Why Do We Need To Augment Reality Anyway?
What's wrong with reality as it is?
There may be nothing wrong with reality. But that does not stop us trying to improve it.
Augment (verb) ;
Improving our situation
Around 10,000 years ago, reality was that humans hunted animals and gathered berries. We decided to improve on that reality by figuring out how to farm. We decided life would be better if we didn't have to roam around the land in search of food and could instead raise our own crops and animals.
To make that happen, our ancestors augmented themselves with tools like the hand plough that allowed them to invent agriculture.
After that, came the spinning Jenny and the Industrial Revolution, the silicon chip and the Digital Revolution and so on. As humans moved forward through the years, we continued to augment ourselves with tools that allow us to see and hear better, to move more comfortably and even to think more clearly.
AR and Spatial Computing
Those terms may be relatively new to our world but if augmenting is making something greater by adding to it, then it seems we've already been augmenting our reality since the beginning of civilisation.
So the question of why we need to augment reality could be answered like this: because augmenting reality is and always has been a part of our nature.
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At one point in time, our reality is augmented by tools that improve the way we turn the soil before planting seeds in order to grow food.
At another point in time, our reality is augmented by tools that improve the way we erect buildings or navigate city streets in order to grow the economy.
At all points in time humanity is constantly trying to improve reality—not because there's anything wrong with reality, but because that's just what we do.
We are continously moving and striving to improve. We just do it using new tools today.
Augmenting reality is and always has been a part of our nature.
It's just now we happened to have assigned that particular name (AR) to a particular technology: digital graphics merged into the physical world.
That's the 20th obvious thing I've noticed on this blog.
The other 19 can be found here.
If you need a little help noticing something obvious about your business, get in touch.
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