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| Instant nutrient analysis under an AR lens... wouldn't that be awesome? |
Before the smartphone game "Pokémon Go" took the world by storm, augmented reality (AR) sounded like a futuristic fantasy to me. I first heard of these ideas of intertwining physical and virtual realities through gaming technology news and, of course, movies and animes. The concept has been a fascination for quite some time. However, unlike virtual reality technology (VR), which immerses the user in a completely simulated and synthetic environment, augmented reality (AR) simply superimposes digital information onto our real, physical world (ie.: Google Glass). Another beast, mixed reality (MR), incorporates whole virtual elements into our world (ie.: Magic Leap - the most recent gaming technology making waves in the virtual news world right now).
Several tech giants have also joined the rush to prototypes development, such as Microsoft's HoloLens. At 3,000$ apiece, HoloLens' holographic goggles hardware is now available in its development phase.
"Smart glasses/headset" seems to be the direction of the future. I don't know about you, but I find all of this super exciting. Exciting, fascinating, and frankly a bit scary. We're breaking down the walls between technology and people real fast, and concerns have been raised on the possible implications of this direction for the future. I recently found two short films which explore the topic brilliantly. The portrayed AR/MR world looks unreal, and an interesting aspect is that both filmmakers decided to make AR like a "gamified" real world, where everyday life actions earn us "life points" and achievements. That's an aspect of AR/MR that I would love to try out (can you imagine playing Fruit Ninja on your cutting board to learn cooking skills? Whooo), but both shorts also peek into a disconcerting con... I'll let you find that out :)
First short film: Hyper-Reality, produced by Keiichi Matsuda
Second short film: Sight, by Eran May-raz and Daniel Lazo
With this emerging technology, there are also some pretty neat practical applications (other than transforming your life into a RPG ;)). AR is being considered by construction companies (ie.: overlaying the blueprints directly on the construction site), the fashion industry, the military, the healthcare sector, etc... Pertaining to my own profession, there are already a few mobile apps out there which make use of augmented reality technology to scan and display a visualization of a food's nutritional analysis information in a layer of game-like graphics onto the real world. Vision-based tracking would be so useful to help its users assess their meals for portion control and optimization of food intake. Anyone who ever had to do daily food logging and analyze the nutritional content of a recipe knows how arduous the task is. While the nutritional information of most simple foods are stored in governmental databases (the WHO has a list of a bunch of those for many countries), most meals are not registered... and especially if they are multicultural.
Back in university, I remember we had to do a 3-days nutritional analysis for one of our classes... and the time chunk just happened to fall smack on Chinese New Year. With all the family reunions and banquets happening during that weekend, dumplings, take-out roasted duck, rice cakes, etc...all those who celebrated it had the hardest time completing the project. And let's face it: in real life, we never eat simple portions of foods on their own (ie.: exactly 125 ml of rice). Most meals have complex layers of ingredients, and I'd love to get my hands on some AR hardware to break those down into straightforward data.
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| Sunshine bircher muesli: Minced apples, oats, mangos, dried apricots, pistachios, yogourt and honey :3 |
Meals like...uh, this pretty bircher muesli, you know. Before last week, I had no idea what a "bircher muesli" was. I saw one of my colleagues post their breakfast on Instagram and the dish looked so scrumptious I had to ask about it and try my own version. Look at it, people. Just, just look at it :3.
There is so much going on in this bowl, and when I first researched about the dish I was skeptical. The original bircher muesli asked for grated apple, oats and some form of dairy to soak them in overnight. That sounded like too much leeway for breaking the mushiness scale, so I adapted my version to finely minced apples, which gets a fresh crispiness into the oats' soft texture. I also reduced the soaking time to 30 minutes, but I was using quick-oats. Old-fashioned steel-cut oats could probably be soaked overnight.
This sunshine bircher muesli features mango, but the basic concept of this recipe (oats, minced apple and dairy-soak) is highly versatile. You could adapt it to any fruits of your liking, and it would still be a delicious and hearty breakfast.
I'm really, surprisingly, in love with this dish. It gives me a fresh alternative to my peanut butter & jam oatmeal that I usually hold really dear to. It does take a bit more preparation than other breakfast options, but I've found that mixing the muesli the night before really helps for time management. I can just pour the milk in the morning and hop in the shower while it does its work.
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| Breakfast nom for a busy day ;) |
Servings: 1
Ingredients:
1/3 cup quick oats
1/2 pink lady apple, finely minced (or any semi-tart apple of your choice)
1/2 pink lady apple, finely minced (or any semi-tart apple of your choice)
3 dried apricots, cut into chunks
(Optional) 1 tablespoon unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup your choice of milk
1/2 mango, cut into chunks
100g vanilla yogourt
1 teaspoon pistachios, coarsely crushed or slivered
(Optional) 1 teaspoon honey
Preparation:
1. Place the quick oats, minced apple, chunks of dried apricots and, if using, the shredded coconut in a bowl. Mix well and pour the milk in. Make sure that your muesli mix is well covered in milk. Allow to soak, well covered in the fridge, for 30 minutes.
2. Top with a dollop of vanilla yogourt, mango chunks, pistachios and, if using, honey. The yogourt will help loosen the oats mixture (it's a bit too thick to my taste otherwise).
3. Enjoy!
References
(Optional) 1 tablespoon unsweetened shredded coconut
1/2 cup your choice of milk
1/2 mango, cut into chunks
100g vanilla yogourt
1 teaspoon pistachios, coarsely crushed or slivered
(Optional) 1 teaspoon honey
Preparation:
1. Place the quick oats, minced apple, chunks of dried apricots and, if using, the shredded coconut in a bowl. Mix well and pour the milk in. Make sure that your muesli mix is well covered in milk. Allow to soak, well covered in the fridge, for 30 minutes.
2. Top with a dollop of vanilla yogourt, mango chunks, pistachios and, if using, honey. The yogourt will help loosen the oats mixture (it's a bit too thick to my taste otherwise).
3. Enjoy!
References
Bayu, M. Z., Arshad, H., & Ali, N. M. (January 01, 2013). Nutritional Information Visualization Using Mobile Augmented Reality Technology. Procedia Technology, 11, 5, 396-402
Domhardt, M., Tiefengrabner, M., Dinic, R., Fo tschl, U., Oostingh, G. J., Stu tz, T., Stechemesser, L., ... Ginzinger, S. W. (April 29, 2015). Training of Carbohydrate Estimation for People with Diabetes Using Mobile Augmented Reality. Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, 9, 3, 516-524.
Hempel, Jessi. (2015, January 21). Project HoloLens: Our Exclusive Hands-On with Microsoft's Holographic Goggles. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/2015/01/microsoft-hands-on/
N.d., Lindsay. (2015, October 6). Virtual reality VS Augmented reality. Retrieved from http://www.augment.com/blog/virtual-reality-vs-augmented-reality/
Take a peek into Magic Leap's most recent updates:
Williams, Owen. (2015, March 19). Magic Leap Shows Off its Augmented Reality Gaming Experience. Retrieved from http://thenextweb.com/insider/2015/03/19/magic-leap-shows-off-its-virtual-reality-gaming-experience/
Yang, Peter. (2016, April 24). The Untold Story of Magic Leap, the World's most secretive start-up. Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/2016/04/magic-leap-vr/
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