Augmented Reality taken to the Extremes

Microsoft asked INVIVIA to come up with two extreme concept videos about augmented realities. What would we be able to do if the digital and real world were seamlessly combined?

This is what they came up with.

Not my kind of future

These concept videos are certainly impressive, but I do not think that this is what the future would look like.

I am sure that the technology might come, but I don't think this is how we are going to work with it. The problem with most augmented reality demos is that it is simpler and user-friendlier to keep it fully digital.

One example is when the person rips out a page from a magazine, which is then scanned in, and outputted as a sofa. This is certainly impressive, but people don't interact like that anymore.

People no longer find the stuff they want in a magazine. The primary way that people get information today is via social networks. The physical magazine idea is how the world used to be 5-20 years ago.

So what they have done is to take a pre-web world, i.e. the world as it was 5-20 years ago, and combine that with a post-web world. And in this transition they are completely ignoring what is happening now.

It is the same with the business card holder (in the second video). We don't have something like that anymore, because it's impractical. You can't take it with you. It's a physical thing that has to be placed on a desk somewhere. This completely ignores the Smartphones. Devices like the iPhone where you have all your contacts with you. And you can reach out to them at the touch of a button - from anywhere.

This is what happens, when people, who are stuck in the print world, tries to predict the future. They turn print into a digital-print-experience. But on the web we turn data into a digital-experience.

And, that makes for a completely different future.

(via iStartedSomething)