<html><head><style type="text/css"></style></head><body><div style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;font-size:14pt"><div>Howdy You are right Victor, in that new technology is not inherently good or evil; its what people choose to do with it. I believe that the internet is one of the great developments of technology...This email list being but one example....my job of IT support became immensely easier when I was able to search for quick solutions rather than being forced solve all problems as-is where-is. (anyone remember when altavista was the THE search engine? Or even BEFORE search engines, when you had to rely on webrings? WAIS? Archie? BBS's?) I am not inherently opposed to these new technologies, but I have the vain hope that some form of due-diligence could be performed...new medicines & health treatment must go through fairly rigorous testing, and while crap does get through, it is reduced. I think that before we accept these new toys, that the laws MUST change to start applying product liability to O/S & software, especially anything that ISN'T open source (since being open allows a form of peer-review). Give MS & others a choice - either go open, or they have to pony up for a full, independant security audit of their apps. And they cannot vend that product until the review is complete. I agree that some of these new technologies have great potential benefit, especially for allowing the blind to see, or for instant access to desperately needed information, or even to win the "he said, she said" argument. We will never be able to stop the adoption of the latest "gee-whiz", I just want to hold those who profit from it liable for the deficiencies, but conversely believe that no single entity (government, corporation, church etc ) should ever be able to dictate or control the use of these technologies. regards Ken </div><div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 14pt;"> <div style="font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><hr size="1">From: Victor Mendonça <victorbrca@yahoo.ca> To: The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community <ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 9:02:57 PM Subject: Re: Augmented Reality Very good replies! Concerns on how things could change our life to worse are extremely important, but I also think that we as humanity should not stop evolution due to a few that use it against us. We should instead find means to put a stop to it, while still looking ahead. I think one of the main problems with society nowadays is advertisement (including, and very important, all the waste of paper that comes with it). But I don't think that things like this should stop us from discovering, creating and implementing new technologies. Think on all the good that this could create? For example, a good guess would be that to use a technology like this a constant connection to the Internet would be needed. This could give access to emergency calls (via VoIP or any other means) extremely quick. How about never getting lost again? Or having a feed of informations (like speed, school area) in front of you eyes while you are driving? Or a Dr. getting on the fly information from his patient during a surgery? A student getting training with detailed holograms? Being able to access Wikipedia during a seminar to look for something and/or saving an audio/video recording to watch later? All these would assume that many aspects of our life would change. Many copyright laws would have to be re-analysed. But I think at the end this is very exciting. You never know, a technology like this might even run on a different OS other than Linux and Windows!! :-/ Victor Mendonça <a href="http://wazem.org/" target="_blank">http://wazem.org/</a> ________________________________ From: Alfred <<a ymailto="mailto:alfred.s@nexicom.net" href="mailto:alfred.s@nexicom.net">alfred.s@nexicom.net</a>> To: The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community <<a ymailto="mailto:ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com" href="mailto:ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com</a>> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 9:44:21 PM Subject: Re: Augmented Reality -----Original Message----- From: Kenneth Hawkins <<a ymailto="mailto:kjurkic@yahoo.ca" href="mailto:kjurkic@yahoo.ca">kjurkic@yahoo.ca</a>> Reply-to: The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community <<a ymailto="mailto:ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com" href="mailto:ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com</a>> To: The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community <<a ymailto="mailto:ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com" href="mailto:ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com</a>> Subject: Re: Augmented Reality Date: Thu, 16 Apr 2009 16:35:18 -0700 (PDT) Mailer: YahooMailRC/1277.35 YahooMailWebService/0.7.289.1 Future predictions can be interesting...but I know FOR SURE I would never trust a micro-crap(TM) product with such control over my perception of the world. Any such product that would/could aftect your perceptions of reality MUST be open-source so that the code could be audited; I would hate to have a pop-up ad appear in front of me just as I was crossing a busy road. Or how about not being able to read a poster or listen to a neighbor's stereo because they hadn't paid up for DRM. Closer than you think; I had a video on youtube that arbitrarily had all sound removed because some ass-wipe at RIAA wasn't getting a cheque for a song playing in the back-ground over a loud-speaker. Imagine this....you go to a friend's place to watch a play-off game that is PPV, and your vision gets blocked because he only paid for 4 people and you are the 5th. Closer in time, I can forsee a cell-phone that is like a cochlear implant. We will see hordes of people on the street, all gabbing away with anyone