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Thursday, November 24, 2011

QR Codes

Now let's talk a bit about augmented reality. Specifically, the most common form and easily accessible form of augmented reality. The QR Code:

So how does it work?

Well let's let pictures explain:

And all that jargon makes no sense to me whatsoever. However, the picture is real spiffy.

Originating from the Land of the Rising Sun, subsidiary of Toyota, Denso Wave in 1994. Its original purpose was to track vehicles during the manufacturing process. Today, the QR code is one of the most popular 2-dimensional bar codes around, as it allows a relatively large amount of content to be decoded in a small amount of time.

Now with the pervasiveness of mobile phone with more than enough processing power to decode information, the QR code has experienced a burst of popularity as it allows essential information (such as website URLs) to be projected into a viewing device. An almost seamless blend of technology and reality.

Now I presented during NCT about augmented reality, and it seems that activity based on QR codes was well received (Well, at least from my perspective.). So, want to create your own QR code?

Here you go:

http://qrcode.kaywa.com/

And to round it all off, I will write the remainder of my blog post into the following QR code:

Minority Report: Yesterday's movie is today's technology!

Based on a short story by the late Philip K. Dick, Minority Report is a science-fiction thriller directed by Steven Spielberg which primarily deals with the theme of pre-determination vs. free will, privacy, pervasiveness of technology. Specifically, I'm here to talk about the technology.

Now one interesting point about Minority Report is the nature of the technology portrayed int he film. Particulary, the way they were conceptualized. In an effort to create a reality-based future rather than pure science-fiction, Steven Spielberg created a "Think Tank". A "Think Tank" can essentially be defined as a group of experts getting together to solve certain dilemmas. In this case, Mr. Spielberg got together 15 experts to "think" about the future, the future of technology in 2054.

Oddly enough, we are already seeing many of their proposed future technologies today! And the last time I checked, its only 2011.

Spatial reality manipulated by hand gestures?

Meet the Microsoft Kinect:

Essentially, the Kinect registers your entire body as the controller for the Xbox 360. Now all we need is proper spatial interface (holograms maybe?) to interact with as most video displays are still flat as a wall.

Mag-lev car?

Well, we already have Maglev trains:

Now we just to miniaturize the technology into a car.

Many more technological marvels are also in the works, such as electronic newspaper, interactive billboards and so on.

Minority Report is a fantastic movie, not only in the fact that it told many underlying themes but the fact that 15 experts got together and created a technological utopia and realized it into film. As time goes on, technology will get more and more pervasive, and as more of our own information and our own identity gets digitized we stand to gain much more in terms of communicating with one another but losing our own sense of privacy.