One Too Many Hands
This week, instead of bagging on the state of home automation technology, I thought I'd step out into the realm of speculation. Specifically, the future intersection of wearables and augmented reality.
That these two technologies, one emerged and the other emerging, have anything in common may seem either really obvious or not. On the one hand, augmented reality will require a headset or glasses or contacts or something worn over the eyes (at least in the near future). And that something will need to be connected, defining it as a 'wearable'.
On the other hand, the end goal of augmented reality is to create a seamless bridge between actual reality and the augmentations. The headset/glasses/contacts need to disappear from the user's perceptions as much as possible allowing them to get lost in the experience. The augmented reality that people at Microsoft and elsewhere are talking about is that experience, not the hardware. Think of it like a Hollywood movie: we are excited for the story, not the projector. The same holds true with AR: end users need to be focusing on the new capabilities and not how they are created (unless the creation tool limits those capabilities).
But what I really want to discuss is a third way (hand?) of looking at AR which may make it the ultimate wearable. If we are using AR to define our reality and to share this redefinition with others who are also augmenting theirs, why not define our clothing, our look, our style through AR?
