On Augmented Reality and how it will change our lives

There is a branch of philosophy that argues that what we experience is in fact reality…. This is debatable (every thing is, when you get right down to it), but it’s a particularly interesting viewpoint if we look forward a few years to a new technology that is emerging, Augmented Reality.

Wikipedia defines Augmented Reality (AR) as “a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery - creating a mixed reality”. Basically, you have some sort of computer overlaying digital images over the real world.

It gets really interesting when you combine these with something like this and the networking capabilities of a modern cell phone. What they all combine to do is give you a real-time, internet connected, digital overlay of everything you see, navigated by your thoughts alone.

Want to know what shops are in that mall over there? Easy. How about looking up the specs for that sweet car behind you in the traffic? All you have to do is think about it. How much do those shoes cost? How the $%^# do I get home from here? What’s the traffic like on the M1? The possibilities are virtually (no pun intended) endless. Think what it would be like to have easy and constant access to knowledge sources like Google or Wikipedia. These are all fairly basic continuations of services we already have in place, but this kind of always on AR also opens up a whole new world of weirdness.

We could have digital tattoos, for instance, a simple signal broadcast to AR devices around you tells them to overlay a given picture (or animation) over a part of your body. Why stop at tattoos? When the imaging resolution gets advanced enough (and it will), we could portray an entire appearance that is drastically different to, but indistinguishable from, ‘reality’. Soon you’ll be sharing the sidewalk or bus with elves and vampires. This technology could also have an impact on architecture; we could digitise facades for our buildings, creating epic and physically impossible views and spaces.

Possibly the most exciting, and dangerous, use of this technology would be it’s integration with social networking. Have you ever thought of how useful telepathy would be? To be able to simply think at someone and have them respond? Of course, there’s a darker aspect as well, stalking is already rampant on sites like facebook or myspace, and it can only get worse when we can pick out someone’s profile just by looking at them.

The benefits of this technology are too numerous for any but a Luddite to even consider boycotting it, but it will have profound effects on how we interact with each other and the physical world. It’s going to be interesting to see how people adapt.

Who knows? In a few years we might have to completely redefine what we consider as ‘Real’.

Aaaand in other news:

Get Naked: It’s Good for Your Brain – Here’s one to send to your girlfriends (or boyfriends) ^^

AI/Nanotech Breakthrough? Transistors That Work Like Our Brains Do – A really interesting research track, and one that (if it works) could produce the first sentient computers.

NASA Prepping Plans For Flexible Path To Mars – NASA’s coming up with a new plan to be productive during the recession.

Ursula Le Guin's Petition Against Google Books – One of my favorite authors has organized a petition against Google’s terms and conditions in their Google Books program… I’m at a loss over who to support.

Uranus and Neptune May Have "Oceans of Diamonds" – more of our solar system’s wonderful weirdness.

SETI Founder Outlines Ambitious Future Plans – the search for extraterrestrial intelligence continues

Dinosaur Feather Color Discovered – I never thought they’d be able to work this out… I’m really glad they did… SUGOI!

How Cyber War is Heating Up – the new face of warfare.

And there we have it… another post… and I haven’t missed a deadline yet (probably because I haven’t really set one ^^). Hope you enjoyed it, and if it’s got you thinking I hope you’ll post a comment with your thoughts. Tune in next week for more of the same.

-Odd

“What we have here, is a failure to communicate”

In the news this week:

There’s been a lot of interesting developments in the news this past week, so I’m just going to give you a rundown of those and do a proper post some time later in the week.

NASA Mars Rover Opportunity Grinds "Cool" Rock – Nasa’s mars rover ‘Spirit’ has been having some success, coming across a rock that must have been made by volcanic activity. This gives scientists more insight into the red planet.

Scientists To Breed the Auroch From Extinction – life imitating art, with shades of Jurassic Park, a group of scientists are going to resurrect the giant buffalo-like creature from extinction… cool!

2-D Avatar To Be Pulled From Theaters In China – China bans the movie ‘Avatar’ for promoting anti-authoritarian dogma.

NASA Designs All-Electric Personal Flight Vehicle – Maybe NASA is trying to produce something that's usable by more than just astronauts? I want one!

Correlation Found Between Brain Structure and Video Game Success – I think working for the scientists who did this study could very well be my perfect job. ^^

NASA Will Crowdsource Its Photos of Mars – NASA has put out the call for opinions on the internet, want to see a specific piece of the Martian landscape? Give them a call.

Pope Urges Priests To Go Forth and Blog – The pope is trying to bring the church into the modern world? Then what about his stance on gay marriage? A tad hypocritical if you ask me.

A Case For the Necessity of Science Fiction – I knew it all along.

Colliding Particles Can Make Black Holes After All – experiments similar to those being conducted by the LHC could actually cause a black hole and swallow the earth. But don’t worry… it’d have to be A LOT larger.

There you have it, all the cool tech news from the last week. Check back in a couple days for a post on how Augmented Reality will soon be changing the world as we know it.

