{"id":586,"date":"2014-01-28T23:19:15","date_gmt":"2014-01-29T07:19:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/?p=586"},"modified":"2014-01-28T23:19:15","modified_gmt":"2014-01-29T07:19:15","slug":"augmented-reality-my-a-button-start-select","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/2014\/01\/28\/augmented-reality-my-a-button-start-select\/","title":{"rendered":"Augmented Reality my [A button] [Start] [Select]"},"content":{"rendered":"
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These pilots relied on automatic speed control…<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Should I start this post like most others by saying “before this class I had never heard of AR?” \u00a0No. \u00a0Because I had heard of it. \u00a0Many summers ago I sat in a big tent at the Experimental Aviation Association’s annual AirVenture Fly-In air show watching some guy explain how pilots would soon be brought in to land by flying their planes through a series of virtual rings (think Sonic the Hedgehog type rings) whether in bad weather or just to show the novice where to go. \u00a0I was with my dad, he was nuts about this stuff. \u00a0Spoiler alert, but that didn’t happen. \u00a0That particular AR\/gamification\/futuristic “Flying for Dummies” idea went bust because they couldn’t populate each airport around the world with reliable software and hardware, nevermind each plane, but it showed AR is all around us in both game and non-game systems. \u00a0It was flight simulator, except you were actually flying.<\/p>\n

The readings this week showcase some of the reasons I’m skeptical about AR taking over every aspect of our lives. \u00a0Like the airplane case, not all AR translates into actual reality for one reason or another. \u00a0The Cracked article about the 5 most insane ARGs made me laugh because the games weren’t insane, the people who played them were. \u00a0Your Halo 2\u00a0<\/em>score should never stop you running from a hurricane folks… \u00a0Don’t get me wrong, the Easter Eggs these game and film companies put in are amazing and take a lot of work, but they hide the fact that our “open and free Internet” and ARGs where we enjoy all these mind-blowing experiences are really just promotions for us to buy things from corporate America.<\/p>\n

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Do I REALLY need this in my life???<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The other article that struck me was the Manifesto about the 21st Century being the century of gaming. \u00a0It’s easy to see that this manifesto was written by gamers and for gamers, but it doesn’t reflect the world we live in. \u00a0I play two games in my life, Candy Crush Saga and TrainStation (both on Facebook). \u00a0They take up too much of my life, my mom says they’ll ruin my life, but they don’t define my life. \u00a0I’m more than my games, ladies I promise you! \u00a0So how can our century be defined by games? \u00a0I agree that games are much more prevalent than before, but just because Wikipedia can be edited and doesn’t fill a building on campus doesn’t mean it’s much different than a catalogue. \u00a0Our mouse has become our pneumatic tube, one isn’t more of a game than the other, it is just a new version. \u00a0The 20th Century was defined by much more than the moving picture. \u00a0First was the automobile (in the 1910’s the car was said to define that century), then the airplane (which vied with the cinema for people’s attentions) became accessible and the car was seen as so last century. \u00a0War defined the 20th Century, especially the first half, but when that was over the jet age had begun. \u00a0The golden age of flight (actually, the third golden age in six decades…) was soon forgotten by the Space Age (the entry for 20th Century on Wikipedia<\/a>, that game of all encyclopedias, has a photo from space at the top). \u00a0And now? \u00a0Space is forgotten, brought to prominence only by a man with a moustache tweeting from space, not as a game, but as a reminder. \"\"\u00a0By the way, the Challenger disaster’s anniversary is today. \u00a0If space actually defined the 20th Century, why have we forgotten it so soon? \u00a0Perhaps that century (and likely this one) will be defined by change. \u00a0Not progress or advancement, but short attention spans.<\/p>\n

I’m glad the manifesto was followed up with Heather Chaplin’s essay that does touch on the “dark side” of tech. \u00a0We don’t have jet packs. \u00a0We have sleep deprivation and repetitive stress. \u00a0Here’s an article that discusses the downside of tech in my field of study, museum work<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Technology, be it AR or soon-to-be AR, is in our lives to stay, but it doesn’t define us. \u00a0That’s my take, but maybe I don’t<\/em> fully understand it yet. \u00a0After all, it comes from a guy who only ever owned Pokemon Crystal and Tetris Colour, and who was (and still is) baffled by the wide and narrow screen options of the GameBoy Advance… \u00a0Good night.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Should I start this post like most others by saying “before this class I had never heard of AR?” \u00a0No. \u00a0Because I had heard of it. \u00a0Many summers ago I sat in a big tent at the Experimental Aviation Association’s annual AirVenture Fly-In air show watching some guy explain how pilots would soon be brought … Continue reading Augmented Reality my [A button] [Start] [Select]<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":885,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[74,35,72,75,73],"class_list":["post-586","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-course-site-category","tag-airplanes","tag-future","tag-gaming","tag-rant","tag-reality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/885"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=586"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":592,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586\/revisions\/592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca\/ts400\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}