A mockup of an
augmented reality mobile phone using a curved LED screen
that renders data
for the wearer/user gathered by cameras mounted on one
or both
sides.Leonard Low / Wikimedia commons
(November 4, 2015) Augmented
reality is the enhancement of human perception through overlaying technologies
that can expand, annotate and even record the user’s moment-to-moment
experience.
Those designing coming augmented reality systems should make
them adaptable to change, resistant to hacking and responsive to the needs of
diverse users, according to a white paper by an interdisciplinary group of
researchers at the University of Washington’s Tech Policy Lab.
Though still in its relative infancy, augmented reality
promises systems that can aid people with mobility or other limitations,
providing real-time information about their immediate environment as well as
hands-free obstacle avoidance, language translation, instruction and much more.
From enhanced eyewear like Google Glass to Microsoft’s wearable HoloLens
system, tech, gaming and advertisement industries are already investing in and
deploying augmented reality devices and systems.
But augmented reality will also bring challenges for law,
public policy and privacy, especially pertaining to how information is
collected and displayed. Issues regarding surveillance and privacy, free
speech, safety, intellectual property and distraction — as well as potential
discrimination — are bound to follow.