Augmented Reality: Domestic Robocop + Others...

We can all be Robocop now - love the irritated flick of the hand when disregarding all the ad messages. Brilliant and thought provoking video by Keiichi Matsuda (much better than my final year project all those years ago!!)

"The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it."

The scenario of the user being paid to bombard themselves with ads is something I think will happen in the future in many contexts not just AR, but this would only be one level of interaction - there would be other quieter modes/layers that Keiichi touches on here. You could see the concept working in a myriad of places such as queues, museums, shops, banks and the list could go on and on - equally exciting and terrifying.

MORE LIKE THIS...

In a demo that drew gasps at TED2010, Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos new augmented-reality mapping technology from Microsoft. http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/blaise_aguera.html

Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense -  It's a wearable device with a projector that paves the way for profound interaction with our environment. Imagine "Minority Report" and then some. http://www.ted.com/talks/pattie_maes_demos_the_sixth_sense.html