The State of the Art

"For whatever failings or false starts the pundits may heap on augmented reality, it’s just too useful to be left behind. We want to see the world for what it is, rich with data & paths & affinities & memory."

"When architecting augmented reality platforms it should be paramount that the open internet is the core model. AR is simply a way to draw the net out on to the phenomenal world. As such it needs a common set of standards."

"The marketing money will dry up so it’s imperative that the young platform companies collaborate to coordinate the standards under the hood, freeing them up to differentiate by the unique experiences & services they build on top. This may seem inevitable (or impossible, depending on your half-cup disposition) but look at virtual worlds – another technology that might be stronger if there were common standards & open movement across experiences."

http://www.urbeingrecorded.com/news/2010/10/13/is-ar-ready-for-the-trough-of-disillusionment/

Mediated Holograms

I am now working for a company that sells software tools which allow artists/architects/computer wielding humans to build applications in which a viewer to led to see 3D illusions in their world. The objects are not really there, but people react to them as though they are.

(Granted, computer code exists while it's running, never say that it doesn't or your grandchildren will call you the 2050 equivalent of a racist)

But now, in order to sustain himself, Dr. Cosmos must explain why perfectly decent people need to use "Augmented Reality" to make money. This involves personally influencing marketers to invest in their own ability to digitally steer human emotions around events, experiences or brands.

Pretty cool!

But this web-log has traditionally been a forum for my disagreements with the misuse of media towards purposes of persuasion and control! I cannot say for certain that AR will make the world any better.

But it might.

It could allow us to share our thoughts in a more harmonious way. To create levels of cognitive balance unexperienced since the creation of the spoken word by providing our race with a better way to share the hallucinations/machinations of its respective personalities through time.

Wait okay hold up. So then why should advertisers be allowed to deploy AR-powered mass mobilizations? Why would we give them the tools to create reality-fortified propaganda?

Because thats what they get for their donation. Their patronage. Through their support of this essential experiment in human communication, corporate creative is helping to save the world one project at a time.

Buy it.

-Cos

Sometimes

I wish there was a website where I could go and experience the pure informational sensation of the internet condensed into one place. A blended flashing smoothie of video game trailers, emails from valued people, videos of uncanny events... every node of stimulus out there packed into a clickable KABLAM. Satisfaction.

Then, with the click of a button, I could relay my recent experience out to every person in the world, all at once. The sensation i sent out would then be so wonderful and affective that everyone in the world would click their "like" buttons and trigger holographic lucky charm marshmallows to rain over me and my computer.

But... I can't shake the feeling that I'd grow tired of their marshmallows. I'd probably start searching for better ways to display my torrent of social affirmation such that it was "cooler", and thus more likely to inspire further likes. Heck, I'd probably get tired of the KABLAM site itself after awhile and be left with a longing desire for more... a feeling that the internet had let me down.

Is this it?

I'm growing tired of my knee-jerk search for affirmation from the internet. Every idea I encounter becomes valuable only in its ability to be spread out to the masses. Is this the nature of memes? Of ideas? Must they exist only to be communicated?

Perhaps thought has always been tailored to attract the reward of a few "likes".

Do me a favor? Don't click the like button, don't forward the link. Don't quantize me this time.

Because that's what we do, what we've always done: categorize ourselves, the world and the way we see it into ways that are measurable, improvable and thoroughly fictitious.

Long story short: I deactivated my facebook account so I could start living again. I'm moving to San Francisco.

II. Conceptual Obligations: (a.k.a. Dr. Cos' wordy philosophical prescript)

This project's existence will have lasting effects on the future of gaming, art and the human experience. As we aim to shape the future of outdoor gaming and reality manipulation we must remember to grant users as much cognitive freedom as possible within the goal structures we create. The goals we set are made to inspire creative thinking and enjoyment, nothing more. Misuse of design to inspire players to invest their time, thoughts, emotions and labor with us inappropriately could lead to the dangers of addictive escapism, compulsion, manipulation and cognitive control. These dangers should be kept in mind by all those constructing what is essentially a new world for people to live in. That said, the player chooses to participate and not everyone will react positively to what we make. Let us strive to inspire fun and play in the greatest number of participants as we can and to avoid creating unncessecary methods of manipulation and deciet ( or borrowing irresponsible designs from historical political and social goal systems).

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Properly addressed, these dangers should not distract us from the task of construction: change is inevitable and we will only learn by doing. Those working on this project have been given an important opportunity to build it well. With that said, let's change the world.

: |

"This could evolve into a very interesting sub-culture of hardcore gamers."

-things that didn't matter enough to make it into the pitch.

Physics Post #1

There's something off-putting about the flow of activity at this College. Buildings and spaces are so perfect, so manicured here, and yet the activities which take place between them are brimming with anxiety and distraction. It is as if the architecture has been placed as a stoic, orderly damper on the anxiety that pushes us to compete for survival against one another (or for highest gpa, whatever).


Once in a while, when I'm off campus, I can relax to the point where I enjoy words again. Where I am confident in the products of my own thought. I think that things have been designed in the wrong way, but I can't quite figure out how. We need to be more playful.

In short, I have been watching patterns. Trying to verbalize that which I see around me. There is an artificial order which holds us back from the chaos of play, interaction and culture, and it has been placed here at Dartmouth with careful intent.

Anyway... here's a thought on physics I could only safely have once the anxieties of survival were sufficiently addressed and poorly :

Your body has a gravitational field.

Every one of your molecules pulls everything else around it, pulling your body and the rest of the objects around you, towards you. These fields stretch out to the ends of the universe, weakening as distance increases by a factor of 1/r^2. So something a billion light-years away from you, even if to a negligable degree, pulls on every atom in your body.

So given a near-infinite sensitivity to gravity, one may hypothetically "feel" every other atom in the universe from a single location by measuring changes in the intensity of its pull.

Out there... I know. But humanity is growing more and more able to take in information about what's going on around itself with every technological and linguistic hurdle it tackles.

We aren't necessarily perceiving more. We focus on certain things, like work and GPA and driving and food. How often do we pay attention to gravity? To the stars?

They did this study where they put 30 people in motion capture suits and told them to be "angry" "sad" "happy" etcetera while measuring their physical movements. Then another study found that subjects could recognize a given emotion just from watching a single light source move.

http://arjournals.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.psych.57.102904.190152

So something could be attuned to subtle changes in gravitational effect in such a way so as to perceive the physical movements of every creature on Earth. Through body language and gesture recognition, the feelings of all emotion-wielding objects (beings) within range could also be sensed.

The Buddha felt suffering all around him. If I were attuned to all the forces of gravity pulling on me, could I not identify, out of those forces, a human figure by the way it moved? Could you not recognize the sensations which their movements would make onto you as they... suffered?

Could such a sensation take place inside us without us knowing it?

Could we create a machine that might do this?

Please read this:

http://www.multivax.com/last_question.html

Too Stressed For Fun

The "Sun God" walked around Dartmouth in a beautiful carnival mask for two months promoting a LOVE MARCH which went down today. It's intended purpose was to provide students with a forum in which to celebrate the passion that drives their myriad humanitarian initiatives.

And few people showed up. Maybe a dozen. We were all too busy.

Love for the sake of it? Will my 50 minutes return some form of measurable reward? Can I put it on paper? No? Alright... I'll just give you the $5 and keep goin, thanks.

I didn't go to the march. I was doing work. Love doesn't get things done, it's just the reason for why we should.


I hear they have robot rehabilitation centers in the real world.

I can't wait.