(Silas Adekunle. Image: Reach Robotics)
‘Quantum Leap Forward’ Occurs in Augmented Reality Gaming
“We have created an entirely new augmented gaming platform,” said Silas Adekunle, founder and CEO of the Nigerian-based Reach Robotics. Reach acquired an exclusive marketing deal with Apple to sell its mini robots, raising $7.75 million in funding.
His invention, MekaMon, is described as:
“As the world’s first premium gaming robot, MekaMon fits neatly into the emerging category of mobile augmented reality products,” said Adekunle. “By fusing robotics, reality-bending technology and competitive play, we’re offering players a new twist on hardware and video games—a premium robotics product that’s easy to play but very difficult to master.”
MekaMons will be available in Apple stores as of Nov. 16 as well as online at Apple.com for $299.95.
Now please don’t confuse AR with its cousin VR. Wikipedia describes AR thus:
“Augmented reality (AR) is a live direct or indirect view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are ‘augmented’ by computer-generated or extracted real-world sensory input such as sound, video, graphics, haptics or GPS data.[1] It is related to a more general concept called computer-mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. Augmented reality enhances one’s current perception of reality, whereas in contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one.[2][3] Augmented reality is used in order to enhance the experienced environments or situations and to offer enriched experiences. Originally, the immersive augmented reality experiences were used in entertainment and game businesses, but now other business industries are also getting interested about AR’s possibilities for example in knowledge sharing, educating, managing the information flood and organizing distant meetings.”
Now that you understand the basics of AR, it should be pretty clear that it will be a major player in the computer/internet industry from here on out. Virtual Reality is considered by some to be the sexier of the two platforms. Both have head sets that immerse you in other dimensions and brings your senses long for the ride. Augemented Reality will be as much fun, as much fantasy as its VR relative. AR will add to your real world experience in amazingly helpful ways. Think along the lines of Siri and how it enhances moments of your life. AR will enhance or augment certain life events on so many other levels. The assistance both systems offer will appear to be magical, if not positively omniscient in their interactions with ourselves and with one another.
So whether you enjoy AR with $7,000 headsets, or begin with your smartphone being your platform of entertainment and education, it offers the creators the opportunity to make large mounts of money for research and/or buyouts. The MekaMon AR system Adekunle invented is all the proof needed to see the potential.
MekaMon at your service
Louis Rosenberg testing Virtual Fixtures, one of the first Augmented Reality systems ever developed (1992).
Augmented gaming is entering a new phase of existence, and it is growing quickly. Analysts across the industry and in the connected vertical markets are saying AR will become a major part of the discretionary spending budget for most of the world’s serious game players in the very near future. The link below contains a video of The MekaMon in action with its creator.
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