-Odd

“just because you’re paranoid, doesn’t mean they aren’t really after you”

The Technological Singularity: A brief explanation

The phenomenon that is being called the ‘Technological Singularity’, if or when it happens, will change our lives in a drastic and fundamental way, so what is it exactly?

Scientists use the term singularity to refer to a question to which they don’t have any answers, such as what happens beyond the event horizon of black hole or the condition of the universe before the big bang. We simply don’t have the tools or knowledge to describe these things, so we copout and say that it’s unexplainable.

But technology is explainable, surely? We’re the ones who built it the first place, yes? Well… no, not really. The Technological Singularity will happen when we create a self improving computer system that is ‘smarter’ than a human, even just fractionally smarter. The system then works on itself, improving exponentially until (in a relatively short period of time) it becomes a super-intelligence, vastly more complex and powerful than a human mind. As the super-intelligence will be so far beyond us, or anything we can imagine, we simply can’t predict what sort of impact it will have on our world.

Can you imagine what sort of answers we could get out of such a system? A unifying theory of the universe, perhaps? Faster than light drive technology for our spacecraft? Unlimited clean energy? Or (knowing what we’re like) weapons capable of ever greater destruction? Will the super-intelligence even bother to talk to such limited beings as humans?

A lot of these questions cannot be answered, and others depend a lot on the environment that the singularity arises in. I think we’d all prefer that the singularity gets kicked off by a group of independent scientific researchers rather than a belligerent military and thankfully there are some people working towards that. The Singularity Institute is a forum of scientists working towards speeding up the Singularity and getting it started under peaceful conditions.

Even given the best possible scenario for the Singularity, it will still have a drastic effect on our society. A lot of people are already having problems adapting to the incredible pace of technological change, what will it be like when the Super-Intelligence puts it foot on the gas? We all need to ask ourselves if we’re ready for this, because it is coming… whether we are or not.

In the news:

Options Dwindling For Mars Spirit Rover - NASA’s having serious problems getting it’s little robot friend out of a ditch… a call to AAA (alien automobile association) might be in order ^^

Wii Balance Board Gives $18,000 Medical Device a Run For Its Money – A fine example of gaming making technology more accessible to everybody. Go Nintendo!

Google Phone Could Drive Apple Into Allegiance With Microsoft – for a company with the motto “Don’t be Evil”, Google seems to be leaning towards the dark side quite a lot. First it was the whole drama over China and it’s censorship laws and now they’re pushing Apple into cooperation with the borg? Not cool, guys!

Legend – The first book written by David Gemmel is out in a 25^th anniversary edition. If you haven’t read this yet, do so!

Well, there you have it… another post down. If you found it illuminating, entertaining or even just irritating, please use the link below to post a comment.

-Odd

“I'll be more enthusiastic about encouraging thinking outside the box when there's evidence of any thinking going on inside it.” – Terry Pratchett.

First Post.... Woot!

Hello world,

Those of you that know me, know that I’ve tried this blogging thing before and that I’ve failed miserably… hopefully this time will be a little more successful ^^.

The reason I’m starting this blog is that at my company (Netsurit) runs a ‘dream workshop’ where we are encouraged to come up with a list of dreams and goals and then work towards them in a structured manner. It’s really quite a cool idea, and it makes the whole corporate drag a little less 1984 and a little more Band of Brothers. Anyway, one of my dreams is to write a book (or a couple books actually, I’ve got a few ideas) but I’m suffering from ‘blank page syndrome’, and I thought that if I can just get into the habit of writing, I can pull it off…. So I’ll be publishing this on OddThoughts and the corporate intranet… hopefully around once a week.

What am I going to be rambling on about? Well…. Whatever I happen to be thinking when I sit down to write, but I should warn you I am the Lord of Geeks, so if technology, transhumanism, quantum mechanics and games of all sorts bore you… you should stop reading now ^^.

Aaaand in other news: (these are snippets, I’ll probably blog in more depth about these topics when I’ve got nothing else to ramble about).

Robotics Prof Fears Rise of Military Robots: I don’t know how many of you keep up with advances in robotics technology, but it really is getting scary (or exciting, depending on your point of view). The US army already have lots of UAV’s and it’s only a matter of time before advances in AI make autonomous robots a reality…. SkyNet anyone?

Turning Work into Play with Online Games: This is a cool idea…. Although, judging by my slow rate of leveling in WOW, I think I’ll stick with a conventional promotions model ^^.

How to Print Living Tissue: A lot of scientists have recently been talking about a longevity tipping point, where the technology to prolong our lives starts advancing faster than we actually age… would it surprise you to know that some estimates put that date at around 20-30 years from now? We might be the human race’s first immortal generation. This article is about another piece of the puzzle.

Augmented Reality To Help Mechanics Fix Vehicles: Just a new use for AR… the line between the digital world and the ‘real’ world is getting blurrier and blurrier every day. Already I think I might live more in the digital realm than I do in so called ‘real’ life… my brain certainly does it’s work there, so it’s going to be interesting to see what effect this sort of cross-over has on our lives.

Ok… that’s it for now… I think that went pretty well, don’t you? I’ll hopefully see you again next week. Same geek time, same geek place. ^^

-Odd

“Peace Sells, but who’s buying?”