What is AR useful for

Your's truly 8 years ago. I think it's infuriating that I don't get to work on Emerging Technologies, even though I have been diligently researching everything for the last 10 years. It's just well and truly sad.

Notes from Alan Kay's Notion Chat

These are my sketch notes from the talk. I was a bit disappointed to not see him in flesh and blood, but through a video call, but it nonetheless good to hear from the person. What stuck with me was two things: First how we as ourselves are a combination of things we're born with and the culture around us. The cultural part is intangible harder to capture. And second that we no longer have anything like Xerox PARC or DARPA, so all the trash gets exhibited in the open, in the name of "startups", my big take-away is none of the "AI Computers" should be shipping right now; that's a space for exploration, not shipping, as of 2025.

What Meta and other tech-companies don't understand about the future of computing

I can say with a fair amount of confidence that I and the majority people around me, neither want or need a new way to send text-messages, play music, or ask Chat-GPT random questions. That's one part about why I don't find the Meta Glasses to be impressive.

The other part is the assumptions. The assumption that people are dying to get a new form factor to move on from the touch-screen phone. People are either don't think twice about using their phone, or are sick and tired of technology invading every part of their lives.

The former doesn't care about a new way to message friends, the latter would puke at the thought of smartphones strapped to my eyes, so that they can see what I am seeing and act on it; that to by Meta.

So why is it a foregone conclusion that AR glasses would ever be a thing. IMHO the next computing revolution would be one that helps us use less of technology; not one that shoves it into our face.

Replicating the real world vs the real world

For as long as computers have existed, technologists, designers and engineers have been trying to replicate the real world in a screen. Be it paper, the look of a calculator, the texture of leather, the motion of objects, entire life-like 3D worlds, you name it. The goal has been to have the computer blend into our surroundings.

But one of the interesting side effects of that "replicating the real world" has become a field of its own. Selling the illusion of reality has become more valuable than actually augmenting our reality.

When I see the future of computing, I believe the next computing revolution will be when we stop emulating the world around us, and start augmenting it, i.e. making our every day lives better with or without technological interventions. Does that mean AR glasses? No. Not at all, AR Glasses are merely a single way to augment reality. There are a million other-ways we can do that, without having to have privacy invasive computers. And something also tells me, the next computing revolution will also be around dedicated tools for dedicated tasks; not one general purpose tool for all tasks.

Beginnings of a new blog post.

Habits Change. Social Implications? Not so much

An oft cited example when people talk about the social implications of surveillance like technology (Think Ray Ban Meta Glasses with a camera in front of them) is the malleability of people’s habits and social norms, “Just like AirPods which were ridiculed at first, have become social norm today, glasses with a camera on them could too” is something I’ve often heard.

Here’s the thing. Habits change. The AirPods are personal computing devices that have zero impact on the people around them. The first AirPods customers looked goofy, that’s it; and people eventually found them to be more convenient and started wearing them more often. It did not have an immediate impact on the people around them.

Glasses with a camera attached to them are another issue entirely. They have an immediate impact on the people around you. Put a camera in front of a person and they immediately become conscious of what they’re saying. There’s an implication of recording. It’s almost as if the camera lens gives the “affordance” of this being surveillance tech. Do we expect people to become comfortable with such technology? Do we expect people to just start being ok with being recorded without consent? Heck no.

Look at the amount of crime, and creep that people face every day with surreptitious “recordings” (Sure that’s unheard off, if you’re a cis-het male in the most posh neighborhood of Silicon Valley, but there’s a world outside that bubble). The social reaction to such tech becoming mainstream will be visceral, and for good reason; for its not just a change of habit, it’s the change of social dynamic.