Augmented Reality and Ubiquitous Ultra-Fast WiFi

Looks like I'm on an AR roll here, but it can't be helped. For AR to work, it seems to me that ubiquitous, ultra fast wireless connectivity will be required. At this point, even wired broadband is far too slow for a believable augmented reality overlay system. Much higher bandwidth wireless will have to be made virtually omnipresent.

A few city centers have made free wireless access available, but it will have to be present in every nook and cranny, every field and forest. Which will come first, the chicken or the killer app? I think the infrastructure and the application will have to encourage each other to be created, perhaps by the same company. (Could this be why Google is quietly buying unused pipes?)

As far as the hardware is concerned, here is a little fellow who doesn't yet exist, but may be developed in time to play a part in the task of making wifi reach every cubic centimeter of livable space on earth. Right now it's called the LANdroid, and it looks like this...



Apparently these guys are on DARPA's wish list. So after they are built and battle-tested, perhaps they can be deployed for peacetime use. Stay tuned.

[via Herself's AI]

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