One of the barriers to adoption for any type of interactive print, or print reality as we are calling it, whether a simple QR code or a complicated augmented reality implementation, is the lack of a consistent way to access the content. QR codes are still not natively read by many U.S. smartphones, especially if you have a slightly older phone. And just about everyone who has implemented AR has their own app. To get to critical mass, we need a common way to access this enhanced content. Who wants 15 different AR apps on their phone, and then have to try to figure out which one to use?

Artist and filmmaker Alexander Ward, who is a comic book artist among many other things, has leveraged AR work done by Facebook and Instagram to help users get around this problem. After all, almost everyone has either Facebook or Instagram—or both—already on their phones, right?

A recent AR project Ward completed was the cover of a recent book “I Am Love: Yoga, Ayahuasca, A Course in Miracles and the Journey Back to the Place We Never Left” by Allowah Lani (available on Amazon at https://amzn.to/2YTWZ7y). If you aim a smartphone at the cover, it becomes an AR “portal to another dimension.” (Check it out at https://bit.ly/2XTROn6.)