Augmented Reality: Education

(Post for week of 9/6)
In the video above I was intrigued by the applications of augmented reality systems to education. Children are shown wearing goggles looking at a book with markings on it. The goggles recognize the markings and display a 3D image of a volcano erupting. The student can swivel the page and see the animated volcano.
The functionality is not something new. You could imagine the same functionality on a computer. With the mouse you could swivel the volcano demonstration around, and with buttons you could enable zooming (achieving the same effect as the student moving the goggles closer or farther from the model). But I think there’s much more interaction when you are interacting with a book you can hold, swivel, flip pages, rather than just look at a computer screen. The goggles change the interface from a computer screen to something much more interactive.
A final thought: It seems a bit of a stretch to consider the volcano application an example of augmented reality. The physical reality that is being augmented is the black and white marker on the page. However her imagining what it would be like to walk down a street in a foreign country and see information about the culture, history, buildings would be a much richer case of augmented reality.

Which Singularity?

I had occasion to skim the first chapter of Raymond Kurzweil’s book The Singularity is Near (Viking Press, 2005). (You can read it here).

He is kind enough to tell us his project: “This book will argue, however, that within several decades information-based technologies will encompass all human knowledge and proficiency, ultimately including the pattern-recognition powers, problem-solving skills, and emotional and moral intelligence of the human brain itself” (The Singularity is Near, page 2)

He points to the rapid growth of human technology which he claims is proceeding at an exponential rate. Kurzweil foresees a merging of humans and machines in an event he calls the Singularity. He explains “The Singularity will represent the culmination of the merger of our biological thinking existence with our technology, resulting in a world that is still human but that transcends our biological roots. There will be no distinction, post-Singularity, between human and machine or between physical and virtual reality.” (pg 3)

For my purposes I am less interested in the first fusion he anticipates (“between human and machine”) than the second (“between physical and virtual reality”).

The screen of the computer defines the world of the computer for users. We see files as represented by little icons inside manila folders. Programs wait to be summoned behind colorful icons. The OS interface creates for us the virtual world of the computer.

But some system interfaces provide a layer of interface with the physical world (as opposed to the virtual world inside your computer). Consider barcode apps. Suddenly the book in front of you is has a review attached to it, a plot summary, prices of the same items nearby. It’s as if the app is providing an interface to the book. Your experience of the physical book is richer because of this new interface.

It may be that we will soon see a fundamental fusion between human and machine (though I have my doubts). But I’m interested in seeing what is possible in providing virtual interfaces to the physical world.