Augmented Reality

Today at the MIMAS Mobile Learning event, Gary Priestnall – Associate Professor within the Geographical Information Science research group, School of Geography, University of Nottingham, and manager of the Nottingham arm of SPLINT (SPatial Literacy IN Teaching) gave a really interesting presentstion on his work on augemented reality.

I do think that augemented reality has huge potential for learning and for providing information to learners, not just in an interactive engaging way, but in an accurate way as well.

TAT has been doing some work on augemented reality.

When someone views you through their handset’s camera, pre-selected info and social networking links appear to hover around you, letting your new found friend in on more than just your pretty smile.

So is this creepy or no different to putting your Twitter name on the final slide of your conference presentation?

via Engadget

6 thoughts on “Augmented Reality”

  1. No, not creepy. A few years ahead of its time maybe, but not creepy. This looks cool (to resurrect an already an already re-resurrected term). It does begin to put power back into the educator’s hands though.

    Whereas now, increasingly, learners have the freedom to search for additional and supportive information in class (use their phones to visit the internet to check teacher-given facts or gain deeper understanding) augmented reality as shown in the video clip will allow the teacher/institution to dictate what the learner can access.

    Might that be a ‘virtual’ virtual learning environment?

    David

  2. Not creepy, in my view. Very powerful. Raises some questions, though. Is agreement about pointing cameras at people tacit, or explicit? Do we need people’s permission to do this? Or is it becoming so much part of the culture that we have to stop worrying? (Interesting tensions in relation to Google Street, as well). Oh yes, and how does it work??

  3. Wow! dsugden are you describing a dystopian, untrustful, closed-down rung in the lower reaches of Dante’s educational inferno, where educators dominate? Or are you suggesting that educators take the power over their own information back? If augmented reality is about power and control then I’m out.

    It has interesting things to say about digital identity [in my *business* scenario I’m switched to zero, at *play* I’m switched to one], which may be understate what will happen to identity once the impact of the read/write web plays through [Gen X engineers describing a world that doesn’t make sense to their kids.] How augmented reality impacts a post-digital identity will impact educators more.

    I loved the fact that Dan-the-man was being mediated through a mobile – what does it say about you if you switch yourself off, or don’t augment?

  4. Maybe I misunderstood but I saw it as demo of someone locally broadcasting details of their identity under their own control. This could be useful within a f2f learning community subject to usual constraints of negotiating norms- not amenable to command and control 😉

  5. In reply to Paul Richardson – I’m always bemused by people objecting to cameras in public places. By extension they could object to people’s eyes as they might remember their appearane later.

    I think this technology will be good – the emphasis on future tense there as until it becomes embedded in vision systems and works automatically (eg so it isn’t the subject that decides what to show, or even the viewer, but an AI system that performs realtime research and then presents relevant useful info based on context as well) it will remain of limited real use.

    I’ve long imagined a ‘virtual parrot on my shoulder’ with a memory for faces and conversations that could quietly whisper someones name when I meet them, remind me of the last conversation we had (e-mail,phone,face to face etc), tell me if it’s their birthday or their kids birthday, if they have kids, what car they drive/team they support etc – all the things I’m useless at remembering about people. Said parrot would also know what I need to buy when shopping, things I need to do next time I’m in a particular vicinity…you get the idea. In that context, the visual recognition and augmented reality display is the “easy bit”. Pairing it with a good AI that acts as a perfect PA will be te challenge.

    I don’t want an MS paperclip popping up in my augmented reality saying loudly “you appear to be crossing the road, would you like help with your taxes?”

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