Driving around the other day in a city I wasn't familiar with, I was happy that we had the GPS that's on Laura's phone. When you have a GPS, you don't even need to see signs because the GPS is telling you what road it is before you can even see the road sign. This of course made me think of what it would be like in the future. I think that at some point augmented reality using a HUD will be a normal thing, sort of like a wearing watch is now (or having a phone to tell you what time it is).
Aside: I think that a watch is an exceptional good analogy in this case for figuring out where you are. Clocks were used for ship navigation and "time" is a fundamental component of GPS. An interesting read is the effects of relativity on GPS.
So, with everyone using a HUD that will help them navigate (in their own language of course), what use would a physical sign be anymore? It would just be an expense to build and maintain. If you had a "digital" sign that was available to people via their ubiquitous HUD's, your sign would always look new, be as you decide to have it today with much less cost in changing it, consume near zero of your own power (since you wouldn't have to pay to light it), no repair costs due to weather or vandalism, etc. Signs for navigation will go the way of the sextant. Signs for advertising? I'm assuming that it would be the same story. I just can't imagine how the conflict of "what advertisers want you to see" vs "what I want to see" will be resolved. Either way I figure that the future will be interesting. ;-)
HUD-based signs would be pretty cool.
ReplyDeleteCorvette already has the technology to do this (theoretically), since they offer a HUD-like speedometer that is projected on the windshield. Not the best pic, but you get the idea:
http://www2.dupont.com/Automotive/en_US/assets/images/newsEvents/article20050606_high.jpg
If you could integrate a GPS with this, you could also project signs, and distances to your exits. It might be tricky balancing what would be useful and what would be distracting, but I'm sure it could (and will) be done.
As for the "what advertisements you want to see" bit, you don't get a choice now, so you probably wouldn't get a choice then either. If you don't want to see the McDonald's sign along Hwy #7, you can't just close your eyes until you pass it :)
- Andrew
Ah, when I was thinking of a HUD when I was writing this post, I was thinking of one that you wear - like a pair of glasses or something more "permanent".
ReplyDeleteIf it's a device you control, whether it's a head mounted thing or in your car, I assume that since that is "yours", there would be options that you could turn on / off. Like NoScript or AdBlock for firefox. Well, unless it's a car or a HUD from apple of course... :-P
A wearable HUD would be neat, but it would have to be no bigger than a pair of normal reading glasses, or I can't see people wearing that around. I can see something like windshield projection happening a lot sooner (provided it can be deemed as safe).
ReplyDeleteAlso, the ads and stuff would really depend on the service, I guess. Currently, if you buy a GPS there are no ads, because you've shelled out for the device.
If you were using a free service, then yeah, you would probably have to deal with ads. And that could get really annoying!
For signs to disappear, I think that it will really be more of a cyborg-ish thing where you can't take off the HUD. So, along those lines, yes, I think that the car mounted ones would happen long before the magical in-eye ones.
ReplyDeleteImagine: Augmented Reality Beta by Google. :-P