Augmented Reality - My Dream for holograms!

Everyone in the world - good news!
In contrast to my last post, which may have left you wondering if the Mayans were right, this post sees me, and you too, giddy with excitement over a technological marvel that I have just witnessed.
It is called AR - Augmented Reality.

As I sat here, enjoying my first ever worry-free day off at Ayers Rock Resort, I searched the internet for news on the anticipated release date of the new Nintendo 3DS. This is a gaming system (among many other functions) that succeeds the Nintendo DS, and has glasses-free 3D visual technology.

In fact, the 3DS has tons and tons of new and amazing technology, all of which is trademark for Nintendo's way of doing things the right way (even if the rest of the world doesn't agree at the time). For example, after years of palying 2D handheld games with sprites for visuals, we now have fully rendered 3D characters, environments, and graphics that will make the Nintendo64 weep with shame and envy.
After almost two years of sitting in cinemas and donning clunky, expensive 3D glasses to watch Avatar (were there any other 3D movies worth watching??), we can simply open the 3DS, turn it on, and have 3D graphics instantly.

I could go on all week and longer about the 3DS, and once I get my hands on one, I just might, but for now I want to share with you the latest techno-marvel that I only discovered today.

Augmented Reality. As the name suggests, it is similar to Virtual Reality. However, VR means creating an entirely new world inside the confines of a computer system and screen. VR means relying 100% upon the graphics power of the machine you are using. VR often has meant donning large, clunky, and at times migraine-inducing headgear in order to "enjoy" the world properly. Nintendo's own "Virtual Boy" was a catastrophic failure in the market because the technology was not developed enough yet, and it made people sick (this was back in the 80s, though..)
VR, really, was just a stepping stone. Just like 3D TVs today are a stepping stone, and anyone who buys one has rocks in their head.

AR is all about using existing reality, and, for now, super-imposing virtually realistic, and unrealistic, things all over it. "But this has been done!" I hear you say. Since Superman and Start Wars, super-imposing has been possible and done in Hollywood, and to great effect. This is true. However, the sort of super-imposing done in movies requires many computers, large budgets, and up to years of time and patience. AR allows the common techie to do it in his own living room, for practically nothing (in relative cost terms).

Go on YouTube, and type in "Augmented Reality" - you'll find some incredible videos showing the technology. And I think that, like me, you will be filled with that notion of almost unlimited potential for the technology.
Watch the Nintendo 3DS videos that display AR - using the reference-marker cards that AR is based on, a person can use their dining room table as a backdrop for a huge battle with a dragon, or literally turn their bed into a pool table.

AR utilises the real world to help itself create virtual worlds. 3D graphics technology has had over a decade on the market to improve itself to the point of photo-realism, and now that photo-realistic graphics world can be super-imposed upon the real world. It is, essentially, a mix of the real and the computer-generated, and it is amazing!

For now, AR only exists inside the screen of the Nintendo 3DS, or whatever other computer you are running it on at the time. But I urge you to think about that potential, imagine those possibilities.

Just as we have gone from the Wright Bros. to space flight, with millions of little stepping stones along the way (tri-planes, bi-planes, mono-planes, jet engines, jumbo-craft, rockets, etc. etc.) it is no less realistic to imagine that AR is the next major stepping stone on the road to full-blown, Star Wars-style holographic technology. By combining AR with the 3D imagery of the Nintendo 3DS, I predict that the Star Wars dream will already come true, within the confines of the screen. All that is left to do is to perfect projection technology so that light can be formed into solid-looking objects in the air, sans screen. I know that there is a factory in Japan working on motion-sensing technology right now that will allow users to interact, fully interact, with computer generated objects just by "touching" them, and that is without any of the VR gloves and goggles of the 1980s.

Once projection technology is developed just a little more, we will have my dream of Star Wars holograms. Now, imagine THAT!
Ono Skype, not only will you be able to video-chat with your family ont he toher side of the world, but your mother's head could actually be floating, in 3D space, above your screen. When you battle in MMORPG games, you could actually use your fists, and hey, maybe you'd get some real exercise, too!
The technology already exists to allow a traveller to hold up their smart phone and pan across certain cityscapes, and be flagged with info and distance markers. This means that I could travel to Amsterdam (where it is already in place), know nothing about the city, hold my phone to the horizon, and learn exactly where I want to go. I can touch the screen and be informed of the history of a building, pricing of a restaurant or hotel, or know where a road is going to lead me. The entire world, the REAL world, will suddenly become my home, in the most literal way possible to date.

I see two good things in this:
Firstly, no more getting lost and placing oneself in potentially life-threatening situations.
Secondly, it will have one of those totally unexpected effects (as often occurs with new tech), that will in this case see us homonids begin to get up, switch off the screens, go outside, and actually interact with the REAL WORLD around us. Exercise as you literally walk to the most interesting hologram marker you see. It will get us off our arses.

There is slight cause for concern with regards to a decline in adventurism - with more people going out to explore their holographically interactive world they might seem to lose their sense of adventure, of curiosity to discover and learna bout parts of the world the old-fashioned way. To this I say two things again:
1) The Developed World has already lost its sense of adventure, as we all sit in front of our screens and blog and facebook and poke and twitter. I see no loss from that, only great potential for improvement!
2) Like all technology since the dawn of tech, and until the Terminators take us over, your Nintendo 3DS and your smart phones all still have "OFF" switches. Switch it off and go for a walk the old fashioned way. You will always feel more human and alive when you do that.

I can't wait for my 3DS. Not sure when I am going to get my hands on it, but when I do it'll be Legend of Zelda Heaven, followed by AR tinkering and mind-opening experiences of potential for the future.

From The Tominator.