Fractured Reality

I recently bought myself a new phone, a Galaxy Note S20 Ultra (I'm probably forgetting a couple of names in the title), and one of the coolest new features I played around with until I forgot about it was the AR camera. This feature allows you to doodle in 3D throughout an entire area on your phone. I personally was able to turn my hallway into a portal that led to a world of carpet-creatures and bed-bumblers, much to the enjoyment of my younger siblings. This made me think about how AR went from a fringe potential in SciFi shows to such an integrated part of our tech that it has become almost banal.

But in reality, there is so much we can do with AR, whilst my first knee jerk reaction is to talk about the juggernaut that was Pokemon Go. After decades I could finally run around with my favorite pocket monsters in the real world, but that’s not the assignment. Then I realized that I was using AR in a much more practical way.

Like most people on Planet Earth in 2020, I’ve been spending quite a bit of time at home with my family, and with more eyes, there are more issues that rise up. So we did what any sane family did and renovated. While we were renovating we were able to use IKEA AR to look for furniture that could fit our room and match the color scheme. Whilst this may prevent too many people from going to a concrete store with a fistful of photos to compare the room to the credenza, it is able to hook people in by showing them their ideal room with the ideal furniture and all we needed to do is buy it from IKEA.