Augmented Reality
Reality is really not new - just enhanced . . . a lot.
One of my side jobs (this one shared with my wife) involves creating 3D objects for a company that makes virtual job sites available to crane operators. Clients can set up a job - a lift - in an online 3D environment and then distribute all the factors involved in doing the lift to everyone needing that information. We have been with the company since the turn of the century.
Early-on I found a company that offered a pair of glasses that featured a very small computer screen imposed in the upper right corner of the right lens. The user could look at their work in front of them and access all the features of a Windows NT server while they continued working with their hands. Neat.
My boss thought that was a cool idea that would be slick in use with our then-primitive version of the lift plan software. And that was the end of our investigation; my boss left the company to become a super-hero on TV and the company continued and made the software available as a service online.
Lots and lots of time passes and now Google has announced the same
concept, although enhanced, and introduces the world to Augmented
Reality (think of those two words repeating with a loud, heavy echo).
You, the wearer of the new, somewhat glasses-like device, will walk around with a somewhat hologram-like dashboard displayed in front of you, appearing and disappearing as needed, alerting you to facts, desires, offers and other things designed specifically for you because you will have given up your privacy and private thoughts to the world - you WILL be connected!
Here – have a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c6W4CCU9M4
For some reason I can hear Dr. Seuss now - Sneetches On The Beaches.
If you're getting old like me you could just blow this off as passing fancy.
If you're younger you should pay attention.
The internet has shaken humans into a level of communications that we could only have dreamed of not long ago. Now we are witnessing the brutal passage to
democracy all over the globe because of - communications. We communicate using desktop/laptop computers and even more with small hand held devices. Next, we will walk down the street and be "online", talking, gathering data, translating instantly between languages, receiving responses and facts transposed in front of us, with as many other beings as we can imagine, dispersed all over the globe. The cyber din grows immensely larger than it is now.
The first thing that comes to mind, for me: You're a soldier, who knows
where in the world, equipped with this new technology. Suddenly you're communicating with the individual that you are shooting at.
What do you say?
5/7/2012
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