Recently the fledgling AR industry got a bit of a boost with the announcement of Apple’s AR kit. This bit of software layering is supported by Unity3d and Unreal, to name a few, and puts some AR elements directly into the OS of the Iphone and iPad. That of course is a bit of a problem for the many other AR toolkits that have been around for some time, but these things happen. Developers are already diving in an making interesting things, such as this Minecraft style tech demo
The ability to position and accurately keep track of objects in the the camera view of the World is a core part of what happens in my novels, including the “how to build stuff in unity3d” parts of Roisin’s inner dialogue. Of course the bits of how she gets to instrument the world if is a bit further off, but as Quantum communication is getting closer and, well that leaves just a little sliver of fiction left that powers the stories 🙂
These things add to the amazing amount of tech out there to keep track off and understand, something my IoT analyst day job keeps me very busy doing. Luckily (well by design really) my research agenda incorporates AR and VR and whatever XR comes along so I am still able to build on all these many years of being in the business of virtual. It is surprising how many companies are deep into it, but still keep it a little quiet, probably out of the same embarrassment or resistance we back in 2006 showing Second Life as an integration platform with both people and real World data, but oh…. it had colourful graphics and game like features, how could that be “serious”. It still makes me laugh to think of the resistance to it, as with the web, e-commerce and social media. The same is happening with blockchain, AI, IoT, autonomous vehicles. Lots of stuck in the mud attitudes, it will never catch on…(a few years pass) oh look my entire business has been disrupted…. why didn’t I listen…
Anyway, keep an open mind on tech and its interaction with society, it’s not all version numbers and installations, people are in the mix and very much part of whatever ecosystem is forming. Why not read the sci fi adventures whilst they are still fiction, look back in a few years and it will like a documentary. (That’s by design not accident BTW)
Reconfigure is the place to start there are some links on the right 🙂 Enjoy the future.
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