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九州影院 student David Huang
Oasis AR is the first social media app that uses true augmented reality (AR) on a smartphone to create the sensation of having friends close by in the room, even when they鈥檙e far away.
Socialising with 3D avatars in games isn鈥檛 particularly new, David says. 鈥淲hat鈥檚 new is making the use of augmented reality accessible to everyone with a smart phone, and that鈥檚 what Oasis AR does.鈥
After completing the听UCE Summer Start up Programme, David introduced Oasis AR to the market earlier this year, and to date it has been downloaded 20,000 times worldwide.
鈥淐urrently, key social apps have functions like video and voice calling, and instant photo messaging. The next natural progression of social media is to interact with others using 3D avatars on a standard smartphone.鈥
Huang鈥檚 passion to make a difference using AR has developed from his classes with听Dr Thammathip听(Tham) Piumsomboon, who believes the question to ask is not, 鈥榟ow to do it鈥, but 鈥榳hy鈥.
鈥淪ocial connection plays a huge role in everyone鈥檚 lives,鈥 Huang says. 鈥淲e all know that the inability to socialise face to face was hard on mental health of people around the world.
鈥淎lthough we couldn鈥檛 cure the pandemic, our hope was that we could create something using AR to help people feel like they鈥檙e in the same room with their friends and family. It鈥檚 currently the closest thing possible to replicate real-life interaction in an accessible way.鈥
David will be within the first cohort of students to graduate with the conjoint Bachelor of Product Design (Immersive Game Design) and Commerce (Finance) degrees and is graduating in April 2022. He plans to get involved with UC鈥檚 startup founder incubator听ThincLab听next year to continue working on the app full-time.
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