I'm not much of a blogger. I'll start with that statement, so I don't leave you with any expectations. I mostly started this as a way to organize my thoughts and research into a topic that has grabbed my attention since April of 2012 with the announcement of Project Glass, by Google. Augmented reality is an amazing concept: Taking the real world and adding a digital layer to it. For months, I had high hopes that this was what we would see from Project Glass. After a while, it became clear through various promotional videos from Google that the newly named Google Glass would simply be an extension of your smartphone. This broke my heart.
Is the limit of our current technology a device that is tethered to a smartphone? Consider Moore's law. While certainly not an infinite limit, it provides a groundwork for consideration. Your smartphone has more power now than supercomputers from 10 years ago. Is it small enough, though, to support even more technology than we already pack into our handheld devices? Maybe.
First on my triumvirate of upcoming technologies is the Vuzix Smart Glasses. They have a few models currently preparing for sale, but the big one they're marketing is the Smart Glasses M100. This device has a great deal in common with Google Glass, including a single eye screen hovering up out of standard vision. This device is intended to be tethered to a smartphone via Bluetooth technology. With a 16:9 aspect ratio and a dedicated processor running Android, this seems like a pretty impressive add-on to your smartphone. But in the end, that's all it is. An add on designed to increase the functionality of your current device.
Google Glass comes packed with a decently high resolution camera, a battery pack that is slightly underwhelming in its expected lifespan, flash memory, a mini projector, and a processor. That's a lot of technology in a very tiny package. I will give Google this; They've made a VERY stylish piece of technology. But if we can fit that much inside of that small of a package, (Google Glass only fits over one eye, rather than an extended lense over both eyes,) How much could we fit inside of a full pair of glasses, both sides? Enough, maybe, to overcome the sizable processing required to generate augmented reality, I think.
Meta Space Glasses would be inclined to agree. They're developing an amazing piece of technology that is MUCH closer to my original impression of Google Glass. After nearly doubling their initial Kickstarter goal in June of 2013, they've continued to improve and refine the design on their model while releasing early developer models to funders for app development. Without going into too much detail, their model consists of a full pair of glasses, with dual cameras, a transparent display, and enough software loaded to put Google Glass to shame. With the goal of 3d modelling in realspace, their demo video showcases some very impressive concepts including a projection of a movie onto a piece of paper, a virtual Minecraft app that allows development of a fully 3d world on the desk in front of you, a pretty impressive multiplayer game of laser tag between glass wearers, and perhaps most impressive of all, the ability to create a 3d model, load your model into a 3d printer, and print what you've created.
The concept is mind blowing. Rather than limiting the arts to those with the physical capabilities to create, we would allow for those with artistic vision but no natural talent to create amazing works of art. Can you imagine a world where Rembrandt hadn't been a competent artist? His visions could never have come to life. But with something like this, they could. And the arts is just the beginning. With people developing new plans for 3d printers from functional guns to replacement parts for pretty much anything, the world of 3d printing would become much more invaluable in day to day life.
I strongly favor the Meta myself, right now. I feel like they're one of the few companies moving in the right direction, and if they take the time and get the funding to continue as they're going, they are the future of AR. Some additional research shows that the applications for AR glasses are not only on their way, but are already here. Aurasma, an application already available on the smartphone market, allows you to take an image of something and create a digital layer to that image. Be it a model standing in that location, to the poet Robbie Burns reciting his poetry while enjoying a drink (as they show in the demo for the application,) the potential for this application in an AR headset is amazing. Imagine, if you will, walking down the street to meet some friends at a coffee shop. Unfortunately, your friends are running a bit late. But due to some quick forethought, they created a video of themselves that shows as soon as you view the logo of the coffee shop informing you that they'll be late and they will be there as soon as they can. Let's take our imagining a step farther. Imagine you're a soldier in a jungle. There are enemies everywhere, and you've been trapped for weeks. Fortunately, you have your AR headset, which upon viewing any particular plant, plays an audio file describing the medicinal traits, edibility, and toxicity of the plant in question.
The potential for this kind of technology is simply mindblowing. And that's only one kind of app on the market RIGHT NOW for this kind of thing. Another app, developed by Microsoft for their mapping technology, allows views of images or videos while viewing a navigation in extreme zooms. Imagine touring the Colosseum and having a virtual tour of what it used to look like, as well as what features are worth noting.
The future is already here, there's no question of it. We have the technology to make a step from reality, to digital reality. With computers already such an integral part of our day to day life, why in the world would we want to hesitate in adopting this kind of technology? There are certainly a few considerations to make.
Security is ALWAYS the first thing people think of when they discuss this kind of product. Naturally, if everybody is wearing a camera at all times, it's going to make people nervous. "Is that guy recording me?" "Will this end up on Youtube?" A million privacy questions raised. For the most part, developers are trying to take this into consideration. Google Glass requires both a spoken command to turn on the video recording, as well as a visible indicator while it's active. Meta has a front facing LED that will light up whenever video recording is active. Of course, these things are easily disabled for anybody with the motivation. So what can we do to protect our privacy in the future?
The simple answer is nothing. We already exist in a world where true privacy is so tentative that in order to experience it, you're almost required to move to the middle of nowhere, a place with limited technology. If you're in the city, you're surrounded by cameras already, with audio/video surveillance constantly underway for security purposes in public sectors as well as all of the smartphones already around that people are using for recording purposes every day. Privacy as our grandparents knew it doesn't even exist any more. And to the generation currently growing up, it doesn't even matter. They're so used to it, they don't even think twice about being observed. Perhaps the biggest goal of my generation, and those before, should lie in developing a technology that prevents the undesired recording of any person who doesn't desire to be recorded, but that's beyond my consideration.
What challenges lie in the way of AR? The biggest, I think, lies in the speed of global connectivity. Right now, 4G LTE is our fastest wireless technology and even the speeds provided by 4G aren't sufficient for the kind of rapid transfer you'd need for this kind of technology. Samsung has announced the development of "5G" wireless technology, supposedly with early testing yielding 1 gigabit transfer speeds, certainly well within the realm of the speeds we would need for this kind of device to function at its fullest. But how far are we from global adaptation of "5G"? Perhaps not as far as we would think. 4G was introduced in 2012, and already it's global. Of course, this would still be subscription based, no doubt in my mind. But with how much we already spend on subscriptions for our smartphones, I equally have no doubt that we would hand over the cash for that kind of connection.
Of course, this is just describing the base technology. Many of these companies plan for these devices to not only contribute to, but replace, current mobile technology. Imagine every "phone" conversation taking place with a physical avatar of the person you're conversing with, hovering in the air in front of you. Clearly, something like this wouldn't be safe for vehicular travel, but I suspect laws preventing the use of this kind of device during travel will come out snapping on the heels of the technology itself. What about about media applications? During the early Meta video on their Kickstarter, they show bubbles floating in the air in front of the user showing snippets from his Reddit feed. He grabs one of the bubbles, popping it to expand the feed. Additionally, it shows his Facebook projected onto a wall, where he scrolls through with a gesture, liking one particular article by thumbs-upping towards the article.
Augmented reality is THE next big step in technology, following in the footsteps of things like the smartphone, computer, radio, printing press, and so on. I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to predict within the next ten years we'll see an AR device on six to seven out of every ten people.
