The Top Ten Technologies: #3 Augmented Reality

Clearly, no civilization can uplift itself unless a significant proportion of its individuals have access to a quality education. The present educational environment on planet Earth is but a shadow of what it could be if aided by proper funding, political determination and new technologies.

An emerging technology promises to radically enhance both the quality and "bandwidth" of educational processes. To understand how this works, however, we must first examine what's wrong with the current educational process.

What's wrong with today's schools

True learning is experiential. Humans learn best by doing, not by reading or listening to lectures. The more senses are involved (sound, sight, touch, emotions, etc.), the more powerful the learning experience. That's why today's best teachers are those pioneering individuals who take the effort to engage their students in meaningful activities that reach students at multiple levels.

The promise of immersive technology for education

A person who wishes to experience a learning session via augmented reality would don a pair of see-through glasses that also host two tiny video cameras and a pair of earphones. A tiny computer, perhaps worn on the wrist or around the waist, would recognize the geometry and content of the user's immediate environment and overlay that environment with meaningful images and sounds for a specific purpose.

From the user�s point of view, he or she would apparently see and hear other people, objects, or events taking place right in front of or around them. These augmented perceptions would appear to be completely real. In technical terms, they would be rendered by the wearable computer with light shading that takes into account both the ambient and directional light sources found in the user's immediate environment.

Put simply, the augmented reality system is "projecting" people, objects, environments or other elements onto the environment around you.

In its most simple form, an augmented reality system could, for example, project a different colored carpet or wallpaper as you stroll through your house. On a slightly more advanced level, it could project memory icons and appear to place them strategically throughout your house so that, for example, you would see a certain icon (with an attached note, perhaps) as you open your front door or medicine cabinet. In practical terms, this might serve as a personal reminder to make sure you pick up something at the grocery store or remember to take medications.

But these rudimentary applications are just the beginning. The more advanced applications of augmented reality have to do with learning. Augmented reality technology holds the promise of immersing individuals in experiential learning environments. Instead of reading about the Civil War in a textbook, a student could observe battles or conversations as if they were there. Animated, lifelike historical figures would seemingly appear right in front of them. The student would see and hear events at a level unmatched by today's outmoded lecture formats.

The applications are tremendous: students could learn anatomy by walking through a human body and observing the functioning of biological systems. Students could learn geography by "flying" around the globe, visiting any city they wished, zooming in and out of detailed renderings of geopolitical regions. Students could learn chemistry by observing, at a simulated microscopic level, chemical structures and reactions. These are but a few of the many potential applications.

Interactive learning

This level of augmented reality requires tremendous computational power. The systems and technologies needed to accomplish this include:

• Real-time vision recognition (three-dimensional geometry mapping and more)
• Voice recognition
• Real-time overlay display technology (built in to the wearable glasses, must cover light shading, depth of field considerations, etc.)
• Sound and voice rendering, including spatial considerations
• Human character rendering (covering body mechanics, adherence to physical laws, etc.)
• AI (artificial intelligence) technology for understanding user speech and creating intelligent, meaningful dialog
• Miniaturization advances for wearable CPUs and sensory devices
• Improvements in portable power

(Interestingly, several of these areas are being pushed forward through interactive gaming technology. First person games such as Microsoft's Halo are outstanding demonstrations of real-time visual and auditory rendering technology.)

Augmented reality: a massive global industry

• Educational: Personal coaches, trainers and teachers enhance the knowledge of users through demonstrations, conversations and enactments.
• Entertainment: Augmented reality systems offer unprecedented opportunities for entertainment. Imagine interactive theatrical presentations, augmented multiplayer gaming, "fly-through" movies, and other similar applications.
• Mental health: Virtual mental health consultants can help users face and overcome challenging situations such as conversations with relatives, public speaking, relationships with the opposite sex and many others.
• Reference: A virtual reference library would allow users to physically explore areas of interest by moving through a projected knowledge set and picking out images, movies, sounds or text.
• Computer / human interfaces: Augmented reality opens up a whole new world of possibilities in computer / human interfaces. There's much more on this in a later section, but consider the possibility that a computer could potentially be located anywhere in your environment. Your living room wall could be rendered as a giant 2D display, or your back yard could become a giant interlinked Internet search result set that you could explore at will.
• Personal environment enrichment: Don't like your office environment? Add plants, waterfalls, and hummingbirds to your office with the "sounds of nature" software module. Is your significant other unbearably ugly? Overlay their natural face with any character you want with the "augmented people" module. Want to bring a relative back from the dead and tell them something? Plug in the "reborn relatives" module and chat with them in your living room. The possibilities are endless.

Hopefully, you see the potential for this sort of technology in terms of uplifting humanity. The examples I've mentioned here barely scratch the surface.

The dangers of augmented reality

Infants could be brought up in "augmented reality schools" and literally brainwashed into accepting practically any interpretation of history or current events that the program controllers desired, for example.

Let this be a warning. Like many technologies, augmented reality holds both tremendous creative potential and a truly horrifying potential for abuse. Augmented reality can either enslave the world, or it can set it free.

Next: Part 4 - Practical robots

This article has been adapted from, The Ten Most Important Emerging Technologies For Humanity, an ebook by futurist Mike Adams.