Augmented Reality: Enhanced Perception

Webratta writes: "Can you imagine wearing glasses or goggles that, when looking at a person, a built-in display would tell you everything you wanted to know about that person? According to an article in Popular Science the day of cyborg-like enhanced perception could be closer than we imagined. Just imagine the privacy concerns stemming from this..."

Comments

Privacy issues - not necessarily

[nakhla]

The privacy concerns depend on where the information comes from. If it comes from a centralized database, then yes. But, if the user (the owner of the goggles) chooses the information to assign to a person then there aren't any big concerns. For instance, I could choose to display their name, birthday, wedding anniversary, and their favorite restaurant. It would be information that I already know, this would just allow me to access it more readily. In a way, it would act like a face-recognizing entry in my PDA, brining up all of the information I've already collected about that person.

Re:Privacy issues - not necessarily

[jaavaaguru]

it would act like a face-recognizing entry in my PDA

Link it via bluetooth to your PDA and it could remind you of meetings that you're meant to have with the person you've just met face-to-face. You could conveniently re-schedule the meeting to have right now instead. I'd certainly like that, because countless times I've been too submersed in whatever project I'm working on to think about the more real-world things, and I often program things into the organizer on my phone to remind me to go and see someone, etc. This could pop-up a message in front of me saying "Reminder: You are to talk to this person about project xyz at some point today". Thinking of it this way, it could be good for members of the non-geek community who have problems with their memory too.

Dating

[jaavaaguru]

That could make dating so much more reliable for us geeks. Just think what it would be like if you already knew that she shared the same interests, etc. You could probably have built in web access to these things too and check out her online profile. Oh wait... we're probably already sitting in front of our computers looking at her profile before we attempt dating anyway :-)

Reality

[onion2k]

Walk down the street, look at the world. This is reality.

You've lost me.. what is this thing? Is it new? </geek>

"Just imagine the privacy concerns"

[Gannoc]

I have this image of a dark and cold future, where you can simply look at a friend, a co-worker, a stranger. Then by merely making a certain microgesture with your eyes, can instantly bring up a list of what kind of porn they download.

I pray I don't live to see it.

Re:"Just imagine the privacy concerns"

[onion2k]

Interviewer: Why do you want to work for the police force.. oh.. I see you like the uniforms..

Instructions

[GSV NegotiableEthics]

Can you imagine wearing glasses or goggles that, when looking at a person, a built-in display would tell you everything you wanted to know about that person?

• Take normal pair of shades
• Take sticky label
• Write "Not for you, she won't" on label
• Put sticky label on inside of shades.
• Hand shades to the male geek of your choice

Oh joy. Yet another form of advertising.

[Colin Smith]

You *know* that one of the first things that they'll do if this stuff ever becomes popular is to sell virtual advertising space. Adverts won't just be static billboards. They'll jump out at you.

Have you heard of Steve Mann?

[fireboy1919]

He's almost completely the father of wearable computing. He wore a pair of glasses and a "keyboard" interface everywhere he goes, and worked for MIT media lab. People who have met him say he seemed more intelligent than he actually is, because his vision sensors send information back to the lab which he can route to others for aid in identification, and he asked questions on the LAN IRC (I don't think they actually use that protocol) and got the answers from the minds of MIT. Its as though he can answer any question.

His page is at the University of Toronto now, and those glasses he's wearing are exactly the ones that I mentioned - at least, they're the fourth draft of the ones I mentioned.

This is old news..

[wfrp01]

I've been able to buy these glasses from Marvel Comics for decades now.

Somebody read Virtual Light, I'd say

[jimfrost]

This is basically what Gibson's glasses did in _Virtual Light_. Not really a new idea. jim

Already in use.

[TheConfusedOne]

Boeing has been using augmented reality for some time now to help the people who are wiring up the new airplanes. The glasses project the relevant portion of the wiring diagram over the section that the worker is looking at.

