Photo by Steve Roe on Unsplash

Most aspects of our lives now involve information technology. City life is no exception. The increased use of IoT has made the concept of smart city possible. It covers many areas ranging from environment protection to computed aided traffic management. A smart city includes a combination of cutting edge technologies, including Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and smart sensors.

A number of cities are starting to implement smart city technologies. The leading positions are hold by Copenhagen, Singapore, Stockholm, Zurich and Boston. IESE Cities in Motion Strategies considers New-York, London and Paris to be the most advanced smart cities in the world.

One of the main components of the smart city concept is to make the urban environment more people centered. And that’s where augmented reality comes into play. Smart sensors, A.I., IoT are all technologies that contribute to the quality of life in a modern city. However, without augmented reality, this picture is incomplete. The other technologies are considered to be “back end” technologies that work in the background and remain hidden from view. Augmented reality can be the interface which provides access to all the benefits of a smart city. With augmented reality it is possible to interact with the normal environment in a completely different way.

Navigation

Navigation is the first AR application that is usually thought of. The large metropolitan areas of modern cities makes it hard, for even local residents, to navigate. Many people navigate by looking at a smartphone screen. This is not the safest navigation approach, since you are usually not aware of your surroundings and it is easy to get into an accident. Creating an augmented layer with navigation can drastically improve the navigation experience and increase the safety of your journey.

Search Engine for Physical Objects

As the VentureBeat article points out, the same approach that is used by search engines, like Google, to index the Web, will be used for indexing real world objects in a smart city environment.

trying to get information about the objects, places, and people in the space immediately around you is a complex process that is dramatically different from typing a search into Google on Firefox. However, once solved, this “indexing of the real world” will make our urban lives richer and easier to navigate. VentureBeat.

While we use web browsers to navigate the Internet, there will be augmented reality browsers for navigation in an augmented reality world. However, this method of browsing will be dramatically different from what we have used on the Internet. Instead of simply typing a search query, augmented reality browsing may involve physical interaction with the world, using gestures and body movements.

Blippar, an augmented reality search engine, aims to bring new shopping experience for indoor stores. While shopping is the most obvious application for augmented reality search engine, it definitely is not limited by it. Whether Google takes the initiative in the augmented reality search market or there is a new breed of startups in the augmented reality search market remains an open question.

Social Network for Citizens

Augmented reality can be used as a framework for a social platform, where citizens can interact with each other, share information and leave comments about real physical objects, such as restaurants, hospitals and other facilities. Andorra has created an AR social network for its citizens, where everyone can add comments on any object in the country and other users can see them. Think about it as augment reality Foursquare.

Eliminate Language Barrier

Tourists in foreign countries often visit cities where everything from navigation to restaurant menus is written exclusively in the local language. In order to improve the travel experience in a foreign city, an augmented reality translator will create a layer with a translation on any surface with text, where you point your smartphone camera.

Improve the Sightseeing Experience

When you visit a city as a tourist, it is easy to get lost in the city’s attractions. For example, you see a beautiful building from the Renaissance period in an old Italian town but have no clue what is it. The CultureClic app provides an augmented information layer on city attractions. You just point your smartphone on a building or object of art and you instantly get information about it.

Security

Augmented reality combined with object recognition, particularly face recognition, can help authorities to identify suspicious behavior and prevent crimes in their early stages. This technology can be implemented with augmented reality glasses that will highlight people who exhibit malicious behavior or are found in criminal records. While it may sound like a story from futuristic dystopian world, it turned out that is exactly what Chinese authorities recently implemented:

The smart specs look a lot like Google Glass, but they are used for identifying potential suspects. The device connects to a feed which taps into China’s state database to root out potential criminals using facial recognition. Officers can identify suspects in a crowd by snapping their photo and matching it to the database. TechCrunch

Final thoughts

Augmented reality technology has become increasingly widespread. Smart city applications will fuel its growth. There is a close connection between AR and technologies that are capable of providing the best experience for interacting with augmented reality. Your smartphone is now the cheapest but not the most convenient way to view the augmented reality world. Recent developments in AR glasses may push AR technology to the next level, by offering new models of augmented reality glasses.