Reflection on Augmented Reality

I have been experimenting with "Augmented Reality" techniques and tools recently.   Basically, I haven't purchased Google Glass but I do have - via a tablet - the ability to live broadcast my progress out and about the world wirelessly.   The first thing I learned is that bandwidth constraints mean the quality of live broadcast drops significantly.   So, currently I am investigating the combination of traditional video recording with GPS tracking.    I'm using an HTC Titan phone with a GPS Track Recorder app along with a Samsung ATIV table both running windows.  

My objective is to create layers from the 'real world' which can then be stitched together with digital assets to create a fusion real-world/information world montage.    I am particularly interested in exploring how the animation of time in 3D virtual spaces can be meshed with and interlinked with real world spaces to enable a more meaning enriched fabric for communication.   

Lately I've been thinking about how you can take almost any arbitrary 'complex' with sufficient 'tiles' or 'nodes' and use that as a 'paper' or 'fabric' onto which you weave or paint stories.    For example, a twenty minute walk could be used as a metaphor for 40 years of one's life at a 30sec:1yr mapping.   This then provides a backbone to which - for example - you can map trees in a segment of video to people you might know during that time.   The aim of the exercise is to start thinking of ways information can be packed and displayed in non-text based ways.   A forest could in a sense represent a community.  An ocean can represent the internet.   A trail can represent life's way.    All arbitrary mappings.   But each mapping elicits a distinct perspective on life experience and our shared world.

It doesn't take vision to see the day now when Hollywood won't dominate video media.   It is also easy to imagine a time when large companies don't rule digital media in our current feudal ownership model.   When the exhaust of our living is naturally recorded in a way that can be woven and spun in different fabrics, a collective story of ourselves should emerge that will be far more interesting than anything we can see or imagine today.   So that's why I'm experimenting with augmented reality techniques and tools.     

Micro green islands

Virtual Worlds | approaching threshold of usefulness

Sign of how fast things are going on the whole virtual worlds front. Compare Google Earth (Keyhole acquisition) to a new entrant to the 'virtual earth' market called Earthscape. I tried it today and found the navigation a little over-reactive. Beyond features, they seem to have leap frogged and accomplished in a very short period of time what took the Keyhole team years.

Their angle seems to be to provide improved user friendly integration of community/blog type communication and tagging with real virtual earth. Seems intuitive enough. I'm glad to see the Gorilla's (Google Earth) and (Microsoft's virtual Earth) start to get competitors from the start-up world. When that happens you know the manifestation of a killer app that makes it 'stick' in our daily lives is not far off. My bet is that it will integrate a lot of the now 'hot' apps (YouTube, MySpace, Ebay...) into a better interface than static web pages.

Beyond integrating real-time satellite imagery so I can find my dog when he's off and about with an RFID tag (wasn't Steve Wozniak working on that?) there seems to be a world of opportunity waiting in this 'augmented reality' space... or at least if you combine virtual worlds, street level photography, RFID tags, wikis, etc.. you are bound to have a something great emerge. I mean, who wouldn't rather be in a world than at a desk? I'll point to the release of Earthscape as a sign that the potential and momentum has started to move things beyond the fun to serious life improving uses of virtual earth like applications (whether it's Earthscape or some other virtual earth rendition).

I'll end this blog with a question - if you have a start-up building a cool virtual world application - why wouldn't you just stick to Worldwind and bypass all the hassle of dealing with the big guys? It's free and all Java. If I want to click on the globe and give a dollar to a kid in Somalia, why should I give a penny to Google or Microsoft?

5 Reasons Visualization Is Not More Prevalent

I enjoyed Todd's analysis and the ensuing discussion here.

World Democracy?

A great work on the theory covering the theory of a collective consciousness. A place you can try it out for yourself. These guys are working towards building a global citizenship.

These guys gave it a shot in 2004, but it seems their site is still under construction, while these people are giving WMD a rather different spin.

The Next Real Estate Boom?

For all those people feeling burned because they got in to late to the last real estate boom, I thought I'd offer some links that can help you get a head start on the next great opportunity in real estate.

The earth's atmosphere just might be the next great real estate frontier. I personally would like my airhome to be spherical in basic shape. So I'm waiting to buy my future home in the sky from a group of Canadians.

If you can't wait for them to release their spherical airships, you can go here and buy a zepplin now. Or you can try the Russians.