My Tnooz colleague Tim Hughes is a fan of the concept of Augmented Reality.
And being a bit of a geek myself I rather like the idea. But is this an end or a step on the way and if so to where or what?
Professor Chris – also from Down Under (where they clearly have too much time on their hands) – recently forwarded to me a very interesting piece from TED on sixth sense technology – wearable technology that interacts with data.
Regular readers know I am a huge fan of TED as the thinking geeks muse site.
So, on reflection, I am of the opinion that we are about to enter a new era of life where computing/virtual reality merge real presence.
I have often thought that there had to be some trigger to seminal point the homo sapiens capability to accommodate all the information and functionality would end without some degree of augmentation.
Now it seems that we are approaching that point where technology will move from the explicit interaction to an implicit service. The bright side of William Gibson’s darker side.
Consider this – we already have access to more information than we can comprehend.
I doubt that people who have hundreds of gigabytes of personal entertainment data ever actually use all of it, and if they do how much is consumed more than once.
Just look at the data we have available. On our PCs we have more information than we can read. On the web we have more information than probably the vast majority of humanity will ever consume – yet we carry on producing it and storing it.
Thus we need a new paradigm to interact with all of this – well, stuff!
So I am trying to come to grips with the concept of Actual Presence Reality and Virtual Reality merging into Near Reality. What a concept…
And how will it impact us in the Travel world?
This is where I hope we don’t lose the plot.
Janet Libert (editor of American Express’s Executive Travel) wrote this month in her editorial describing a physical meeting of someone she had known in the virtual world as follows – “ I learned more in this one in-person meeting than I could through dozens of emails”. Hear hear.
So for this reason – I try very hard to build personal relationships with the people I work with.
My personal (as opposed to the quasi “social”) network is comprised of people whom I have spent time with getting to know them and what makes them tick.
And I am very blessed with these people. Now it comes that perhaps there is a new paradigm that can enhance and help me to be better as a person and as an associate/business person/friend in the new near reality world as I have been in the old presence world.
And being a bit of a geek myself I rather like the idea. But is this an end or a step on the way and if so to where or what?
A good contact, known here as Professor Chris – also from Down Under (where they clearly have too much time on their hands) – recently forwarded to me a very interesting piece from TED on sixth sense technology – wearable technology that interacts with data.
Regular readers know I am a huge fan of TED as the thinking geeks muse site.
So, on reflection, I am of the opinion that we are about to enter a new era of life where computing/virtual reality merge real presence.
I have often thought that there had to be some trigger to seminal point the homo sapiens capability to accommodate all the information and functionality would end without some degree of augmentation.
Now it seems that we are approaching that point where technology will move from the explicit interaction to an implicit service. The bright side of William Gibson’s darker side.
Consider this – we already have access to more information than we can comprehend.
I doubt that people who have hundreds of gigabytes of personal entertainment data ever actually use all of it, and if they do how much is consumed more than once.
Just look at the data we have available. On our PCs we have more information than we can read. On the web we have more information than probably the vast majority of humanity will ever consume – yet we carry on producing it and storing it.
Thus we need a new paradigm to interact with all of this – well, stuff!
So I am trying to come to grips with the concept of Actual Presence Reality and Virtual Reality merging into Near Reality. What a concept…
And how will it impact us in the Travel world?
This is where I hope we don’t lose the plot.
Janet Libert (editor of American Express’s Executive Travel magazine) wrote this month in her editorial describing a physical meeting of someone she had known in the virtual world as follows – “ I learned more in this one in-person meeting than I could through dozens of emails”. Hear hear.
So for this reason – I try very hard to build personal relationships with the people I work with.
My personal (as opposed to the quasi “social”) network is comprised of people whom I have spent time with getting to know them and what makes them tick.
And I am very blessed with these people. Now it comes that perhaps there is a new paradigm that can enhance and help me to be better as a person and as an associate/business person/friend in the new near reality world as I have been in the old presence world.
