The Impact of Augmented Reality? Privacy Gone with the Dinosaurs

Imagine a time in the not so distant future through these lenses: an indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are merged with or augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery, creating a mixed reality.

Enter the world of augmented reality....in other words, a world where info about the surrounding life of a user becomes interactive and digitally usable. A

According to Wikipedia, the term augmented reality is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell.

Below are some creative images from my South African pal Matthew Buckland who has a great blog post about the potential impact of augmented reality now and in the future.

Writes Buckland: Imagine holding up your phone or other digital device against a person you’ve just met or passing by. You’d instantly have information returned about that person within seconds, gleaned from an automatic web, public profile and social network search. You’d discover common friends, talking points — and then have the ability to add him/her to your network. Using a semantic scan, you’d discover negative or positive comments on Google or elsewhere relating to this individual.

COOL but also YIKES. In Silicon Valley, everyone I talk to seems to echo that privacy is over and there's no turning back even if the rest of the world is still trying to grasp the reality and consequences or worse, attempting to control it.

So if privacy is a thing of the past, and we still haven't worked out the appropriate ethical and moral guidelines, there's bound to be a serious backlash if not uproar, probably about the time when some the audio from some senator's daughter having sex with her boyfriend ends up on an inappropriate fan page.