For some time now, I have been extremely interested in the idea of Augmented Reality. I have not known of Augmented Reality for a very long while. Perhaps my first real introduction to the methods of creating wearable computing and the different ideas surronding the medium came when I was in 511 Interactive Media Seminar last semester.
I was on the web somewhere near October, when I came across a link that led me to a page which described that there was an Arena-Based Augmented Reality arcade being built in Tokyo, Japan.
The article described something that sound suspiciously like a Laser Tag arena of the type that sprang up in the early nineties all around the country. It went on further to delineate that every player in the arena would be wearing a sort of GPS system along with a wireless computer that connected to a pair of wearable LCD glasses. The wireless computer was then said to connect to a central server via an extremely wide bandwidth wireless protocol, something similar to todays 802.11g. The players in the arena would be outfitted in a vest, glasses and a laser gun and they could run around the arena shooting each other. The interesting part was that the look of the arena changed to match the requests of the players and it was through the glasses that the players perceived the arena and each other differently from game to game.
Incredulous that the technology had already made it far enough that a wearable could be small and light enough that a group of maybe fifteen to twenty players could run amok in an arena the size of half a football field, where the terrain changed through the eyes of the gamer, I told many of you that I thought this article is not a hoax, but now I ask you if such a thing could be possible. To this day, I have not been able to find the article on the web which led me down this rabbit hole.
I did however find another article describing the current technology of wearable computers and you can find it at http://www.gvu.gatech.edu/ccg/publications/imagina2000.
Check it out and let me know if this kind of gaming experience could be possible. What a great thing it could be if it could be built and we could all be playing Mike's Halflife 2 in such a setting.
I will be looking further into this.
Many people new to Interactivity seem to think that the term only extends to electronic forms of the medium. Are they wrong to think this? Or does Interactivitiy still encompass all those antiquated forms of media like Paper Games?
I intend to think that all that I have learned at USC CTIN, topics including Interactive Film and Interactive Novels are definitely stretching the definition. Of course, this only extends to whether or not one is discussing Linear Films or Novels, which, because of their format, are considered to be Interactive. All due to the way these forms make us think while we are reading. Roland Barthes describes this sort of reading to be a "writerly" reading, where the reader is as much writing the rest of the narrative connections in his or her head as the author was when they were writing the text.
Watered down, though this description may be, I have come to think that Interactivity extends to even more than my aforethought narrow-minded definition of video games and other such electronic mediums.
My opinion really extends the definition, at least in this particular discussion, to include the realm of "Paper Gaming" (a term which, I think, undermines the glorious history of this great medium).
I have recently been in the process of putting aside all other thoughts of interactive media, in order to better get a hold of the concept of gaming systems. That being said, I have been creating a complex board game which has allowed me to create a solid gaming system, which I think is the base of all games, everywhere and it is this system which has given a rise of new ideas in me to pursue in other forms of media.
I find it extremely important to start with the basics if you feel lost in the swamp of media that now forms interactivity. It is essential to my growth as an interactive content creator, developer, producer and so forth; to start at the bottom and work with the "simple design of the wheel before I build the car," if you'll excuse the metaphor.
Interactivity is a term which has grown exponentially for me in these last two semesters and my feeble attempt to answer this question will probably take several lengthy Blogs to completely answer. And even then, it will probably have morphed into an entirely new beast....
...that I will have to try to tame...until next time.
i am sam...sam i am...i do not like green eggs and ham...i do not like them with a fox...i do not like them in a box...i do not like green eggs and ham...i do not like them sam i am.
i do not like them in the rain...i do not like them on a train...i do not like green eggs and ham...i do not like them sam i am!!!