All of the various privacy concerns are unfounded at the moment. The large challenge with any AR system is to figure out what you're looking at. For it to work with people you would either need some kind of facial recognition system built-in or the person would have to be willingly broadcasting a location AND identity signal to be used by such a system.

Personally, I think the best Sci Fi example of this stuff is in California Vodoo Game. In this case Niven and Barnes used AR to deal with the fact that the previously expected Star Trek hologram technology hasn't been able to catch up to "reality" yet. The neat thing about that was that you had the combination of AR and MMORPG technology blended together to make LARP'ing really fun. (If you couldn't decipher all of those acronyms than you probably wouldn't be interested anyway.)

Gaming Interface for Ease of Use

[Alien54]

Part of what makes the mind so efficient is the filtering process. So at some point, you would have a filter so that to do not get overwhelmed with data.

I Imagine that the interface would have to be something familiar that most geeks can deal with.

I suggest a gaming interface like Doom. There was that admin tool for killing off zombie processes. Something similar could be used to symbolically represent the people you meet. Bill Gates As Satan, for Example.

Of course, you would have different patches depending on your tastes and opinions.

I like the diminished reality....

[JeanBaptiste]

on the last page where it says this stuff can replace ads and billboards with waterfalls and stuff... Im going to replace everything with naked women....

Great for the bar scene....

[Uttles]

I turn my head when a knockout enters the room and am presented with:

Age: 23
Height: 5'9"
Weight: 120lbs
Measurements: 38-24-36
Status: Single - 3 months
Favorite Drink: Anything with kick
Residence: 1 bdr apt - 3 blocks away

Warning : Syphillis!!!

Shoot... well, it was a good daydream while it lasted...

Sensors for non-visible spectrum

[kryzx]

There's no mention of what I consider to be the most interesting possibility: the ability to "see" the non-visible parts of the spectrum. With something like this you could have sensors to detect infrared, ultraviolet, microwave, etc., and display it as an overlay. Depending on what you were doing you could adjust what parts of the spectrum were shown in your display. That would so totally rock. I can think of tons of uses for it, and technically is seems more feasible than most of the apps described in the article.

Nuts to Augmented Reality!

[schlach]

I want Filtered Reality!

Think about it. Why should only those who are willing to suffer the effects of shrooms for days, or LSD for years, be the ones who get to see bleeding walls or leaking phones?! With a helmet around your head that filters your video and audio input (err, vision and hearing), you could have all the trippy hallucinations you wanted, when you wanted! Is that girl really wearing a purple elephant on her necklace, or would she be offended if you tried to feed it a peanut? Are there really bugs crawling into your skin? Better ask the piano!

What a time to be alive!

Boeing...

[cr0sh]

IIRC, Boeing used (or tried out) an AR system several years back for the purpose of wiring the electrical systems of their planes. The wiring harnesses in the planes consist of several miles of wiring - all over the place.

From what I understood, the idea was to get the tech to the point where a worker could simply look at the connection points, and the AR system would show what wires went where, via an overlay. I suppose some kind of tracking system would have been needed, to position the overlay properly (and from what I have been following lately, that problem is still unsolved in general AR/VR applications - but getting there rapidly). The whole idea was to eliminate the need for a worker to stop what he is doing, exit the frame, pick up the book of diagrams, leaf through them, and figure out what goes where "abstractly". With such an AR system, production and install times would be lowered - I am sure it could be applied to a number of other areas as well (including repair after the plane is built).

Not sure where they went with it - if it was a limited trial, how well it worked, whether the equipment was up to task (I tend to think it wasn't), how workers liked it, etc. By the lack of talk on it, I tend to think it wasn't too successful - but the idea gives an example of what really can be done with AR.

What is funny about all of this is that the first "real" VR style system (ie, the "Sword of Damaecles" (sp) by Ivan Sutherland in the late 1960's) was an AR system, complete with see-through optics and "wire-frame" virtual objects...