The Next Great Computer Interface Is EmergingBut It Doesn’t Have a Name Yet – Singularity Hub

Not long ago, your parents mightve noticed a kid staring at a smartphone in their front yard. There wasnt anything there. The kid was justhanging out. What they didnt know? Said kid was gazing through a digital window and seeing a mythical beast in their well-manicured roses.

This youngster was playing an augmented reality smartphone sensation called Pokmon Go that swept the online masses before fading back. But dont confuse ephemerality for significance. Pokmon Gos simple yet viral appeal suggests AR is going to be huge.

The reason I'm inspired by this? I don't think Pokemon Go is the pinnacle of AR. It's kind of like the Solitaire for Windows 3. It's a killer app at a certain time, a big milestone, John Werner said at Singularity Universitys Exponential Manufacturing Summit in Boston.

Formerly an innovator at MIT Media Lab, Werner is now VP of strategic partnerships at augmented reality company Meta, the maker of a head-mounted AR display of the same name.

Since the beginning, Werner said, weve interacted with computers in a number of different ways, each iteration simplifying and improving on what came before it. First, it was punch cards. Later, it was the keyboard, mouse, and graphical user interface. More recently mobile technology brought us touchscreens.

Whats next?

Augmented reality is part of a new wave of tech that includes the related (and sometimes confused) fields of virtual reality and mixed reality. And the biggest names in the industry, from Google to Microsoft, are jumping into all of these areas for good reason. This is the birth of the next great computer interface, according to Werner. But it doesnt actually have a name yet.

If you look at the players that did well on the different waves, you see a number of them going into VR, AR, MR, Werner said. And I think those are just placeholders. We haven't figured out what to really call this next wave of interacting with technology.

Augmented reality isnt all that new, Werner pointed out. Weve been overlaying digital information on the real world for a while. Pilots use it to keep track of digital gauges, and NFL broadcasts include a digital yellow line on the field to show how far teams have to go for a first down.

But his vision goes far beyond Pokmon Go and yellow lines on a football field.

The rapidly falling cost and convergence of the underlying technologies are conspiring to make AR more usable, comfortable, and suitable for the mainstream. Most importantly, whereas AR is now largely constrained to 2D screens, its becoming immersive and wearable.

When it comes of age, Werner thinks itll merge with VR and change how we use computers.

People see AR and VR as two separate things, Werner said. But eventually, it's going to converge. And VR's going to be a feature of this strip of glass where you can just dive into something [for full immersion] or you can pull back.

You can see an early example of this futuristic vision by looking at his companys Meta 2.

Werner described the device as a light AR headset with a fully immersive 90-degree field of view. Theyre striving to make an operating system with zero learning curve. Expected applications include product design, as a new partnership with Dell, Nike, and Ultrahaptics shows off.

The Meta 2 isnt the only head-mounted augmented reality device in the works. Theres also Microsofts HoloLens, which is being sold as a developers kit for $3,000. The much-hyped and secretive Magic Leap has attracted some $1.4 billion. Most of whats known about the device is via insider accounts and rumor, and theres no definite date for when it will go public.

But if Google Glass, an early step toward rudimentary augmented reality, taught us anything, its that its easy to get carried away and dream of the faraway potential of a new interface technology before its ready. This is standard hype-curvelore in technology.

Virtual reality, for example, is further along than augmented reality. There are now affordable, consumer VR devices on the market. But the excitement around VR has cooled. Next steps will be more practical as it matures and finds real market appeal.

This cycle applies to head-mounted augmented reality too. Only for AR, its earlier still.

The wearable AR devices weve seen are yet a bit clunky, and they arent likely to sweep away todays computer interfaces right away. But they are light years beyond the earliest devices from decades ago. Werner noted how one of the first VR devices, called the Sword of Damocles, was so heavy it would kill the user should it, heaven forbid, come loose of its moorings.

Today, AR devices are light enough to wear on your head, without breaking it. And there are a few converging forces that Werner thinks will accelerate development in coming years. These include advanced voice recognition (think Amazon Echo and Google Now), real-time modeling of three-dimensional spaces (Google Tango), ever-faster connection speeds (5G), laser-based displays (instead of pixel-based screens), and AI.

The end result as Werner sees it is an experience more like interacting with the real world, in which our computers adapt to us, instead of the other way around.

The way our keyboards are arranged, he said, descends from movable type, a centuries-old technology. But this is how we type and tweet.

"We're held hostage by this arrangement...Our eye can take in 10^8 bits per second of information, and yet this is how we're communicating with technology."

Turns out Werner isnt the only one thinking about how AR and VR will merge. Google featured both technologies at its annual Google I/O developers conference last week.

In a blog post before the conference, head of Google VR Clay Bavor mused on how the two relate. He suggested AR and VR are points on a spectrum between the real and digital worlds. On one end, its all real, on the other its all virtual. And in between, its both.

He suggested a few namescomputing with presence, physical computing, perceptual computing, mixed reality, and immersive realitybefore landing on immersive computing. Of course, just because Google calls it immersive computing doesnt mean the name will stick. Perhaps well cycle through other options, or simply expand what we have to include the whole category.

Whats clear, Bavor writes, is that through history, computer interfaces have become more intuitive by removing layers of abstraction. As a result, they've become more accessible to more people doing more things. AR and VR will make the digital world more like the world we evolved to interact with. How long it will take isnt clear, but the trend is.

With immersive computing, instead of staring at screens or constantly checking our phones, well hold our heads up to the real and virtual worlds around us, Bavor writes. Youll have access to information in context, with computing woven seamlessly into your environment. Its the inevitable next step in the arc of computing interfaces.

Image Credit: Dell/YouTube

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The Next Great Computer Interface Is EmergingBut It Doesn't Have a Name Yet - Singularity Hub