Bose is placing a big bet on AR…

Or more correctly: AAR.

When we think of AR (Augmented Reality) we tend to think of digital data superimposed on our field of vision. But Bose is sticking to their wheelhouse and bringing audio to our augmented world – hence AAR – Audio Augmented Reality.

For me – who started my career as a radio copywriter and producer – it’s an intriguing idea. And it just might be a perfect match for how our senses parse the world around us.

Sound tends to be underappreciated when we think about how we experience the world. But it packs a hell of an emotional wallop. Theme park designers have known this for years. They call it underscoring. That’s the music that you hear when you walk down Main Street USA in Disneyland (which could be the Desecration Rag by Felix Arndt), or visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal (perhaps Hedwig’s Theme by John Williams). You might not even be aware of it. But it bubbles just below the level of consciousness, wiring itself directly to your emotional hot buttons. Theme parks would be much less appealing without a sound track. The same is true for the world in general

Cognitively, we process sound entirely differently than we process sights. Our primary sensory portal is through our eyes and because of this, it tends to dominate our attentional focus. This means the brain has limited bandwidth to process conflicting visual stimuli. If we layer additional information over our view of the world, as most AR does, we force the brain to make a context switch. Even with a heads up display, the brain has to switch between the two. We can’t concentrate on both at the same time.

But our brains can handle the job of combining sight and sound very nicely. It’s what we evolved to do. We automatically synthesize the two. Unlike visual information which must borrow attention from something else, sight and sound is not a zero sum game.

Bose made their announcement at SXSW, but I first became aware of the plan just last week. And I became aware because Bose had bought out Detour, a start up based in San Francisco that produced audio immersive walking tours. I was using the Detour platform to create audio tours that could be done on bike. At the end of February, I received an email abruptly announcing that access to the Detour platform would end on the very next day. I’ve been around the high tech biz long enough to know that there was more to this than just a simple discontinuation of the platform. There was another shoe that was yet to drop.

Last week, it dropped. The reason for the abrupt end was that Detour had been purchased by Bose.

Although Detour never gained the traction that I’m sure founder Andrew Mason (who was also the founder of GroupOn) hoped for, the tours were exceptionally well produced. I had the opportunity to take several of them while in San Francisco. It was my first real experience with augmented audio reality. I felt like I was walking through a documentary. At no time did I feel my attention was torn. For the most part, my phone stayed in my pocket. It was damned near seamless.

Regular readers of mine will know that I’m more than a little apprehensive about the whole area of Virtual and Augmented Reality. But I have to admit, Bose’s approach sounds pretty good so far.