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The battle of the augmented concepts

Augmented reality is now more popular than ever, capturing the imagination and focus of the tech innovation front runners. But some have taken a different approach and the first steps towards a different concept altogether. Aiming to chip away at the boundaries of the physical world by digitalising aspects of it, allow me to introduce you to the idea of augmented spaces writes Rebecca Jayne Pattison.

by WAN-IFRA Staff executivenews@wan-ifra.org | July 1, 2015

Companies have been developing augmented reality for the past 30 years, focusing their efforts on adding a layer of the personal into our digital experiences. It’s easy to understand the hype around technology like Google Glass, and more recently Microsoft HoloLens. Seen as more progressive than the touchscreen technology we have grown so comfortable with, the popularity or ease of using eye-track technology and interacting with 3D holograms, for the time being, is just too far out there. It is all just a matter of time.

Is augmented reality, given its current capabilities, just reiterating old ideas in a more user-friendly way? It’s comfortable, it’s familiar and a distinguished concept that consumers will continue to enjoy. In 20 years will we all be reverting back to our iPhone classics?

So from the tried and tested to the other end of the spectrum. What do you make of the concept that not only knows no bounds of the imagination, but hasn’t even developed the technology to carry it off, or has it?

Are you ready for augmented spaces?

Living amongst augmented spaces is probably about 20 years away but are we prepared for what’s to come?

With augmented spaces, the idea is to take a physical object and transform it through simple touches or commands. How do we feel about a table that can reshape into a sphere? How about a newspaper with infinite pages? A physical product where you can flick through all the usual content, and continue turning. Updated news feeds, 3D graphics and models which pop out and no end or boundaries to consider.

Housed within Lancaster University’s InfoLab21, is a collection of projects that are taking those steps towards augmenting the physical.

The GHOST Project, which Lancaster University lecturer, Jason Alexander is involved in is working towards malleable computer and mobile display surfaces. An acronym for generic, highly-organic shape-changing interfaces, the intention is to allow users to physically bend, fold or flex screens. With a keen interest in Human-Computer interaction, he is looking into how shape-changing hardware and software can be developed and how it can become an integrated piece of technology.

Ubi Displays was the piece of technology that had drawn me to the lab. This project, literally developed from bits and pieces from around the creators’ house, revolves around a two-way glass touch screen with the ability to recognise which side the user is interacting with. But these projected interactive displays can appear and be used anywhere.

 

 

The battle of the augmented concepts

Companies have been developing augmented reality for the past 30 years, focusing their efforts on adding a layer of the personal into our digital experiences. It’s easy to understand the hype around technology like Google Glass, and more recently Microsoft HoloLens. Seen as more progressive than the touchscreen technology we have grown so comfortable with, the popularity or ease of using eye-track technology and interacting with 3D holograms, for the time being, is just too far out there. It is all just a matter of time.

Is augmented reality, given its current capabilities, just reiterating old ideas in a more user-friendly way? It’s comfortable, it’s familiar and a distinguished concept that consumers will continue to enjoy. In 20 years will we all be reverting back to our iPhone classics?

So from the tried and tested to the other end of the spectrum. What do you make of the concept that not only knows no bounds of the imagination, but hasn’t even developed the technology to carry it off, or has it?

Are you ready for augmented spaces?

Living amongst augmented spaces is probably about 20 years away but are we prepared for what’s to come?

With augmented spaces, the idea is to take a physical object and transform it through simple touches or commands. How do we feel about a table that can reshape into a sphere? How about a newspaper with infinite pages? A physical product where you can flick through all the usual content, and continue turning. Updated news feeds, 3D graphics and models which pop out and no end or boundaries to consider.

Housed within Lancaster University’s InfoLab21, is a collection of projects that are taking those steps towards augmenting the physical.

The GHOST Project, which Lancaster University lecturer, Jason Alexander is involved in is working towards malleable computer and mobile display surfaces. An acronym for generic, highly-organic shape-changing interfaces, the intention is to allow users to physically bend, fold or flex screens. With a keen interest in Human-Computer interaction, he is looking into how shape-changing hardware and software can be developed and how it can become an integrated piece of technology.

Ubi Displays was the piece of technology that had drawn me to the lab. This project, literally developed from bits and pieces from around the creators’ house, revolves around a two-way glass touch screen with the ability to recognise which side the user is interacting with. But these projected interactive displays can appear and be used anywhere.

“It’s about putting interactive projection out there, let’s see what people do with it,” said John Hardy, a research associate at the School of Computing and Communications at Lancaster University. As the creator of Ubi Displays, Hardy is experimenting with turning everyday objects into hyperlinks, potentially leading to a development of “digital decorations” for the home.

Now after setting up his own innovation company, H&E Inventions, Hardy is working with companies and spaces to make consumers and staff have a more interactive experience. By developing elements like heat mapping physical areas and monitoring interaction with certain objects within the space, quantitative data can be visualised and fed back to the client.

Focus groups can allow people to play and experiment but it is difficult to predict how people will respond to this or if they will even accept it.

“Interaction blindness is difficult,” says Christian Weichel, Lancaster University research student. By pushing those levels of comfort, that’s when they can really ask the question “how far can we make things change?”

These InfoLab21 projects have two approaches to augmented reality – data based and non-data based.

Representing the data category is Emerge. Its creator Faisal Taher has allowed data sets to be visualised in a 3D format in the centre of a table. Each piece of data can be altered, interacted with, filtered and sorted, not only by physically touching the bars but also through an interface from a different location, so data can be shared.

This table uses coloured lights and interactive projection around the graph itself which consists of 10 x 10 bars of data but can be scrolled through to reveal the results of bigger data sets.

Building visual datascapes

“We need to know what makes sense to bring into the physical world,” says Taher. By developing a piece of technology that can instantly display data, clearly show anomalies and trends and monitor user interactions, there is certainly a place for this invention in the physical world.

This led to the development of the ShapeClip. These smaller, moveable pieces extend and retract in response to light. Similar to Emerge, they are a modular way of building visual datascapes with a more creative edge.

Non-data based technology has ventured even further towards creativity. 3D printing was just the beginning, allowing us to make any object of the imagination a physicality. Now it’s looking at how to make the process even smoother, with the potential to create objects which are interactive, and even shape-changing.

“Physicality is a transformable idea,” says Weichel. It is all just a case of creating “programmable matter.”

With this surge in touch screen technology massively influencing the latest generation, everyone is trained to interact with tablets and smart phones, which is when motor skills and that process of learning and development takes a backseat.

There’s a large element to creativity that revolves around being hand-made and organic, but there’s also that strive for perfection too in much tougher time constraints and demands for larger production rates. Weisel’s latest creations are aimed at addressing this.

Nobody can predict how long we will latch onto our touchscreen technology or when we will accept augmented reality that stretches beyond that.

The concept of augmented spaces and the technology that surrounds, is certain to both intrigue and baffle you, and will continue to do so as it begins to venture out from behind research laboratory walls. It will leave you asking “how can it do that?” Whilst making your imagination run wild with possibilities.

Weisel best summarises their work at InfoLab21, as collectively having a broad but simple common aim, which is “to chip away at the boundaries of human knowledge.”

Rebecca Jayne Pattison is a researcher at UCLan’s Media Innovation Studio, which is part of WAN-IFRA’s Global Alliance for Media Innovation (GAMI). 

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