing, education, tourism, real estate, and almost every major industry that holds up our economy today.


Apple’s Tim Cook has remarked, “I regard [AR] as a big idea like the smartphone. The smartphone is for everyone. We don’t have to think the iPhone is about a certain demographic, or country, or vertical market. It’s for everyone. I think AR is that big; it’s huge.”


Apple, Microsoft, Google Alphabet, Amazon, and numerous other players are entering this AR market, so we are on the cusp of witnessing a newly augmented world.


In one of the most significant technological revolutions of this century, smartphones have dematerialized cameras, stereos, video game consoles, TVs, GPS systems, calculators, paper, and even matchmaking as we knew it.


AR glasses will soon perpetuate this, ultimately dematerializing the smartphone itself. We will no longer gaze into tiny, two-dimensional screens but rather see through a fully immersive, 3D interface.


·      Introducing the Augmented WorldWhile already beginning to permeate mobile applications, AR will soon migrate to headsets, and eventually reach us through contact lenses — replacing over 3 billion smartphones in use today.


AR superimposes digital worlds onto physical environments (by contrast to VR, which completely immerses users in digital realities). In this way, AR allows users to remain engaged with their physical surroundings, serving as a visual enhancement rather than replacement.


As AR hardware costs continue to plummet — and advancements in connectivity begin...