Items related to The End of Hardware: A Novel Approach to Augmented...
Synopsis
Draw those windows from your PC screen right into plain air. Simply look to switch lights and open doors. Virtual devices, virtual objects will surround us, everywhere. Only one piece of hardware will do it all, replace anything. Technology is ripe for it now. 'This is not one of the usual popular science books - this is the blueprint for an entire technology'. It is addressed to the interested public as well as to technology experts. It's not just a summary of the already existing, but outlines new and astonishing solutions. Even some science fiction prose is included, to give the reader a hands-on experience of this new technology. 300 pages, 145 illustrations.
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About the Author
Rolf R. Hainich is an experienced researcher with a focus on Augmented Reality and related fields. His career covers academic and industrial R&D (real time computer networks and processing, media technology, optics, sensors). He was chief consultant in public R&D funding programs, engaged in venture capital, supervised several high tech companies. Beginning in the early 90's, he developed his ideas on augmented reality with emphasis on virtual devices, wrote papers and studies (e.g. "Integrative 3D Visualization", 1994, already outlining the full spectrum of AR), helped to start projects in related fields. 2006, he published the 1st edition of "The End of Hardware", centered about the ubiquitous application of near-eye displays, required technologies, possible solutions.
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Preface (shortened)
Mobile phones will soon have harddisks and replace a camcorder, a PC, anything. But how to use all this ?
Travelling with 2 pieces of luggage, looking for my connecting flight, I just imagine fumbling around with this thing, trying to see any informations on that dwarfish display. Taking out a pen trying to stab little blots on the display also doesn't help.
This technology, after getting as near to the personal communicator as anything so far, will surely hit the wall in near future, simply because there is no acceptable display, and rollout displays or projectors won't do.
Long ago I realized this, and now technology is ready to solve the problem. We need to have the display eliminated in favor of an eye projector, glasses with a tiny add-on that could finally weigh less than 20g. Forget those ancient virtual reality goggles. Forget anything hampering direct sight. It can be done way better.
Virtual objects, virtual devices will surround us, everywhere. They will replace most of today's user interface hardware, screens, keypads, dashboards, entire installations, and they will do much more. Yet these virtual things won't clutter up our view at all, because other than with some classical approaches to augmented reality, here they will be seamlessly integrated into and fixed with the real environment, rather than sticking in front of the user's eyes.
We also have to envision entirely new applications and usage habits. It's a new world to explore. No more desktop mapped to a computer screen, but operating systems mapped to the real world. Available anywhere. Boosting productivity beyond any expectations.
Many augmented reality projects now deal with screens placed everywhere, projected items, lots of additional installations. This may be appropriate for certain applications, but what we actually want is to reduce hardware and costs, not to multiply them, don't we?
Recent studies say that copper will get rare even in spite of recycling. So will other resources. It will therefore be wise anyway to push forward technologies that will reduce large appliances, offices space, wiring. We will see that the actual IT hardware of the ultimate perceptional interface could fit in a sugar cube and take less than 10 milliwatts of power. Micro and nano technologies will be very important here.
Some tasks will turn out easier than anticipated. We don't need tactile feedback. Nobody wants gloves. We don't need gestures. Too complicated. Pressing virtual keys is so simply to implement, you wouldn't believe it, but even this won't be the end. We'll finally operate anything by just looking at. It will be like magic.
Current near eye displays won't do. We need something that dynamically adapts to eye motion, incorrectly sitting glasses, focus and aperture effects, geometry changes. Also of course something that does not impair direct sight at all, has very high resolution, a very large field of view, and includes a mask display to make virtual objects non transparent.
It can be built, and for the basic functions somebody will already have to reinvent the wheel, as many of the problems have been solved in this or that military project.
I address this to technicians, interested public, executives. This is not something you need a degree for to read it (hopefully). A little background should suffice. I'll try to explain anything without riding formulas or talking tech jargon.
This book is meant to ponder the technology as well as its applications. The entire scope. I go as far as to write a little SciFi prose to make this more colorful. Only by stressing our fantasy and delving into the scenario we will be able to find new applications, and there are many.
Utterly important here it is to sort out the impossible and the unacceptable, or this would really be nothing but fiction.
The applications dictate the construction. I try to define the necessities and the technologies that could do it . You'll see that it will finally be working. We will be able to build those ultra light plastic glasses that don't even look as if they got any super technology in them. We will have to face all those problems arising from the everyday use of virtual objects. And much more.
I propose some image processing methods but that's not my core interest. I recommend programmers to look up [5] and [19] and [22], among others. These works have just quite recently contributed a lot to the software part. Displays and especially optics, utterly important parts, have been widely neglected. Maybe nobody realized the full potential of a really good solution? So I'll address this extensively, including new solutions like holographic optics and image generators that may change things entirely.
This book comes in several parts. First is an introduction, outlining the technological and economical basics and showing a lot of new ideas and many illustrated application examples.
Then a piece of fiction, that in my opinion will say more than any of these brittle tech ideas. The applications list is also continued in part 4, with emphasis on virtual media. There I'll also address themes like 3D and surround cinema and holographic encoding.
Part 3 goes into technical detail, exploring possible solutions. I am not going to calculate details except for the absolutely necessary, as even this is also meant to be understandable to the general public. It may also help anyone interested in actual construction work in figuring out what to do and how.
I've written this book in order to motivate as many people as possible to involve in this new development, or at least to keep it in mind with their everyday decisions. As soon as a first - even a simple - implementation succeeds, drawing competition and accelerating the development, it will start an avalanche.
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