I don’t see augmented reality replacing reality but doing what it says on the tin – enhancing it. As analogue beings we’re constricted by time and space. If we’ve left the guidebook at home, we might miss the one find/event/experience that could have really made the trip. On the personal level, I agree – there’s nothing like a personal meeting to establish a relationships. While 2 people are talking with each other, zillions of cells are in a dance and we take that memory home with us and its sustains the electronic connection – for a while…Cells die and replace themselves and the memory fades…That’s why video and telepresencing can only increase – the visual exchange is not complete but the eyes are connecting more than eyes; the information they carry activates and refreshes those memories
AR will be a valuable and interesting technology someday. But not today. Today it’s a hype engine for lousy cell-phone start-ups.
When AR finally does become valuable and interesting, it will be owned by Google and maybe one or two other information giants, because AR is all about relating large quantities of small-scale data with geocoding and geolocation. And who does that best?
Supposedly a glasses-mounted through-the-pupil retinal input device will be coming out next year — real soon now. In the unlikely event it actually works (I saw the first prototype for this back in 1990), that may be a first step towards useful AR.
Augmented reality will be a boon for travel, if only to make it easier for people to navigate foreign countries.
If you’re familiar with Photoshop, augmented reality is like having a bunch of layers available. Activate the “Spanish” layer, aim your iPhone viewfinder at a train station, and see the train departure schedule en Espanol. Activate the “AIA” layer and see what local members of the American Institute of Architects have to say about the train station, along with links to video highlighting design decisions and their implications.
And while Google certainly gets much of the ink, I daresay most of the really interesting applications are being spearheaded by European companies like Layar. It’s been my experience that the really cool applications will be led by smaller entities with niche expertise, like AIA, Zagats, and of course, DMOs.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Kevin May and Athénour Michel, Le Fichant. Le Fichant said: Réalité augmentée, une vidéo de ce qui sera (est déjà en fait) possible. Très très impressionant http://bit.ly/5QqJmMhttp://bit.ly/5QqJmM [...]
This post was mentioned on Twitter by kevinlukemay: INCLUDES awesome video!! Augmented Reality and Sixth Sense Convergence into Near Reality | Tnooz http://bit.ly/6Dsp5K…
on 02 December 2009
My Tnooz colleague Tim Hughes is a fan of the concept of Augmented Reality.
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I don’t see augmented reality replacing reality but doing what it says on the tin – enhancing it. As analogue beings we’re constricted by time and space. If we’ve left the guidebook at home, we might miss the one find/event/experience that could have really made the trip. On the personal level, I agree – there’s nothing like a personal meeting to establish a relationships. While 2 people are talking with each other, zillions of cells are in a dance and we take that memory home with us and its sustains the electronic connection – for a while…Cells die and replace themselves and the memory fades…That’s why video and telepresencing can only increase – the visual exchange is not complete but the eyes are connecting more than eyes; the information they carry activates and refreshes those memories
AR will be a valuable and interesting technology someday. But not today. Today it’s a hype engine for lousy cell-phone start-ups.
When AR finally does become valuable and interesting, it will be owned by Google and maybe one or two other information giants, because AR is all about relating large quantities of small-scale data with geocoding and geolocation. And who does that best?
Supposedly a glasses-mounted through-the-pupil retinal input device will be coming out next year — real soon now. In the unlikely event it actually works (I saw the first prototype for this back in 1990), that may be a first step towards useful AR.
Augmented reality will be a boon for travel, if only to make it easier for people to navigate foreign countries.
If you’re familiar with Photoshop, augmented reality is like having a bunch of layers available. Activate the “Spanish” layer, aim your iPhone viewfinder at a train station, and see the train departure schedule en Espanol. Activate the “AIA” layer and see what local members of the American Institute of Architects have to say about the train station, along with links to video highlighting design decisions and their implications.
And while Google certainly gets much of the ink, I daresay most of the really interesting applications are being spearheaded by European companies like Layar. It’s been my experience that the really cool applications will be led by smaller entities with niche expertise, like AIA, Zagats, and of course, DMOs.