When Google becomes your eyes.

What will the future bring?

 

The "Back to the Future"-trilogy are truly among the greatest movie trilogies ever made. It goes back in time, but also it moves forward. In the second movie, Marty McFly is sent directly from when he came home in 1985 to the future, 2015. That is three years from now.

There are certain things in that movie presented as "the future" that we still don't have. Take the flying cars. We do have that, but they have wings and we're not exactly clogging up the air traffic any time soon. Hoverboards of course. I'd even go for the pink one if I had the chance.

And there are things predicted that actually are coming true today in 2012, and as I am not a fortune teller, before 2015 has gone by there is no utter certainty what in the BTF prophecy won't be a reality. 

As they land in the future, Marty is given some gear to blend in with the future crowd. A particular piece of clothing that has reached legendary status over the years due to their overall awesomeness, is the Nike Air 2015 Kicks, with power laces. Even pronouncing it feels awesome.

 Well would you look at that. 

Whether they will have powerlaces in 2015 remains to be seen. But it's a step closer.  Which brings me to another part of the movie which might not be impressive in the current day level of cgi, but it impressed me. So much I have always had it in the back of my mind since the first time I saw the movie. After Marty has put on his self adaptive jacket that can dry itself(which is also not very far away in the horizon), he crosses the street to see the local cinema. Above the entrance a giant shark grows bigger and bigger, and bends down to take a huge bite out of Marty. Marty reacts in fear and takes cover and scream accordingly. But nothing happened.

  As it evaporates it becomes clear that it was only a hologram. Do we have holograms surrounding us today? No. But we're getting there. We are in fact desperatly trying to get there. Bought a 3D television lately? Allthough movies have been seen for decades in 3D at the cinemas and in simulators, it has now reached your livingroom. Some channels are even broadcast in full HD and 3D. Even if full HD won't stay as the highest resolution for long, the 3D experience is definetly here to stay. And to evolve as it has been for many years.

If you read my first post, remember that I mentioned Augmented Reality? I am convinced that if we are going to have holograms surrounding us like in Back To The Future, or any other sci-fi movie, it is going to be through AR. Augmented Reality is our shortcut to holograms. 

Well, do we have examples of augmented reality today? Yes. Tonnes of it. In the video game industry(which is a great way of making it interactive from the start.) There's Kinekt. Where your whole body replaces the controller and your movements are directly impacting an imaginary world in cyberspace. Some say it's immersive, I say we have to do better. Other examples in the videogame genre Nintendo 3DS. It is 3D, no glasses required, and it has a camera which you can use to augment whatever the lense sees.(which is the biggest step towards augmented reality in my view, even though the games' targeted audience is of the much younger generation at this time).

Augmented Reality was realised first in warfare. It is sad that all great new technology is used for war in my personal opinion, but that's been the usual pattern through history. Either it is the A-bomb, the internet(which they are trying to take back for cyber warfare) etc.

This is an example similar to 3DS' AR card games(cross your eyes to see in 3D)

Warfare: Pilot Helmet Display 

The display shows the reality infront of you as you would look at anything with the bare naked eye, but it is transparent. On top of what you see a layer of information is displayed like a HUD in a video game. All the information you see is the combination of several technologies that are controlled by a computer(like most things are these days) and it is projected infront of you merged with reality. The reality is augmented, thus augmented reality.

This is used for warfare. The information you see is a result of the advanced combination of information provided by satellite, radar, and thousands of measurement instruments in order to for example know the position of an aircraft. The angle, height, direction, target and condition.

What if... This was given to a consumer?  Not to find and eliminate targets of course, but to travel, experience and enjoy. For entertainment and education. For new ways to be creative, and interact with eachother. 

If you are imagining a bunch of civilians wearing helmets, just stop. I mean we have all the technology that a helmet display above has. We have satellites, GPS, internet, movement tracking, communication.

Why aren't we combining all these things into one single source of all electronic media? Augmented Reality Glasses. Just like the display on a fighter pilot's helmet. Transparent with the information we'd like projected on it. As we have seen the last 20 years, all the hardware is becoming smaller and smaller. And information, either it's text, video, or audio has been replaced by computer files. The maximum potensial to put all these technologies into a light pair of set of trendy glasses is reached.

That would replace so much of the wasteful gadgets we have lying around the house. Fill our pockets with. Our bags.

And why would we stop at 2D? If we can fool our eyes to believe text is infront of us, why not a three-dimensional object as well? A sphere, a monitor, many monitors. Programs, software, apps, games, homework, powerpoints, skype conversation. Art. 

All of these technologies will inevitably merge into one single source. The only thing we are missing to make it happen are these goggles, glasses, displays, whatever we are going to call it.

I'm going to elaborate further on this tomorrow, with more details as to what technology we have, and HOW we would implement and use it. I will give examples on some ideas I've had for entertainment, education and more.

Even time travel.