“Augmented reality” is one of those concepts that floats around on the periphery of discussions about the future of technology. If the phrase is new to you, or you’ve been too embarrassed to admit you don’t know what it means, Wikipedia defines augmented reality as:
Augmented reality is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with (or augmented by) virtual computer-generated imagery – creating a mixed reality.
Think Minority Report. In the movies it seems cool and exciting and gives some sense of “the future.” Having long been denied my hoverboard as promised to me in Back to the Future II, I’m a bit more pessimistic that augmented reality will be as awesome as the movies make it out to be. In fact, I’m afraid that it’ll only serve to make advertising even more pervasive than it already is.
Masters of Architecture student Keiichi Matsuda, as “part of a larger project about the social and architectural consequences of new media and augmented reality,” created the following video to give an idea of what everyday usage of such technology might be like.
It might look like fun in this not-quite-two-minute video, but I think it would get very tiresome very quickly.
T. Keith Edmunds
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