A Momentary Flow

According to software expert Tim Huckaby, we’re on the verge of a science-fiction-like future where doctors manipulate molecules in three-dimensional (3-D) space, augmented music players tune into your thoughts, and retailers deliver coupons in real time based on the focus of your gaze across store shelves, Smart Planet reports. His predictions for what’s possible within the next 10 years include a functioning “holodeck” (as in Star Trek) into which holographic images are displayed; a legitimate neural-based interface offering a direct pathway between the brain and external devices; and virtual objects that extend into practically every facet of life and that behave much as they would in the natural world. With Oculus Rift high-res surround VR and 4K TV already here, and Sharp’s 8K ultra high definition television (16 times the pixel resolution of HDTV) demonstrated at CES, real and virtual are merging, and ten years sounds conservative. I’m guessing within a few years, at least in demo mode. What do you think? — Editor (via A real-life ‘holodeck’ in 10 years? | KurzweilAI)

Humans have come up with a lot of ways to explore our consciousness—you’ve got drugs, great works of art, psychoanalysis, and reality TV recaps, to name a few—but Alan Kwan, a recent graduate at the City University School of Creative Media in Hong Kong, has come up with another: the Xbox 360 controller. For his recent project, Bad Trip, Kwan created a haunting virtual world, filled it with his own memories, and invited others to see what they could find. (via Creepy Video Game Lets You Explore Its Maker’s Memories | Co.Design: business innovation design)

Online shopping has made buying clothes more convenient, but the need to guess the correct size still remains. This leads to returns, frustration, and wasted resources. Research conducted by the London College of Fashion and the University of Surrey, with additional help from some specialists, aims to tackle this issue with new 3D body mapping technology designed for use at home. The project, dubbed “Body Shape Recognition for Online Fashion,” involves software being installed onto a home computer, after which the correct height of the user is entered. A webcam or smartphone then snaps photos of the would-be shopper in their underwear, and from these photos, the software calculates the relevant measurement details. The photos themselves stay on the computer and at no point go online. The team posit that once the measurement process is complete, shoppers could be presented with a logo, or perhaps a pop-up on websites which support it, allowing a hassle-free exact match to be made. “The potential benefits for the fashion industry and for shoppers are huge,” says Philip Delamore from London College of Fashion. “Currently, it’s common for online shoppers to order two or three different sizes of the same item of clothing at the same time, as they’re unsure which one will fit best.” (via Virtual tape measure removes the guesswork from online clothes shopping)

Ever wished you’d never met your boss and your colleagues were holograms?

-

The prospect of working with people you’ll never actually meet and communicating with virtual colleagues are two of the potential scenarios identified by leading thinkers into how workplaces will evolve by 2025.

Sampling views from a panel representing Imperial College London, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Washington, other international academics and the UK government, research has just been published that points to dramatic changes in the workplace as we know it.

Forget whether it’s practical to bring your own technology devices to work - in the future, you may not even have an office.

According to the expert panel, by 2025 technology will allow us to conjure workspaces out of thin air by using interactive surfaces.

(via BBC News - The workplace of 2025 will be wherever you want it)

Canon begins selling a next-generation form of virtual reality technology known as mixed reality (MR) this month, IEEE Spectrum reports. Canon’s MR adds computer-generated virtual objects to the real world in real time, at full scale, and in three dimensions. It is initially targeted at engineering groups involved in designing and building new products. It uses a video see-through head-mounted display (HMD) with two video cameras, one for each eye, to capture video from the real world, which is sent via cable (attached to the HMD) to a computer for integration with the computer-generated graphics or computer-aided-design data to be overlaid. The synthesized video is then sent back to twin SXGA-resolution displays in the HMD, which reflect the images through an optical system in the helmet and then into the eyes. Canon will market the MR technology as a complete system, first in Japan, then overseas — possibly as early as the end of the year in the United States, priced at around US $125 000 for the basic system. (via Trying out Canon’s mixed-reality tech | KurzweilAI)

Researchers have created an augmented reality application that fills your desk with virtual hairy, red-and-black patterned spiders. The spiders even interact with real things on the desk, crawling over books and disappearing under pieces of paper. That’s probably not appealing to most people, but the research team, which includes a psychologist, hopes it will become a next-generation treatment for people with arachnophobia, which is a fear of spiders. Virtual reality spider phobia treatments already exist, but this application is particularly realistic, allowing people to poke the virtual spiders, pick them up and let them crawl up their arms. “People can have this next level,” said Adrian Clark, a computer scientist who worked on the application. He and his colleagues are part of the Human Interface Technology Lab at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. (via Virtual Reality Spiders Crawl Toward Phobia Treatment | Innovationnewsdaily.com)