Ming the Mechanic:
Real-Time Intimate Reality

The NewsLog of Flemming Funch
 Real-Time Intimate Reality2003-01-02 03:56
7 comments
picture by Flemming Funch

Paul Hughes has a vision:
"Imagine this. It's the year 2010, and almost everyone has a real-time always-on connection to the Net via ubiquitous wearable 'augmented reality' devices. As part of this package, made possible with advance minuturized heads-up displays, video cameras, location aware devices, GPS, swarmbots, emotion-sensitive and adaptive algorithms (i.e. Affective Computing), and sophisticated reputation systems, you are able to surf an augmented version of reality itself in real time.

Lets break this down. You would be able to, in real-time see precisely whats going on anywhere in the globe by jacking in to the collection of real-time video blogs. As part of this collection, sophisticated 3-D rendering engines would be able to take the collective video footage and extropolate a real-time VR scene, allowing you to transcend the viewing angle of any single camera. Better still, you could jack in to that part of the world from a variety of, not only physical perspectives, but political, intellectual, and emotional as well based on whatever any individual user makes public as part their unique sliding-scale trust system such as the type that Joi Ito has proposed with moblogs. All of this meta-data would form its own collective smart-mob based on individually selected criteria.

What this means is that you could then view the "scene" from virtually any angle. Imagine the possibility here. Some spontaneous news event occurs, and almost instantly as hundreds of people appear on the scene with wearable video cameras broadcasting on the net, you would be able to view this real-time scene from any angle, while simultaneously gaining the collective emotional assesment of the situation from those people choosing to broadcast their emotional indices, as well as the blogging that will invariable start occuring at rapid pace from your customized reputation/trust criteria.

All of this combines to gives you a real-time augmented, yet customized view of real-time reality. One that is rich in social and emotional context, providing and extending intimacy by empowering you to feel and touch the whole world."
Yes, it's cool, I want it badly. It is nice to sit and write with people all over the world, but really I want to BE in those places. Hang out, look around, soak up the atmosphere. And I'm tired of people instantly lining up and putting on fake smiles when I pull out a camera. I want the real stuff, so I'd much rather have an always-on camera in my glasses.


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7 comments

2 Jan 2003 @ 08:30 by spiritseek : You never know...
having one of those just might help stop alot of unnecessary crime being committed and reported quickly. How many people would be leary of doin something wrong if they knew someone might be watching via network. Great!  


2 Jan 2003 @ 15:13 by ming : Crime watching
Indeed. So, if we can just also keep governments from looking for us when we owe them taxes or something, then it would be a really good thing. What's nice here, of course, is that it is controlled by private individuals.  


2 Jan 2003 @ 23:16 by strydg : able to surf an augmented version of
reality itself in real time. wow. technology that will make it possible for one to go with the flow in the moment. who woulda thought?

(the syntax and rhythm here is similar to "able to leap tall buildings with a single bound." i.e. Frankenstein as Superman.)

If a side effect of phonetic alphabet literacy is loss of vision, what will be the side-effect of this contrivance? Loss of reality? Loss of a sense of reality? Doubt that reality exists at all? What kind of mysterious mental/emotional and physical diseases will follow on its heels? I guess we'll find out.

Crime prevention? A technology like this would change the environment so radically that "crime" will have a new meaning. New kinds of crimes will come with it.

this is a "better" mouse trap with golden cheese. are we mice or men?!  



3 Jan 2003 @ 14:01 by sharie : Oklahoma City Bombing
I always wondered why satellite photos of the O.C. federal building weren't uploaded to show who was driving the U-haul loaded with explosives. This is why I didn't believe the Prosecutor's case against McVey. They have the photos of who drove the truck.

I agree about new crimes to come. I saw Haley Mills in "The Parent Trap" from 30 some years ago. Trick photography can be made to look real. The thing is... if all the clocks were synchronized, and you were getting *real-time* photos, nobody would have the time to make alterations.  



3 Jan 2003 @ 14:28 by watcher : The Borg
You 'want' to be the borg? How strange. or is it that you do not see that this is the direction this technology is going? Will you also jump at the chance to have your new ID/Creditcard/Bankcard/DriversLicense chip implanted?

Do you realize that even now we are being tracked by our many cards, credit cards, bank cards, drivers license, discount cards? Does it matter? or should only criminals be concerned about such things?

The technology is cool and I'd have fun working on it, but to wear it... no thank you. I think we have lost enough freedoms, I cling to what's left with everything I've got.  



3 Jan 2003 @ 21:27 by spiritseek : Fear
I see fear can cause anything new to seem bad, its up to the people to use it for good.  


3 Jan 2003 @ 23:05 by ming : Borg
Watcher, no, I want to be the Q.

I want to be connected. Preferably with all of humanity, or maybe selectively with those parts of humanity that it is fun to be connected with. And I prefer to be connected in a full and rich way. Sitting on a chair behind our computer screens and looking at words and flat pictures, that is a great start, but very limiting. I want to be immersed in life, not just look at it from a distance.

And, yes, there are several parallel scenarios in all this technology. We can use it to free ourselves and to connect more thoroughly with situations and people we otherwise wouldn't have connected with. Or authoritarian central governments can use it for tracking our every move, and enslaving us further.

I'm for the first scenario, and against the second, in case that's not clear.  



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