The (Near) Future is Augmented

c|net - 6.7.13 by Dan Farber

"You'll get 20/20, perfectly augmented vision by 2020, with movie-quality special effects blended seamlessly into the world around you,"

Dan Farber/Augmented Reality Expo

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- Reality isn't what is used to be. With increasingly powerful technologies, the human universe is being reimagined way beyond Google Glass' photo-tapping and info cards floating in space above your eye. The future is fashionable eyewear, contact lenses or even bionic eyes with immersive 3D displays, conjuring up a digital layer to "augment" reality, enabling entire new classes of applications and user experiences.

Like most technologies that eventually reach a mass market, augmented reality, or AR, has been gestating in university labs, as well as small companies focused on gaming and vertical applications, for nearly half a century. Emerging products like Google Glass and Oculus Rift's 3D virtual reality headset for immersive gaming are drawing attention to what could now be termed the "wearable revolution," but they barely scratch the surface of what's to come.

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Google Glass Changes Everything

Fast Company - 5.28.13 by Steven Rosenbaum

Next around the corner is the connected web, and while Google Glass is out front, we're already hearing reports that Apple, Samsung, Microsoft and others are exploring wearable devices. Glass may be the first, but it won't be the last.

From the moment that Sergey Brin wandered by me in the lobby at TED this year, I found myself in love.

Not with him, of course, but with his glasses. They where so sexy, so exciting, with a tip of the hat to past eyewear--but a magical glimpse of the future as well.

So many things went through my mind. The first time I plugged in an early version of Steve Jobs's remarkable Apple IIe, I had that same burst of adrenaline that only a glimpse of the future can bring. And again, when I was forced to retire my trusty Palm Treo for the sparkling new iPhone 1. Adrenaline.

Already, the pundits are out in force. Some of the Glass fan boys are ready to declare it a massive hit. Others are just as quickly proclaiming its inevitable failure. Whichever side you are on, it's quickly become one of the central conversations in the tech community. Google Glass is the "it" product of 2013, and it's still in closed beta.

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The Google Glass Fracas

Credit: Stop The Cyborgs

Now that Google Glass has been in the hands of developers and tech bloggers for a little while (although I've not been fortunate enough to spot a pair in real life yet), I'll put in my two pennies...

People are so darn predictable. Those who like to bitch and cry over our lost past, who ought to go back in a time machine to 1920, when you could have all the privacy you could stand, who feel they have to point out every possible problem that could present itself when a brand new thing enters the world, have come out in their predictable manner.

I, on the other hand, applaud Google for getting things started. Google Glass will look like the ancient pyramids of technology very shortly, when this tech gets more and more effective, but for now, someone had to get the ball rolling. And that's all they've done. This is only the first step folks. Yes, it's got problems, but those will be fixed and there will be applications of the technology none of us has even thought of. So calm the heck down.

That being said, the tech does lend itself to some hilarious panning, to wit:


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