The Future of LA

Who's going to build the cities of tomorrow?

Will it be human workers or machines?

Why not both?

I'm Grant Imahara.

Along with Wired and Mouser,

I'm traveling the world, exploring the ways

people and companies are using innovative technologies

and shaping smarter cities.

It's back home to Los Angeles, a city I know very well

yet I had no idea that it's home to one of the leading

augmented reality companies in the world.

At Daqri, we make augmented reality hardware and software

to solve some of the most challenging environments.

That's AR put to work in industrial and enterprise

and automotive applications.

Cities are an example of how much information

there is in the background and what AR is really good at

is taking that information and making it visible.

So how about a city project like

a bridge or a transportation center, freeway or even

giant skyscraper that you're trying to build.

How can AR help in those situations?

AR can help in all those cases.

You take a 3D model of a skyscraper,

visualize it at true scale, so now you can explore it

and see what it's like even before you build it.

Most cities, they have construction,

they have power and water and utilities of all kinds

and all of those services rely on data

as the pulse of how they operate.

Augmented reality is allowing them to get that

out of the servers and into the hands of the workers

that need to make decisions.

What types of information could you overlay

over an image?

Say a worker goes into a job site, what could you show them?

So a really common use today is in construction sites.

You're taking 3D models and combine them with real time

information, whether that's construction schedules

and critical paths or actual operational data.

Anything that you've got data for, whether it's

the pipes running under the roads, the cables,

we can pop the helmet on and visualize

and see where they're running and we can visualize our new

buildings overlaid on top of it as well.

So being able to have a model that's geo-spatially

located, being able to put on a helmet from any

viewpoint and look at what the impact will be

is something that would be important.

AR is fundamental to the worker of the future.

You could be servicing a car today

and a jet engine tomorrow.

It really has this potential to transform

workers and elevate their skill levels.

We really think it's going to

be augmented reality everywhere.

It won't matter what your job is.

AR will touch it in someway.

As Daqri visualizes the future,

they're incorporating components from around the world

and Mouser suppliers like Analog Devices,

Intel, microchip technology and Molex are leading

the way with products that make global innovation possible.

I've been lucky enough to travel the world

to take a closer look at how we're shaping smarter cities.

I think it's time to head back to where this journey began,

Wired Brand Lab, to take inventory

of everything I've learned.