Augmented Reality Business Card Packs Wealth of Information

Navigating the line between augmented-reality-as-buzzword-of-the-moment and the technology’s genuine utility can be tricky of late, and Jonas Jäger’s new Augmented Business Card technology is indicative of the problem. On the one hand, the concept is certainly cool—enriching a traditional paper business card with a rotatable quasi-3D image of yourself along with live Twitter updates, contact links, and gesture-controlled media. But beyond the undoubtedly slick presentation, we have to ask ourselves; will this have any relevance once the gleam and polish of augmented reality wears off, and the crumpled shrink wrap is on the floor? Augmented reality is melding functionality and gimmick to a near-inextricable degree, and it seems problematic when applied to the business card, one of the most distilled instances of the medium being the message.

Does the business card need to be revolutionized? Does it need to evolve? Is it really worth holding someones business card up to a webcam for a 3D rendering of phone numbers and tweets? Couldn’t this same information be relayed on a clean, simple, well-designed, business card? These questions will all answer themselves as people who hand out augmented reality business cards (the source code for which will soon be available for free on Jäger’s site) either find an uptick or slide in the number of people who bother getting in touch with them. Either way, augmented reality needs to be watched carefully, lest it become the void of hype that virtual reality was in the 90s.

[via Gizmodo]