Augmented Human

Chapter 1. A New Wave of Reality

You are about to enter a new reality. Here, the world augments itself to you, morphing to your context, preferences, and needs. Reality becomes malleable, mutable, and highly personalized; it’s all defined and driven by you. The entire world becomes instantly translatable, breaking communication barriers, and creating a new sensory awareness that makes seeing, hearing, touching, and tasting brand new. The rules of the analog world no longer apply. Wearable computers, sensors, and intelligent systems are extending our human abilities and giving us superpowers.

This is the new Augmented Reality. Are you ready?

In this book, I’ll introduce you to Augmented Reality (AR), how it is evolving, where the opportunities are, and where it will go. I’ll guide you to a new dimension and immersive experience medium. However, you won’t need to leave your physical reality behind. The digital enters your world.

Let me explain.

This book is not about Virtual Reality (VR), but it’s worth understanding how AR and VR differ.

In VR, you strap on a special headset that blocks out your view of the physical world, trading the real world for a completely computer-generated environment.

SnowWorld, developed at the University of Washington Human Interface Technology (HIT) Lab in 1996 by Hunter Hoffman and David Patterson, was the first immersive VR world designed to reduce pain in adults and children. SnowWorld was specifically developed to help burn patients during wound ...