How will the average person benefit from the advances in visual computing in the near future? Imagine these possibilities in the life of a typical business user. Given the recent advances, and those on the near horizon, I would love to hear your predictions for when a scenario like this might become commonplace.
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At 6:30 am the morning alarm turns on the wall display next to your bed, gradually illuminating to show the sun rising over Mt. Hood. The scene gradually brightens and songbirds gently ease you from slumber. Sensors detect your presence as you enter the bathroom: lights come on, the shower starts at the preset temperature, and your schedule for the day appears next to the morning news on the wall. You notice that a video conference is scheduled for 8:00 am with team members situated in four different cities.
As you walk into your home office at 7:45 am, your agenda for the meeting appears on your main display. Preparing for the meeting, you realize you didn’t shave and you set your appearance in the video-enhancement option to “clean shaven”. When the conference begins, your wall display shows you sitting in a conference room at a table with your colleagues. You wonder if any of the other men haven’t shaved today and who in the group might still be wearing pajamas. In the virtual conference realm, everyone looks their best.
You share the current architecture files with the team, allowing everyone to visualize the new art museum rendered beautifully before them as you guide them verbally through your tour, navigating exterior views with hand gestures and walking through interior views,. Their locally rendered views follow your voice navigation, leading to the main exhibit hall, where you let the team explore and comment. Collective feedback on improvements and suggestions are represented to all participants in real time, changing their individual rendered views, relative to their perspective in the exhibit hall. In an hour and a half of visual collaboration, the team agrees on the planning goals for the new museum. The meeting is adjourned.
Later that afternoon, as you’re driving to the new construction site, your heads-up display (HUD) in the car calls your attention to some road debris up ahead. As you casually veer around the obstacles, you notice that the movie theater is playing the new movie you wanted to see. You tell your mobile device to order the movie so you can watch it at home tonight. Just then, the HUD reports some traffic congestion and reroutes you along a less crowded route to your destination.
At the site, your eyeglasses project a model of the building that you have been working on with your colleagues directly onto your retinas. You walk onto the dirt where ground-breaking ceremony will take place in one week, but your eyeglasses project the virtual building before you. Walking into the exhibit hall, you notice the exterior windows are facing directly into the building across the street and would produce better natural lighting effects if they faced south overlooking the bay. You reach out and move the windows to the south side of the virtual structure before you, and then look around the hall at the effects of the late afternoon sun. This is much better—it will make a better impression on the visitors who tour the structure. As you head back to your car, you send the updated architectural specs to your team with a voice command and head home.
After a long day, you’re ready to relax. You take your mobile device, send a few follow up emails about the construction project, and then press a button to turn on your entertainment center, dim the lights, and queue up your movie. Three walls in the family room light up with the movie preview. As you settle in, the sensors detect your location and orient the film angles to the director’s preferences for the best perspective. Throughout the movie, you can choose to insert yourself into the crowd and participate with wild hand gestures in reaction to the main characters antics, getting huge laughs from your kids. One of the kids puts on the headset and by moving around the family room, changes the perspective of the movie, making it appear as if he is in the movie directly. He looks left, the film angle moves left. He ducks and the camera angle lowers. He moves right and is able to look around the corner to see the bad guy hiding in the alley. After a fun night in the home holodeck, you’re feeling very relaxed and also pleased that you didn’t get a flat tire from the road debris encountered earlier.
