Augmented reality and ID tagging might be the killer apps for video glasses

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Since 2006 I have owned and written about video glasses, including in my Six Trends that are transforming Online and Future of Media Lifecycle framework.

Despite my predictions, we still don’t see many people around wearing video glasses. However I still think it’s going to happen, as I predicted earlier this week.

In the many radio interviews I’ve done this week I was asked a lot about the video glasses. As I explained, there are many applications for video glasses, but augmented reality is the most powerful.

The recent swathe of augmented reality apps on iPhone have shown us the very beginning of the potential of AR. However people don’t want to be always holding up their phone in front of their face.

A case in point is ID tagging, in which facial recognition software identifies people in your field of vision and provides additional information about them. This is something far more easily and less obviously done using video glasses.

The classic scenario is that you see someone you’ve met before and don’t remember their name, but your AR glasses displays their name and any other publicly available information or things that you’ve noted previously next to them.

Imagine when the technologies in this video can be embedded into your glasses. This kind of information could easily get people to start wearing glasses when they go out into social situations.

Futurist proved correct! …and today describes the extraordinary social technologies of 2016 (release)

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This morning Future Exploration Network issued this press release (excuse the hyperbole :-) ) I have already done several radio interviews on the forecasts in the release with quite a few more radio, newspaper and TV interviews lined up for the next days – the ideas seem to have struck a chord.

Futurist proved correct! …and today describes the extraordinary social technologies of 2016

Seven years ago, in his prescient book Living Networks, global leading futurist Ross Dawson accurately described the networked world of today, anticipating social networks, Twitter, corporate blogging, crowd-sourcing, personalised advertising, virtual personal assistants and much else that is now familiar to us.

Today, he offers insights into the extraordinary world of technology we will experience seven years into the future.

Ross’s forecasts for 2016 include:

• Many people will wear video glasses as they commute and walk around, experiencing new forms of television, news updates, and detailed information about the world around them and people they meet.

Read more →

Augmented reality shows the path of the sun through the year

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Now here is a new spin on augmented reality apps: just out on the iPhone is Sun Seeker, from Graham Dawson, the creator of the best-selling Oz Weather and Climate Eye.

See Graham’s blog for a detailed description of the augmented reality Sun Seeker app.

In brief, when you look through the camera you see the current location and the path of the sun superimposed, allowing you to see where the sun will be at any point in time during the day (or night). It also shows the sun’s path for the longest and shortest day, or in fact any day you choose. Check out the video.

Uses of the app include looking at property, so you can check out where the sun will fall in different rooms through the year, planning your garden, and photography, for example seeing for the day of an event what time of day will have optimal sunlight.

The app has already been covered in a number of media outlets, with apparently more to come – the ITWire review is very useful in covering potential applications for the app:

ITWire: See the bright side of life with new augmented reality iPhone app

Computerworld: Sun Seeker iPhone app released

Apptism: Sun Seeker profile

[DISCLOSURE: Graham is my brother :-) ]

Where tablets will fit into the media landscape

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Rumors about the forthcoming Apple tablet are heating up. Gizmodo reports that Apple is in discussions with New York Times and other publishers about putting their content on a new device, with a mooted launch date of January. Wired Gadget Lab says to expect a device running the iPhone operating system, with 5-6 times the resolution of an iPhone screen and 7 times the screen size. Techcrunch suggests that the device’s size will mean an on-screen keyboard can be used for touch-typing.

In considering how tablets from Apple or others will be used as a media device, it is useful to refer to our Future of the Media Lifecycle visual from last year.

Media Lifecyle

Click on the image to download full pdf

This shows the lifecycle of media across home and mobile spaces, including how devices and interfaces facilitate the diffusion and creation of content from mainstream media through social media and life streaming and back again in a never-ending cycle.

As shown in the visual, there are two primary device forms that will be used in mobile media.

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SME Tech Summit in Sydney on 1 December – book the date!

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The Insight Exchange is going from strength to strength. Its next major event is the SME Tech Summit, to be held on 1 December in Sydney. The Insight Exchange’s CEO Beth Etling has put together an extraordinary agenda for what will be a landmark event in the space. Keynote speakers include Tim Pethick of Nudie fame (see interview with Tim on the event blog) and the always-provocative and insightful Mark Pesce. Check out the complete agenda for the rich array of content and learning that will be available on the day.

