If people want to live in their own world, so be it. The beauty of AR rather then VR is you can blend reality rather then replace it.

But still, I have no problem if people want to live in their own worlds anyway.
Their freedom to do so.

But if they are stupid enough to erase cars then get run over, they deserve a Darwin Award and the rest of the gene pool will be better for it :D

You cant say a technology is bad just because, in principle, someone can be stupid enough to hurt themselves with it.


===

Also, I can argue removeing moving objects is going to be extremely hard anyway.
Overlaying new objects on the world is far,far,far easier.

(to remove an object you effectively need a image of whats behind it from all directions, if the object is moving thats going to be quite hard to get, especialy if theres other moving objects too)

More to the point, people will learn that form, visuals, looks,fashion, and anything else perception wise is absolutely worthless.

AR only replaces stuff visualy, if something is "real" or not dosnt mater if all it takes is the changing of visuals to simulate it, then it dosnt need to be real tostart with.

AR will be the victory of Function over Form.
How things function will be all thats important.

Materialism could very rapidly end after AR becomes as widespread as cars are now.
After all, when everything can be made too look like everything else, what does it mater what brand car you drive, or what shoes you ware?

Heck, I think people would mostly be wareing tunics or Jedi robes after AR's introduction. :p
Its not like physical fashion will mater anymore either.

Or, with AR specs it would be like having a blood huge plasma screen whereever you go.

So Darkflame, got any new visions as to when AR will start to become widespread?

I am not saying the technology is bad, it also depends on the implementation, for instance if everyone will have their "seperate" reality, and they won't overlap, then it will be pointless and will destroy creativity, if on the other hand you can "choose" how the clothes you wear will look like - well that's cool.

It is fascinating, the digitalisation of life, the stuff we are used to in the internet moved into everyday interactions - however the idea scares me, it seems very unsettling, and I don't think I would like to see it realised on the scale you are proposing.

Besides, the worlds created would have absolutely no value, they would be fake, just becouse something looks different doesen't change it's quality.
The car will brake, no matter how good it looks, the cloths will tear and get thilfy, no matter how you hide it, in reality they will be junk. Knowing most people, the technology would just be used to cover up their thilfyness and scruffyness. Why wash your clothes if you can simply hide away the stains? Why repair the rusted car if you can make it look like a limo?

A regular person, to keep sane, needs a clear division of what is real and what is fictous - if we mix those two realities most people will have no scrupules to just do what I wrote, patch the reality, cover the real problems instead of fixing them, instead of dealing with them people will hide behind virtual worlds.

I am most certain that that contraption would couse social(a person unwilling to participate, or not wealth enough to buy the device would be forever removed from the society, and I can imagine people who already have trouble distinguishing reality from fiction could not participate in the society) and mental(like mass schizofrenia, denial, rejection) problems on the scale we can only speculate on. You might say that that is the goal, the mixing of the virtual and 'real' realities, but dressing a pile of manour as a flowerpot won't make it smell pretty...


Also, if everything can be of equal "value", all cars can look stylish, all clothes can look good, you depreciate them of all value; "There wouldn't be any good without evil", "if everyone is special then no one is".

If the two worlds, the material and the fictous world would get mixed on that scale, nothing would have value, everything would be utterly worthless, therefore life would have no value, and it would be a simple "existence" based on same standard goods coverred by a mass lie.

You got a point on the Social problems part. But so what? There are people right today that can't afford Internet connection and tv, and they suffer from it as well. It won't be that much different.

And the world being ugly "underneath" really won't be important, as we are smart enough to know that when something doesn't work right, its not related to it's "virtual mask" or whatever you may call it.

A networked AR will just extend creativity, and I don't even understand why you think it will limit it.

Well, its all to do with the status of the componants needed to make it really.

Lets look;

Screens ~ Well, these recent OLED screens show we are pretty much there. Longer life needed being the only current downside. A few more years for these to be ready?

Motion Sensors ~ Done. Stuff like the Wii use's are dirt cheap to put in, and accurate enough to give angle and displacement information.

Cameras ~ a few megapixals in a cubic cm? no problem.

Small computer ~ again, not much problem,but would probably need to be on the clothing rather then the specs themselfs.

