|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Watch out for news of Transformer, Daniel Gosling's voyage to the Arctic Circle.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
>> BLAST THEORY HOME
|
|
|
How technically challenging is your new project with Blast Theory, Can
You See Me Now?
Very (that's certainly how it feels right now three weeks beforehand). The
main problem is deploying multiple wireless augmented reality devices in
a busy city centre while at the same time having these communicate with
a shared virtual world that can be accessed over the Internet. At this
stage it is still not clear how reliable and responsive the wireless
devices will be and how software glue that holds them together and their
representation to the on-line participants will accommodate this.
Does technology let us down?
Yes, of course it does sometimes. However, I wonder whether we might
sometimes feel less let down if we appreciated the true nature of some
technologies. Take virtual reality as an example. Many people see
virtual reality as an attempt to reproduce reality (as its name
suggests). But there are some fundamental problems with this. For
example, network delays between different participants in a shared
virtual world cannot be avoided and will always introduce certain
limitations or inconsistencies into your experience of a world. Rather
than seeing these as problems or errors, it might be better to see them
as a natural phenomenon - a characteristic of the medium. Participants
could be made aware of them (for example, we might see regions of
uncertainty around the positions of delayed objects in a virtual world).
Perhaps, we might feel less let down by technologies if designers
deliberately revealed their inherent limitations and frailties.
Will the interface ever disappear?
The conventional interface will one day disappear. Surely the computer
monitor, keyboard and mouse isn't the ultimate way of interacting with
information? However, I'm not entirely convinced by much of the current
talk of ubiquitous computing where computers just fade into the
background and all materials become able to compute. I prefer to think
that we will see diversification of computers to become different kinds
of tools, suited to different purposes, people and environments. Each
will be well crafted to suit its purpose and, like a traditional tool or
instrument, will be a pleasure to learn and to use. Skillful design
seems a more appropriate direction to me than invisibility - how do you
control and interact with something that is invisible?
More information on Professor Benford and the University of Nottingham Mixed Reality Lab: www.mrl.nott.ac.uk
The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.
PAGE 3
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
