The Augmented World Experience 2
June 4, 2013, Augmented World Expo, Santa Clara, CA—Amber Case from ESRI presented “The Future of Wearable Computing”. The drivers and conditions for adoption are changing as the technologies improve.
Among the issues the AR community has to address are constraint, context, and location information. We are still waiting for a realistic wearable display and computer. To date, the phones have been the driver for technology development, making all of us into cyborgs. This concept is a little out of date, since humans have been making and using tools to enhance our abilities for eons.
Now, the computer is becoming an extension of ourselves. By changing the form factor, we can move from solid buttons to liquid buttons, and changing technologies will provide more power and functionality while reducing energy use and size. To see this in action, consider the size of a Univac computer and an iPhone, two computing devices with about the same processing power.
Indeed, we are already seeing some wearable computers. The big issues are in the displays and size of these devices. The displays have to substitute part of an image with some text or another image. The processing for this level of graphics work uses a lot of energy.
The next generation of AR devices will use more CALM technologies, and will take actions from both invisible interfaces and trigger-based interactions. In some cases, the inputs will not be visual, as in older function-based location reminder apps that tell you to pick up milk at the grocery. The intent for the next generation should be to make the invisible visible while keeping the computer intervention out of sight.
Another area of concern is what to do with all the data we will be generating. Geo-notes can provide location-based messages for notification and control. Phones will become the remote control for part of our reality. The issues for these functions are in battery life and host of social issues like privacy, ownership of the data, and regulations between user and their apps.
The ability to address a person in a place obviously will draw more ads. Another aspect of AR will be to bring static content to life. By seeing an object, we can get much more information about the place, history, etc. without having to look up anything. There will be many more apps for geolocation and geo-services. Other functions will be as a “big mother” to remind us of our responsibilities and behaviors.
The integration of more sensors and context will enable the computer to assess our internal body and emotional functions. although these data will be inconsistent and variable, the changing data sets will eventually move to wards very low friction data collection. Overall, the best technology is invisible. The user interface will be minimally intrusive.
