FILE – This March 10, 2015, file photo, shows signage outside PayPal headquarters in San Jose, Calif. After a tax ruling against Apple on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2016, the spotlight turns to dozens of companies that have boosted earnings taking advantage of low tax rates abroad. One such company who benefitted in 2015 was PayPal Holdings. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)
Digital payment giant proposes “look and buy” shopping experience.
Much has been made of augmented reality’s potential to revolutionize retail — allowing consumers to interact with the shopping experience in unprecedented ways.
In a recently approved patent titled, “Augmented Reality View of Product Instructions” — originally reported by CNBC — PayPal depicts a future wherein, using a pair of AR glasses linked to PayPal accounts, consumers would be able to purchase items by looking at the product and navigating a subsequent menu.
Schematic of PayPal’s AR infrastructurePayPal/USPTO
“In a system for presenting augmented reality views of product instructions a method may include receiving a request from a client device, the request including image data,” PayPal writes in the patent. “The method may further include identifying an object in the image data and generating an augmented reality view of the identified object. The method may further include transmitting the augmented reality view to the client device.”
In other words, the process would be capable of collapsing object identification, selection, and purchasing — with massive potential here for personalized advertising and previsualization. When you factor in the impact of eye tracking and iris authentication, the shopping experience that felt so futuristic in Minority Report suddenly feels a lot more close to home.
So if you thought 1-click on Amazon made binge shopping irresistible, imagine if this content could literally grab your attention from the shelves — using targeted personal data — or if you were able to engage with it from the comfort of your own home, seeing exactly how it would fit into your environment.
More AR coverage on Forbes:
VR And AR Mark The Greatest Revolution In The History Of UX/UI Design
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PayPal is already behind over 60 percent of all web transactions in the world, reporting $13.06B in revenue in 2017. But this move would bring the digital world to the brick-and-mortar realm — driving more of these transactions to occur over the web than ever before.
Though it’s still theoretical now, the vision of the future that this patent asserts is one where immersive computing is a daily part of our lives — one with a retail experience so seamless you’ll have to see it to believe it.
For more emerging technology coverage, including cryptocurrency, blockchain, VR/AR, AI, and more, follow Jesse Damiani on Forbes and on Twitter.