WiFi ~ Ok..ish. WiFi max will be much more practical.

GPS ~ This is the sticking point at the moment. For outdoor use GPS just isnt accurate enough. The landscape would get too out of sycn with your viewpoint.
The europeon successor to GPS, "galileo" has also had some problems.
The satalites and systems working fine, but the political/organisational/company/fiance is having problems.
Its likely the EU will have to pay for it directly. But still, its slowing things down. Could be 5-10 years before its up and running for public use.



Frankly, most of the componants are there, and AR is already being used in many industarys.

For practical public AR in affordable systems, I think its a decade away at best, purhapes 2 or 3 at worst.
Almost certainly I think video games will be the first users. Given Nintendos success with motion controll, they will all be looking for the next big "different" thing to do with games.

Software will take a long time too, theres certainly some hard problems.
But I think once the hardware is there the software will explode into being much like the internet.

At first you will probably just get AR for games with crude polygons roughly overlayed. Then navigation/gps stuff. Then finaly homebrew stuff will give loads of random stuff. (virtual clocks, posters and such).

It will slowly evolve from that like the internet did imo.
We might end up having purhapes small markers on our houses too, if tracking proves a problem.

Also, interesting to note;
To make a video-call to someone with AR, you just need a mirror :p

It won't "extend" creativity, becouse as I said, if everyone is an artist, no one is. If you equalize the value of everything, then you depreciate it of any value. A utopia like that, where everyone is "equal through/in creativity" like that is a world devoid of any worth, of anything special - ergo it's worthless and empty - it's jsut flashy colorfull pots covering a pile of manour, that would simply keep growing, becouse no one would take care of it, everyone would jsut hide the problem away. You have to take the bad parts of life along with the good ones, becouse they both are a part of your life, and carry value - if you just hide them away you deprive yourself of any perspective, and you deprive the special things in it from any worth.

As I said, form over function.
People wont be deceived by looks precisely because looks are now worthless.
Remember the glass's arnt glued to your head either.

No, It merely means TRUE values show though.

How well things *work* will be whats important,not how they look.
It will depreciate the value of things that are only good in their looks.


I see the idly being it like IRC channels.
Or photo shop "layers".

You can be logged onto a few visible ones at once.
Some read/write, some read only.

There could be generic "public" channel for your area. (with whatever 3D marks you make being limited in range and time perhapes, to stop spam)

You could then have personal channel for yourself and your friends. (so if you want your friends to know where you are you can cast a huge beam into the air over your head :p)

There could be, frankly, infinite amounts of channels for different information and such.

Overlapping is precisely where the strength of the system lies.

I mean, imagine going into a restaurant, loading up a food channel, and seeing scribblings by previous customers over the food they liked/disliked.
(work particularly well for buffet stuff).

While people could isolate themselves and hide away, I think most people will be sharing information and ideas far more then today.

Of course, I probably would have my own private channel too.
If I want 4 moons in the sky, and the stars to ripple like water, thats my choice :D
But it wont prevent me also sharing in the world of other people.

Not at all.
Everyone can have a paintbrush, does not mean everyone is equaly skilled at painting.

Things are not "all equal" in an AR world.
It mearly seperates the, imo, shallow world of looks, from the important world of function.
---
And thats not to say design and looks arnt worth something virtualy.
There will still be great artists on the new canvus.
To paint freely in 3D? Its a complete new medium and will surely inspire great works.
But their value will not be in material wealth, but rather in the appriciation of others.

Theese are pros I see in the idea yeah, I'm not denying them, I'd feel itchy to trry it - BUT I see to much cons in it, and the amount of problems I think it would couse, overwhelms the few really great things.

I still don't understand why. What is the thing you're so afraid of?

Simply: What's the worst thing that can happen?

Well, I already wrote it, people will start to use it to disguise reality with pretty images and create a fake one, instead of dealing with it, they would become more and more removed from the reality. And there's this subtle almost hate towards the idea of blending the real world with the virtual one, the real world is here, the virtual stays behind the screen, and that's the way it should stay.

The idea dosen't solve any problems, it nifty hides them under a veil of lies. And the fact that anyone, can have a fake of simply anything, makes everything that has real value, worthless.

