Information Where We Look

I like this short video on advances in Augmented Reality by Applied Research Associates (ARA).

ARA supports DARPA’s Urban Leader Tactical Response Awareness and Visualization (ULTRA-Vis) program–to develop Augmented Reality (AR) for our soldiers.

Augmented Reality is “Virtual icons, avatars, and messages overlaid accurately on the real world.”

The purpose is to know”where you are and where objects are around you” and to “access information simply by looking at them.”

The interface is a heads-up wearable display, rather than an smartphone or tablet.

The AR integrates GPS, terrain information, commercial data, and sensors.

Further, you and others using this technology will be able to tag and share data in what I would call Social Reality (a mixture of social computing and augmented reality).

Here your world of information is augmented by other’s AR views shared with you.

AR offers an enormous opportunity to make our world far richer with information everywhere we look, rather than just when we look it up.

For it to be ultimately successful, the display will need to be worked in as an embed or overlay on our actual eyes (like a contact lens), rather than worn like Google Glass.

For the non-soldier, not every open field needs augmented reality–in fact, it would sort of spoil the natural beauty of it–but it sure won’t hurt to be able to turn it on, at will, to see which flowers are blooming and perhaps, whether there just might be a snake out there too. 😉

>Safeguard Your Location

>

http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayer2.swf?doc=geotaggingsafety-110119134355-phpapp01&stripped_title=geotagging-safety

Nice presentation by the Army called “Geotags and Location-based Social Networking.”

It offers important information on the potential dangers of leaving on Global Positioning System (GPS) services on electronic devices (such as smartphones and cameras) and using location-based social networking services.

– “Geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification to photographs, videos, websites, and SMS messages. It is the equivalent of adding a 10-digit coordinate to everything you post on the Internet.”

– Location-based social networking applications focus on ‘checking-in’ at various locations to earn points, badges, discounts” and even become mayor for the day.

Exposing your location is not only dangerous if your in the military and engaged on an operation. But rather, for all of us, broadcasting location and patterns of movement can be detrimental to personal privacy and security.

As the geotagging safety presentation advises, consider when (and when not) to:

1. Turn off the GPS on devices such as smartphones and cameras.
2. Keep geocoded photos offline from the Internet (i.e. Flikr, Picasa, etc.)
3. Avoid use of location-based social networking services (e.g. FourSquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla, SCVNGR, etc.)

Sharing information–including where you are, were and are going–with family, friends, and colleagues can be a healthy and fun interchange; but sharing that information with “the wrong” people can leave you exposed and sorry.

Think twice–think about your privacy and security.