Terminator - augmented reality and unfair advantage

 

So, you’re the mother of the future leader of the resistance against Skynet, a self-aware artificial intelligence defence network, and you’re being chased by an almost indestructible humanoid machine, whose single aim is to kill you. The situation isn’t great. In fact, it’s pretty terrible. Now, as if that wasn’t bad enough, the machine can display all the information it has about a place or person over its normal vision. “So what?”, I hear you say, but think about it, if you run, it can see all the possible routes you can take and plan the best way to intercept you, or if you hide yourself in a group of people, it can use an existing picture of you to identify you in the crowd.

 

This technology is called augmented reality and varies from virtual reality in that objects in the real world are ‘augmented’ by computer-generated information, whereas VR comprises an entirely virtual world.

 

Augmented reality devices can be used in many ways. For example, interior designers can demonstrate their ideas to clients when standing at any point in a room and viewing that room via a tablet, which automatically overlays the new design, over the existing room structure. Alternatively, workers can use AR to understand new workspaces, or equipment; in this case, a tablet or smart glasses can depict the actual room and add additional information, which allows the user to walk around a space, or manipulate tools.

 

AR has tremendous potential to transform the way we learn, interact with the world around us, and solve problems by giving us previously unseen information. As Arnie said, after assessing the security in a police station, “I’ll be back”…

 

 

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