In April the world's largest fast-fashion retailer, Zara, broke with conventional retail wisdom and emptied window displays in 120 of its biggest stores across the globe. In their place came moving images of women modelling the retailer's latest in-store collection - something that could only be seen with the augmented reality app when customers held their phones up to the display window. As curated realities become the norm, the intersect between digital and online platforms is fast becoming the new wave of experiential retail. Morne Mostert, director of the Institute for Futures Research at Stellenbosch University, said the adoption of AR in sub-Saharan Africa in the early stages would be slow "but innovation in Africa has a way of cutting through the clutter. At this stage advanced augmentation is a rare experience, but once it starts competitors will soon follow." Augmented reality refers to an interactive experience where the objects in the real-world are "augmented" by compute...
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