Herbert Bay, co-founder and CEO of Kooaba AG, Switzerland, a provider of augmented reality solutions, says AR needs more development to build a critical mass for newspaper publishers, but he believes print and AR form a logical marriage.

His company’s AR technology works by the user taking a photo of a particular article with a mobile phone, not aiming at codes as in the past. That image is then transferred to Kooaba’s database, which holds about 25 million objects, then the file runs through a 3D model and is transferred back to the camera for the user to view. It could be a 3D image or perhaps a video.

Of course there are a number of technical challenges facing AR providers such as  Kooaba, he says, including keeping files small enough to be transferred quickly so that the user can receive them in real time; offering more multimedia content that will be relevant to a printed product, as well as a library of 3D models. The company is working diligently on all that, he says.

Then there is the business model: How does the publisher and the provider make money? "For us and publishers, it lies in advertising. Publishers don’t want to pay for this now so we offer it for free. We work on a sharing agreement with publishers for ads placed in their content.“

In the end, he says, there is a fine line for a user valuing this type of content. "Like the iPad, at first you might be awed by this, but the experience must convey some true editorial value as well."

In the future, he says special glasses will replace mobile phone cameras in the AR experience, as users will merely look at an article and videos and other additional content will appear.