Actual, Potential, Virtual

Virtual Reality

“a term that applies to computer-simulated environments that can simulate physical presence in places in the real world, as well as in imaginary worlds.”

Augmented Reality

“a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.”

In my opinion, augmented reality (AR) is the next step beyond virtual reality – AR encompasses the whole environment around you and adds new things to it, rather than completely generating a world (eg. Second Life, the most used example of virtual reality). Mashable covers both the benefits and issues with AR.

Benefits

1. Urban Exploration: AR apps will be able to show you what is nearby, what you should go see and when you should go. You will be able to “see” animations of landmarks when you hold your phone up to them (eg.Glockenspiel chimes in Munich, Eiffel Tower lights, changing of the guards). Also 3D overlays of buildings showing photographs of what these places looked like in the past
2. Museum: AR ‘hotspots’ with more information about the exhibition, an alternative to audio tours. 3D virtual museum guides who will tell you about the art nearby or where to find things.
3. Shopping: Shop directly from magazines or catalogues; browse virtual galleries; virtual pop-up stores; and AR window displays activated by phone apps.
4. Travel & History: “Virtual vacations” – that is, visiting landmarks in your own backyard. Seems a little disappointing, but still a good option if you can’t afford to go on a real holiday, perhaps. A good idea for schools and education – you would be able to virtually explore the places you are talking about.
5. Customer service: Allows support teams to access your camera in real time to help with problems installing electronics etc. Support would be able to relay real time instructions over the phone because they can see what you’re seeing without you having to try and explain it yourself.
6. Safety and rescue operations: Emergency service workers could potentially use AR to make sense of chaotic scenes – “x-ray” maps of underground sites showing water and electrical mains, or a virtual map of the environment.
7. Moving or decorating your home: Be able to see how furniture works in real-time, or take a photo of the space you want to decorate and be able to virtually plan it out using properly scaled virtual furniture that you can actually purchase for your home.

Issues

1. Process paradigms: machines (obviously) process things in a more concise way than humans and can be used, for example, to monitor crops to see when the perfect time to pick them would be. Mobile devices could be linked to medical devices, like insulin pumps, to monitor the health status of people in real time. In the future, maybe people will be able to see virtual “markers” over people’s heads, showing that they have a certain allergy or medical condition. Not necessarily a bad thing, as such, but an interesting cultural change.
2. Cultural quandaries: people dislike it when the information they post on a site, such as Facebook or Foursquare, is shared in a way they didn’t intend it to be. This raises the issue of privacy and the publicity of information. For example, show people really be able to see how much their neighbour’s house cost or how many single girls are in the nightclubs around them.
3. Direction for the data: Relating to the last point, how can people fully protect the original intention of their data? There needs to be some balance between what is revealed and what isn’t about people with AR technology, to create an environment that people will be comfortable in.
4. Robot reflections: Does the thought of one day having AR lenses (or glasses, in the nearer future) make people uncomfortable, or implanting technology in their bodies. Many people have no problems with using plastic surgery to alter their appearance now; how is this different?
5. The vocabulary of vision: The world and communities will become far more connected. People would spend less time “tasking”.
6. Talk or tunnel: It’s likely that AR technology will increase “tunnel vision” and people will be even more focused on their technology and less focused on the world – and people – around them.

I find the new social issues resulting from AR technology to be particularly interesting and have chosen to study this topic for my final research paper.

PS. week 5’s word was EXPERIENCE