Re: Holograms -vs- Augmented Reality

Chris Hind (chind@juno.com)
Sun, 17 Nov 1996 22:08:16 -0800


>If such agents exist everywhere, you can jump between them, of course.
>Who needs Star Trek beamers, if you can simply move about your frame of
>reference, basically with the speed of light (accomodate some link
>buildup and channel latency).

Telepresence decentralizes the idea of a physical body and uploading will
eventually kill the concept entirely.

>Moreover, lots of people will still insist of dragging their bodies
>around, if simply to take a swim, and to bask on the beach for a while.

Of course which is why we need a swift physical transportation method as
well. We still need to transport goods from place to place don't we?

>> [...]
>> >* Not everyone will tune in to your AR advertisements, but everyone will
>> >see your huge hologram.
>
>And what are means to generate such a hologram, pray? Phase array optics
>(which require strong nanotech) excluded, I don't see any possibility
>(image generator, computational power) to create animated holograms.

Seen the recent developments in eyeglassless 3D television?

>I think it will be a wearable augmented reality, where you are carrying
>your computational environment with you.

How about augmented reality contacts created with nano or perhaps chips
surgically implanted in your eyes?

>Take off the magical
>glasses, and all you see is a jungle of drab boxes, antennae and a
>tangle of glass fibre. Don them again, and a Gibsonian matrix
>unfolds around you. Avatars and agents stride ghostlike, you see
>data dynamics surging through representations of comm channels.

I always wondered how the world would look if we became dependent on
augmented reality and you took your glasses off. Pretty boring and probably
even falling into disrepair and decay because you wouldn't need to repair
something until its nearly ready to break. This could be the transition
where the physical world we've created falls into disrepair and decay and
nature recovers from industrial age-induced entropy while the human race
views only progress. Eventually we will upload and remove ourselves from
nature entirely and we will allow the planet to return to the wilderness.

>After a while, Au. R. will become a richer environment. You'll start
>missing things if you plug in too rarely. Apart from wireheads, many
>people will work in Au. R -- the step from a mouse pusher, to 6dof cursor
>pusher is not too far ;)

6dof cursor pusher? What do you mean?

>It's the logical choice, the next GUI.

True