A good introduction to augmented reality research can be found in the CACM special
issue on augmented reality from July 1993 [23]. The most relevant current university
research is being done by Gregory Abowd at Georgia Tech, Steven Feiner and Columbia
University, and Steve Mann at MIT Media Lab.
Abowd has a yearly design competition to build and refine a CyberGuide prototype [24].
CyberGuide uses infrared beacons hung from the ceiling of his Georgia Tech lab to
allow a Newton to determine its location and then then pull up locally stored information
about demo stations in the lab. Abowd imagines extending the system to provide
information for people at trade shows. A large entertainment company with many theme parks is experimenting with a similar notion
to provide information to guests at its theme parks. The Singapore government has
considered giving similar devices to everyone who enters their country.
Feiner has been working in the area of augmented reality, especially with the use
of goggles for a number of years. One of his current projects, architectural anatomy
[25], allows building inspectors and building contractors to put on goggles and "see
through walls and the ground" to understand where infrastructure such as pipes, wires,
and support beams are located. One of Feiner's graduate students is working on a
Newton based version of Architectural Anatomy that field workers could use outside
without wearing the unstylish looking goggles.
WorldBoard is unique in several ways. First, while most people imagine using a global
wireless communication system to allow one person to speak with another via cellular
phones, WorldBoard uses the system for serving up position dependent information.
(Unwired Planet adds Web browsing capabilities to cellular phones). Second, to be effective WorldBoard
requires positioning accuracy that only a few people associate with GPS (Global Positioning
Systems) and in places where GPS alone is ineffective (in buildings, on planes, in caves, and underwater) because line of sight with satellites in not possible.
WorldBoard is unique by virtue of integrating simple, though somewhat unfamiliar components
at a scale that is much larger and more accurate than most would imagine possible.
The somewhat unfamiliar components of WorldBoard are the positioning technology
(knowing where you are at all times to within one meter of accuracy), the input technology
(wireless 6 degree of freedom pens or rings), and the display technology (stereoscopic
goggles or glasses). The wireless client/server messaging technology of WorldBoard is familiar to Web surfers who use MetriCom's Ricochet or cellular phones with
portable computers and PDA's, or Motorola Global Wireless Radios.