Yesterday I talked about chat as a way to facilitate community interaction for news media. The chat tool we discussed, CoverItLive, is rather sophisticated, but in the end it is just 2D chat, with the possibility to add other media such as video, rss-feeds, pictures, links etc. Today I’d like to explore some more futuristic possibilities for news media but also for all those wanting to change things in society.
I also invite you for “Tonight Live with Paisley Beebe” a TV Talk show filmed in Second Life, today Sunday March 7th at 6 pm SLT (3 am Monday, March 8th, CET). I’m one of the guests and will talk about augmented reality (more about today’s show here).
What do we mean by “augmented reality”? Wikipedia says:
Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery.
Let’s just say that augmented reality “augments” our physical surroundings by putting layers of digital data on top of that reality, enabling us to store, to perceive and to search those data.
The term itself was coined in 1990 by Tom Caudell, a researcher at aircraft manufacturer Boeing, so Wired says:
He applied the term to a head-mounted digital display that guided workers through assembling electrical wires in aircrafts. The early definition of augmented reality, then, was an intersection between virtual and physical reality, where digital visuals are blended in to the real world to enhance our perceptions.
The term however does not mean the same thing for everybody. Wikipedia explains that according to one definition (Ronald Azuma) it combines real and virtual, is interactive in real time and is registered in 3D. Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino defined Milgram’s Reality-Virtuality Continuum in 1994. They describe a continuum that spans from the real environment to a pure virtual environment. In between there are Augmented Reality (closer to the real environment) and Augmented Virtuality (is closer to the virtual environment).
Some AR applications
In fact we’re already rather used to AR in the media, more specifically in sports coverage. Just look at the virtual lines indicating the position of the puck in ice hockey or superimposing data about a record holder on actual images of a swimming event.
Another application is in advertisement where one can hold some code in front of a webcam and subsequently see images in 3D and eventually interact with these images.
In first-person shooters we’re used in getting instructions and information pretty much as in military AR applications. We don’t see the enemy nor those providing the information, but right there, somewhere on our screen, the information appears.
The military are using AR for a long time now, one could trace the early phases of this in the Airforce during the Second World War projecting information on the windshield, going straight to current times (pilots being able to look around as if their own plane was not there hence not blocking their sight).
An important aspect is how we see the AR data: using a display on a laptop or a smartphone, a Head-up display (HUD) or a Helmet mounted display (HMD) or spatial displays which don’t have to be carried by any particular person.
Why is AR hot now?
AR is very fashionable these days and some even fear it’s just another hype. However, there are some fundamental reasons for this popularity: the convergence of gaming and virtual environments, online social networks and mobile broadband.
Whether or not Second Life will ever go mainstream, notions such as “avatar” are becoming increasingly familiar (with some help from the movie industry). Clicking on objects and avatars in virtual settings often gives us information, and so one starts wondering how we can organize things so that we can look at some conference participant and just get information about this person by using for instance a smartphone snapshot.
Online social networks can be especially fun when we’re able to organize people in our physical neighborhood. Enter Foursquare, Gowalla or Brightkite for doing just that – keeping track of where your friends are and of their comments on pubs, restaurants and other points of interest. Often those location based social networks incorporate game elements to make things more fun.
I’m a user of Foursquare and to my delight I found an AR application on Layar for Foursquare. Pointing my iPhone and looking at the camera view I can find out places where friends checked in, tips about those place, and how far and in what direction to go in order to find the points of interest. Tweeps around will show me the location of tweeting people in my neighborhood.
What it could mean for news and change
First this recent video about the new edition of Layar, one of the most popular mobile AR browsers:
ReadWriteWeb recently had an interesting post about Layar, mentioning civic projects and politics as subjects for augmented reality. Imagine some huge building projects in the city, where you could superimpose on the physical view the plans and images of the finished project (the new market hall in Rotterdam, the Netherlands).
Or let’s take NetKnowledge.ca where a layar gives information on all of the projects that receive funding from the Canadian government as part of Canada’s Economic Action Plan.
These seem to be projects which indicate a possible way to go for news media and activist groups: integrating stories, data and discussions as layars on top of the physical reality.
Challenges and opportunities
So are newspapers heavily investing in these new possibilities? Not so. There are lots of issues to take into account here. I’m not sure how the business model exactly looks like. Will anyone get paid for this, and by whom? The eventual revenue will to to which parties – the developer of the layer, the company providing the platform, the smartphone producer, those who initially collected the data… ?
Let’s not forget that in many countries high-end smartphones and mobile broadband is expensive. The technology itself is not yet where it should be: the location is often far from precise, the data are not really real-time, the image-recognition is an illusion…
There is the unpredictable element of consumer behavior. I must admit I feel a bit weird holding up my iPhone and turning around and around glaring at the screen. Wearing special glasses seems particular off-putting for many people, but then again it was considered a non-issue for watching the Avatar movie.
Finally there is the question “do we really need it or think it’s that very fun to do?” After all, I can find a pub either my pointing around my smartphone, or I can just keep the thing in a more discrete position and glance at Google maps, not to mention just asking around. I mention this last argument because I hear it rather frequently, but I don’t think it’s entirely justified. It is fun and practical to get in one movement information and tips about points of interest, and about where and how far I have to walk to get there, for instance.
AR will not only succeed because it’s technologically fancy, but also because people will find or produce great information and data, and organize all that in a compelling design.
Roland Legrand