And it's a kind of reversal of means and goals. The virtual world is only the means, the communication device, to reach real life goals - not the other way around, it's a tool to make the life easier in the real world - not a subsitute for the real life.

Well, you invent worse case sceneros;
eg. Hack into someones device and rearrange their world to make them kill themselves somehow.

Its always possible to come up with terrible things, but this would be extremely difficult to do.
Removing the real world is far harder then adding objects over the top.

Even if it wasnt though, it will be like any other technology.
In bad hands it can be used badly.

eg. I mean, following a recipy blindly on the internet you might end up with a poison and kill yourself :p

There will always be new crimes, new "bad things" due to technology.

But the fact AR could eliminate a huge amount of physical products, vastly reduce our ecological footprint, and potentialy end our materilistic nature.

I think the pro's outweigh the cons.

Yet again, real value IS NOT IN THE IMAGE.
Real value is never in the way something looks, its in the way it acts. (that goes for people just as much as objects :p)
AR makes nothing worthless except image.

Sure, it is a tool.
But AR is the "ultimate tool" in many ways because it can replace so many other tools. (mp3 players, maps, clocks, radios, notepads, whatever).
As well as being a fantastic communication device.

eg. I can play table tennis with someone on the other side of the world while talking to them :p

The table isnt real. The tennis ball isnt either.
The rackets are really 3D stylus's. Its all a lie.
But the person Im playing with is real. The game is real. The enjoyment is real.

AR gives us the "playground earth" scenero. It dosnt substitute real life, it adds too it.
It makes it more fun :)
====


Anyway, this thread is getting heavy, so lets have more wonderfull stuff.


eg.

Heres a lovely demo of physics in an AR app;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umbTreYhidM

oh ,and Immersions new demo;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umbTreYhidM

:)

oh, and this is a good demo of what the "physical" side of AR looks like at the moment. (aka, the AR specs)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJwU...elated&search=

I dont fully buy the book/educational side to be honest, but those specs are relatively small and neat, and they will get smaller and neater :)
(a better book demo is here; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHkUO...elated&search= )

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/129
WOW
WOW WOW WOW
Ignore the first half, thats not too impressive.
But skip to the "Photosynth" stuff.

Did I mention Wow?

Woah, holy shit. That's some neat stuff! I didn't expect something like this coming out from Microsoft(though it's not really-really Microsoft it's coming out of, now is it?). Too bad, really. This would fit nicely into the concept of free software and free art kind of things.

Nevertheless - yotza!

Indeed.
Bet google are kicking themselves they didnt get the team first :p

Still, either way, this is big.

I mean..
..In a few years we will have almost all the (populated) western world maped in 3D O_o
Thats incredible really.
Really incredible. To think of the billions of pictures taken, the information seamlessly combined and intergrated together.

Usefull for AR too :p

Wow, you can try it online;

labs.live.com/photosynth/

(needs XP and a decent graphic card)

Won't work here :(

Needs SP2, I'll have to reinstall my windows...

Heh, well here I go.

just run the SP2 standalone installer, if its about your serial you can change it with a keychanger

Meh, iot messess up windows pretty badly - to do that, tried it in the past. Anyways it was screeming for a reinstall for weeks now. And I jsut finished, now for some drivers and stuff.

OH MY GOD.

(it works)

Incredible isnt it?

I found Stephen Hawking on the Saint Marks Plaza in Venice gallery! :D. (there's two pics with him there)

And you know, if it really can recognize the contents of the picture, I think that in some time, if you feed it up with a persons photo, it will be possible to find simply ANYONE, if he has been take a picture of - and actually find his wereabouts...

And yeah, it's jawdrapping...

I know.
I think its kinda like a really really really really really really advanced version of those photo-stiching softwares you get.
Only instead of looking only at the edges it looks at all points and all perspectives.
=====

In other news;
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?cha...B2D416&ref=rss

And no dought Lost-fans will feel perfectly happy with research coming from a name like that :p

W00t! Yay for Eshel Ben-Jacob! (btw, "ben" in Hebrew isn't a short of Benjamin, it's actually the word "son", so Ben-Jacbo is "Son of Jacob" (which is Benjamin (ehm now I'm confused too..)))

"Inhibitory neurons"...

It gives me such wonderful associations.

Just find that Promicin already...