what is Augmented-reality :

Augmented reality has come a long way from a science-fiction concept to a science-based reality. Until recently the costs of augmented reality were so substantial that designers could only dream of working on design projects that involved it – today things have changed and augmented reality is even available on the mobile handset. That means design for augmented reality is now an option for all shapes and sizes of UX designers.

Augmented reality is a view of the real, physical world in which elements are enhanced by computer-generated input. These inputs may range from sound to video, to graphics to GPS overlays and more. The first conception of augmented reality occurred in a novel by Frank L Baum written in 1901 in which a set of electronic glasses mapped data onto people; it was called a “character marker”. Today, augmented reality is a real thing and not a science-fiction concept.

A Brief History of Augmented Reality (The Past)
Augmented reality was first achieved, to some extent, by a cinematographer called Morton Heilig in 1957. He invented the Sensorama which delivered visuals, sounds, vibration and smell to the viewer. Of course, it wasn’t computer controlled but it was the first example of an attempt at adding additional data to an experience. 
Then in 1968, Ivan Sutherland the American computer scientist and early Internet influence, invented the head-mounted display as a kind of window into a virtual world. The technology used at the time made the invention impractical for mass use.

In 1975, Myron Krueger, an American computer artist developed the first “virtual reality” interface in the form of “Videoplace” which allowed its users to manipulate and interact with virtual objects and to do so in real-time.

Steve Mann, a computational photography researcher, gave the world wearable computing in 1980.

Of course back then these weren’t “virtual reality” or “augmented reality” because virtual reality was coined by Jaron Lainer in 1989 and Thomas P Caudell of Boeing coined the phrase “augmented reality” in 1990.

The first properly functioning AR system was probably the one developed at USAF Armstrong’s Research Lab by Louis Rosenberg in 1992. This was called Virtual Fixtures and was an incredibly complex robotic system which was designed to compensate for the lack of high-speed 3D graphics processing power in the early 90s. It enabled the overlay of sensory information on a workspace to improve human productivity. 

There were many other breakthroughs in augmented reality between here and today; the most notable of which include:

Bruce Thomas developing an outdoora mobile AR game called ARQuake in 2000. 

ARToolkit (a design tool) being made available in Adobe Flash in 2009. 

Google announcing its open beta of Google Glass (a project with mixed successes) in 2013. 

Microsoft announcing augmented reality support and their augmented reality headset HoloLens in 2015.