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Go to the registration page to see the very attractive offers and great early bird specials, which expire 31 October.

How did the event come about? It is now clear to anyone in business that technology is fundamental to how they work and bring in revenue. However only a small minority of companies have both the resources to use technology effectively, and the ability to keep on top of fast-moving but absolutely critical trends such as cloud computing and social media. There is a massive opportunity to assist smaller and mid-market businesses to deal with these issues.

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Video of Bruce Sterling keynote on the dawn of the augmented reality industry

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Bruce Sterling , one of the founders of the cyberpunk genre, gave a fabulous keynote on the dawn of the augmented reality industry in Amsterdam when Layar’s Reality Browser was launched a few weeks ago.

Bruce says that augmented reality s a techno-visionary’s dream come true. He’s been following the space since it began at Boeing in 1992 and has been blogging steadily about augmented reality over the last few months. He covers the problems of the space as well as the massive opportunity. Bruce is a fantastic guy to hear from to get some perspective on what will become a massive industry and undoutededly substantially shift how we relate to “reality”.

Video: Bruce Sterling’s Keynote – At the Dawn of the Augmented Reality Industry from Maarten Lens-FitzGerald on Vimeo.

The future of social networks and television distribution channels

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Last weekend’s Sunday Telegraph published an article titled Tech to the future that looks at what’s coming next in consumer and social technologies. Unfortunately it isn’t available online, however here are the sections where I was quoted:

Futurist and author Ross Dawson says the next big shifts will pivot around how we connect to other people and “how we share the content of our lives with others. It’s all about the social use of technology.”

Analysts predict that rather than a new Twitter-styled platform emerging, social networks will move towards being meshed or interconnected. They say private and public data will blur together and an advanced version of the social networks of your choice will be your browser of entry point.

Now that we have as a society discovered sharing the content from our lives, the floodgates are open. Interoperability across social networks is evolving slowly, but is what we are coming to expect. Then later in the article:

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A short video review of MD80 – smallest video recorder in the world (no not the iPod Nano)

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A few months ago I bought an MD80 video recorder – supposedly the smallest in the world, and smaller than the iPod Nano, which David Pogue reviews today as the smallest camcorder.

I thought I’d do a video review of it, discussing both its use and demonstrating its video quality. In fact the biggest problem is the audio quality. I love how I can just clip it on my jacket and take ambient video as I walk around, but the audio is not good enough for doing interviews of people. A very nifty device and certainly with its uses, but not quite there.

Paris Hilton and the iPhone – I said it first

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A CNN blog titled its story Is the iPhone really the Paris Hilton of mobile phones?, referring to a recent report saying that iPhone’s are not profitable for telecom firms.

It says that the term first appeared on December 5, 2008 in a newsletter from Strand Consult, referred to in an ITWire story titled iPhone – the Paris Hilton of mobile phones?

Well, for what it’s worth, I said it in September 2008. Following is an excerpt from my opening keynote for a five-city national roadshow for Optus Business, just after the iPhone was launched.

I don’t think I was making quite the same point though – the iPhone was enormously glamorized, feted on all sides for a couple of months, truly the center of attention, just over a year ago. However the difference with Paris Hilton is that the iPhone has great social value.

BTW I haven’t managed to track down the author of the photo in the movie – please get in touch if you want attribution or for me not to use it.

Answering questions in Turkish on the future of digital marketing

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One of the best parts of my work as a keynote speaker is visiting places I have never been before. As such I’m delighted to be doing the opening keynote at IPZ2009, the digital marketing summit in Istanbul, on October 21. I haven’t yet had the opportunity to visit Turkey so I’m very much looking forward to it.

In the lead-up to the event the prominent Turkish online site Buzla is running a virtual interview with me. People can ask questions in Turkish and vote on the questions, with the most popular questions asked to me in a video interview. The deadline for questions is September 11, and the interview will be up on September 14. Click here to ask questions (in Turkish only) and for more information.

For those who don’t read Turkish, you might enjoy the fairly psychedelic promotional video on the site, which seems to associate me with teddy bears drinking hard liquor (though I might be mistaken :-) ).

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