Augmented reality industry is set to explode

Augmented reality is "a game-changer, literally", according to foreign direct investment agency IDA Ireland. Microsoft and Google are among the many who agree.

At the time of writing, Microsoft was expected to unveil further details of its augmented reality headset HoloLens at its Build conference in San Francisco. Google, meanwhile, has invested about $500m in an augmented reality start-up called Magic Leap, which is regarded by industry watchers as a “stealth” company of definite interest. It may have pulled the plug on Google Glass sales for now, but augmented reality isn’t going to disappear in a puff of 3D smoke anytime soon.

Indeed, as Dublin’s second-ever Augmented Reality Marketing conference heard on Wednesday, “mixed reality marketing” – meaning augmented reality plus virtual reality – is expected to be a $150 billion industry by 2020. It’s the new tech frontier.

Augmented reality is what happens when the real, physical world and its tangible items – your street, your home, your bedroom, your body, your newspaper – are overlaid with virtual elements such as sound, video, graphics and data.

Virtual reality is different. Its headsets don’t connect to the physical environment, its graphics are not superimposed over anything. You could say it’s closer to fantasy.

This business is becoming very real, however. It's "really cool technology", writes Ciaran Chaney from IDA Ireland on the emerging business team blog.

One Los Angeles-headquartered company in this space, Daqri, has already set up a European base in Dublin with IDA support. Daqri is involved in everything from the manufacture of augmented reality "smart helmets" used by workers in engineering, manufacturing and aerospace plants, to an augmented reality colouring book joint venture with Crayola.

The IDA could do worse than to court more international companies such as Daqri to rent office space here alongside local augmented reality start-ups. As the event organiser Alex Gibson, put it, "we're on the cusp of an enormous explosion."

It’s one that is bound to have amazing special effects.