but the person next to them. I can also understand the appeal of glasses that had camera/video/record & display for the ability to recall events later, or view a movie when stuck on a long bus commute, but imagine the legal & health problems of bored drivers catching up on "Survivor" in their glasses on the freeway. How do you prove they were doing so when they flattened some child in a school zone? Cell phones are bad enough right now. I used to be a real tech enthusiast, and I really do use most of the features of my cell phone (text, camera, contacts, etc). I confess to believing that there is a limit to to what SHOULD be allowed, though I despair that these will be considered. All new technologies can at first be empowering and provide unprecedented new ideas, but eventually the powers-that-be (church, state, culture) co-opt these tools to regain control. An electronic curtain slowly descends in China while everyone is busy finding torrents of the latest Hollywood blockbuster. Even here in Canada, Alberta has implemented a new "supernet" that builds on the standard internet technologies, but is in fact a "gated community" that tightly controls the traffic to & from schools, universities, and government offices. It is sold to underfunded schools as a free-ride to videoconferencing and other new gee-whiz educational tools, and I believe the best of intentions by its drivers (the path to hell is paved etc, etc,) Sorry I ramble on, but at least at the present time, I can walk away from my computer, and SEE the world around me as it is, not as some bureaucrat, marketer, tyrant, pirate, hacker, or other would try to force me to see it. regards Ken ________________________________________________________________________ From: Victor Mendonça <<a ymailto="mailto:victorbrca@yahoo.ca" href="mailto:victorbrca@yahoo.ca">victorbrca@yahoo.ca</a>> To: The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community <<a ymailto="mailto:ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com" href="mailto:ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com">ubuntu-ca@lists.ubuntu.com</a>> Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 3:52:35 PM Subject: Augmented Reality Hi all, I was wondering if anyone here has any inputs or views of what might come in the future with augmented reality? I just finished reading a book (Rainbows End) that talked about people in the future wearing contact lenses that allowed then to view and interact in very different ways that what we have today. They were always connected to the Internet, were able to transform and view things in a different way, watch a game without a ball on a field that didn't have markings, make searches, view directions tagged buildings, technical papers on "tagged"objects, have virtual meetings across the world, etc... I did not expect that to be possible within 100s of years due to the size limitation of a contact lens. However today I depared myself with an augmented reality live demo from GE (<a href="http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/?c_id=Huff#/augmented_reality" target="_blank">http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/?c_id=Huff#/augmented_reality</a>) and I was impressed with something that I did not expect to be available right now. After more reading I found that a company is working on developing a camera/screen that would be the same size of today's glasses; there are applications ready for Windows based mobile devices as well as I-phone; a small Museum and a University already have tags that can be used with augmented reality. I'm very excited with this... Just wanted to see what other fellow geeks thought about it!! :) Victor Mendonça <a href="http://wazem.org/" target="_blank">http://wazem.org/</a> We already have a form of Augmented Reality, DVD Players in Minivans. It used to be "SPEED KILLS!", now it's DVD Movies in Travelling Vans, distracts, and Kills! Then there is the new reality that you are living in, just a bit different from the reality that used to be. It will be Big Brother is Watching you! Everyone will be Big Brother, and eyes will pry into all of it, because your vision is now shared. Small screens luckily are hard to see. New Diseases will appear, similar to Carpal Tunnel, and Pains in the hand from too much use of the thumb for keying. New kinds of headaches perhaps. All these new things can bring some neat changes, that can be made use of in Good and Bad ways. Reality is what you are aware of. You are not aware of all of it, there are some hidden things that go with it. Any additions to it, is the augmented part of it. Some people may be more aware than others. I used to like things like this, but now I'd rather not Go There! I was not as aware of things as I am now, so I didn't see all the things most others never see. For some Blind, this might hold some promise, that might be deemed GOOD! Some Journalist recently made a film with an Ocular Camera, small enough to fit into an artificial Eye. In the last year. You need to consider though Hackers, and other possible enemies that will arise. Computer makers, and inventors didn't consider these things early on, and look at what happened! What is the environment that these things will be used in? How can others use these things against you? Dick Tracy's Watch, took a while but now it's been done! So too can just about anything be done, as doing things gets more accurate. Smaller and smaller, things can get. It may be distraction, and then it takes away from your feeling of Peace! Adds to the Pollution, that we live in, adds to the diseases, adds to the Medications that MANAGE diseases. Adds to the Bill, of those renting it to you. You can live without these things, but they are COOL to try! Alfred! ________________________________________________________________________ Instant message from any web browser! Try the new Yahoo! 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