Augment My Future

The future of augmented reality is foggy at best. It's a mystery whether it will ever integrate into main stream society. Looking forward there is much to hope for. Technology is always advancing, breakthroughs are being made continuously. The world is becoming more and more engulfed with technology and the demand for augmented reality may someday manifest driving research and production. If augmented reality ever leaves it's current gimmicky status, it will certainly become a common household technology. Until then, I will be watching for hints of significant advances and hope for the day when our world can be augmented. Augmented Reality, Fad or the Future

VLOG

How to be heard when everyone is talking?

The evolution of society has brought together a wider spectrum of individuals then was ever imaginable in a pre-internet era. This union has birthed countless innovations and accomplishments that no individual or company could have produced. Here Comes Everybody identifies some of these accomplishments and attempts to explain their existence. For every success, there are thousands of ideas, posts, videos, pictures that didn't garner any attention. If one knows that they have a revolutionary idea, picture, video, etc... how then does one simulate the correct circumstances to take their idea viral. It seems that everyone has finally caught on to the social media hype and usually that means it's to late to stumble onto a surprise hit. The platform is now set and the world can be your audience, but the irony is that it's now harder than ever to compete with the millions of other user created content. How can one person stand out when "everyone is coming."

Where's the hold up??

Technology has been growing exponentially for my entire life. Augmented reality's growth on the other hand, seems to be stagnant. While future implications are expansive, the immediate application is limited at best. When there is consumer demand, corporations find a way to push forward and provide. The irony is that it's difficult for consumers to demand something that does not exist. Augmented reality is still an untapped technology, and the progress has plateaued more than other technologies such as home entertainment, personal computers and cell phones. Is there not enough demand for augmented reality? It looks cool in movies but maybe no one really wants it. It'd be easy to argue that it is simply too difficult to achieve. Imagine going back and telling someone in 1998 that their cell phone would have an HD video camera, internet access, video chatting, all of your music, etc... I'm not suggesting that we could all have Iron Man suits within the next 5 years, but advances seem scarce in augmented reality. Corporations need to see the demand for augmented reality. A need cannot be imposed, it must be discovered and embraced. Hopefully that day will come for augmented reality.

Augment My App

Virtually all phones have the inherent ingredients for augmented reality: location awareness, access to a network or information, a camera, and a display. This has allowed many apps to explore augmented reality to varying degrees. Apps like SkyView and SpotCrime bring a significant amount of information to the user that the user would otherwise be unaware of. As networks get faster and image recognition becomes more effective, we may find that we are all walking around holding our phone in front of our faces to see a world where people, buildings, and almost any commonly recognizable item can be described, bought or networked. If humanity really does get to the point that we have this information readily accessible, the real question is, where is the line between being human and being robotic. For example, what will happen to "love at first sight" if whenever we see a person we can see their relationship status and their favorite movies. The human mind is the most powerful computational entity on earth, but it's hard to imagine what humans would do if everything was laid out in front of them. Augmented reality apps could become a little too real by Dan Kricke

Augment Everyones Reality (Smallish Post)

The initial intent of this blog was to explore the potential of augmented reality used in cinema and theme parks. It seems a natural progression for something so interactive and visually based.

Recently I discovered that Dr. Michael Jones of the BYU Computer Science department has been developing and researching an implementation to use augmented reality for def students. The purpose would be to allow audibly challenged individuals have a transparent head set with tranparent goggles that would have an interpreter projected into the field of view, allowing them to have a free field of vision while still being able to see what is being said.

It seems that the implications of augmented reality are really limitless. Once the main elements can be developed, I believe that augmented reality will be used in virtually all aspects of life, much like cell phones and social networks have become a global daily routine.

Revolution OS and Hollywood

It would seem that taking one of the world's largest markets and making it free would be impossible. It'd be impossible not only because of the task, but because it seems counter-intuitive that millions of man hours could be contributed without pay. Not only has it been a success, but it has launched the entire open source world.

Today Hollywood is constantly struggling to figure out how to keep viewers from accessing their hard work for free. Jobs and livelihoods are at stake yet people seem to be able to click on a link and watch a movie with little moral debate. Though I understand that movies simply cost money, I feel there are so many passionate people who would love to be involved in film that it would be fascinating to see this same model applied. I believe the main hurdle is that people developed Linux because they wanted to use it for other tasks. It has been a platform that has led to the production of many businesses and ironically, is the primary OS among movie studios. Still, I believe that if the same amount of collaborative hours were put into film, or some sort of art, we could find a main stream manifestation of the true potential of society when so many work together towards one goal.