Wikichains Awarded Better Net Award

I'm happy to report that Wikichains has just been awarded a Better Net award. The grant will allow for a redesign and sprucing up of the website (hopefully also ultimately mobile access) and a few years of hosting. There should also be some funds left for a bit of research on some sample commodity chains. We are of course always looking for volunteers, so please let me know if you might be able to contribute in any way.

Augmented Reality Visualisations

Frog design recently released some nice visualisations of what augmented realities might look and feel like in a decade. It is interesting that none of the people in the images are using any sort of visible access device. One can only assume that augmented reality equipped contacts or eye glasses that are serving as the link between the material and virtual.

I see potential parallels here to the relatively recent trend of people holding phone conversations in public through hands-free wireless headsets. The act of physically holding a mobile phone usually serves a signifier that a conversation in public space is taking place non-proximately. Without the phone (or at least the act of holding the phone), it is often unclear if the caller is speaking to me, someone else in the same place, or someone on the other side of the world.

The kinds of augmented realities offered in these images are similarly enacted without devices that can act as signifiers that the user is engaging with non-proximate, or virtual, information. Will this mean that, relatively soon, we will start to see people stop in the middle of a street and wave their arms and point their fingers (see the first image) at interfaces that are invisible to the naked eye?