EComm 2010 Presentation on Augmented Reality. I covered some of my earlier thoughts and then introduced a thought about local money and how I think it is different from normal money.

1. ?Who will own our Augmented Reality?
@anselm
EComm America April 21st 2010 SFO

2. Your next 10 minutes
• @Anselm Hook
• Programmer and Theorist
• Worked at @ning, @meedan,
@platialmaps, @ea and @makerlab
• Was suspiciously near Eyjafjallajökull

3. AR: fear or flight?
• I am excited by AR but have concerns:
• Where will the data come from?
• Will we see each others attentive acts?
• Who will take the money?

4. Is that a reality in your
pocket?
• AR promises many things:
• A single unified view.
• A zero click interface to reality.
• The best near-field view.
• The data that is most important to your
quality of life.

5. Augmenting
understanding

6. Double Click to
Destroy
• If successful AR will have big impacts:
• Street signs will rust away.
• People will see through walls.
• Hybrid vigor of mixing perspective.
• Attention will become the currency.
• If you’re not in it you may be considered a
second class citizen.

7. Google Goggles hints at
the trend:
• A family of image analysis engines.
• A big pile of data and computation.
• Can tell you where to buy that book.
• Can tell you where your wine comes from.
• Soon will be able to tell you what people nearby think of
a piece of graffiti.
• In five years you can look at a person and know if they
are on a terrorist watch-list.
• (Google as likely winner plays the straw-man here)

8. But where will the data
come from?
• When you look at McDonalds through
your AR Glasses...
• Does Ronald McDonald hug you?
• Or do you get a stern admonition from the
local organic grocer?
• Or a map of deforestation in the Amazon?

9. It’s a bird it’s a plane!
• In the real world gaze is often a social act.
• One persons gaze directs others to the
same target.
• This is not currently the case with search
on the web.
• We live in a panopticon.
• ( Panopticon == bad ... btw)

10. We need to Federate
Attentive Acts
• The search act should go to multiple parties you
trust ( or trust by proxy ).
• If you point your phone at a statue of Nefertiti...
• The University of Cairo could respond with an
article on her life.
• If you stare at a Pizza Joint - other better local
Pizza joints that your friends trust - message you
and offer you a deal.

11. We need to define an
Open AR Stack
• AR protocols actually want to transmit behavior
not just pretty 3d models.
• Servers need to agree to run each others
behaviors not just transport bits.
• Define a shared minimum feature set.
• See work led by Tish Shute on ARWave.
• See ARML and other related work.
• Talk to a Video Game Programmer (Please).

12. There are unclear challenges
in monetization of AR
• Complete this equation:
Adwords is to X
as WWW is to Augmented Reality
• Candidates include:
AdMob
Foursquare
Craigslist?
Facebook Like?

13. The problem with
‘Money’
• Money is a severing between place and its resources.
• As you get closer to a geography it seems harder to
separate the money from it.
• At near scales people just negotiate softer and less fungible
transactions.
• The value in a place is in making it better not in extracting
wealth from it.
• We tend to be place-makers - investing into place not
taking from place.
• Attention is the currency of geography.

14. Retire with Foursquare
• For example:
• I cannot buy the
Mayorship of
Zante’s off of
@hoan for love
nor money
nor pizza.
• @hoan cannot get a discount at New York Nail
even though it is next door.

15. No smart solutions yet.

16. Closing thoughts
• The best way to protect freedom of speech is to federate
search.
• AR is about publishing “verbs” - interactive actionable
digital agents not publishing 3d models.
• AR seems to be more biological. Biomimetic approaches
may be best.
• You won’t make money by translating tired old Web
paradigms to AR.
• AR is something new yet again and has different patterns.
We need to take the time to learn them.

17. Thank you for your
time!
• Join me at: http://augmentedrealityevent.com/speakers/
• http://blog.makerlab.org#augmented_reality_thoughts
• http://anselm.typepad.com#trapped_in_venice_what I would pay
for a solution
• http://www.slideshare.net/TishShute/where20-panel-10-reasons-
why-ar-not-a-flash-in-the-pan
• http://www.slideshare.net/anselm/pechakucha-
presentation-750335#Image_Wiki_Project
• http://www.hook.org/essays/smartmoney.html

18. Important Citations
• @dianneisnor http://gigaom.com/
2010/04/05/lbs-2-0-dont-just-map-it-
manipulate-it/
• Jesse Schell’s mindblowing talk http://
www.ted.com/talks/
jesse_schell_when_games_invade_real_life.
html