The increasing richness of memorial media is a powerful by-product of accelerating change in technology, information and communication. In five years time, both broad public-facing and private 3d memorial media has a good chance of taking off, gradually catalyzing a shift in the way we interact with history and our dearly departed.
How do we properly remember and honor the dead? Our cultural answer to this question has changed over the millennia alongside with the invention of memory-enhancing technologies such as symbols, spoken language, writing, photography, video, digital information and the web.
Now the trend continues as powerful new disruptors such as social media, semantic search, virtual worlds and mirror worlds allow us to assemble, aggregate and interact with information about the dearly departed in surprising new ways.
On the most basic level, crowd-edited text-based structures like Wikipedia have already catalyzed an explosion of biographical data capture and made possible a growing niche of specialized human memorial websites.
Similarly, account-driven portals like Geanealogy.com’s Virtual Cemetery Project, MyCemetery, and World Gardens have been growing in popularity and each lay claim to being “The World’s First Online Memorial and Virtual Cemetery” or such.
In the physical world, progressive cemetery Hollywood Forever, which boasts the densest concentration of celebrity gravesites, has sparked a media memorial trend by displaying actors’ hilight reels beside their tombs. (Yes, for a pretty steep price you too can purchase your very own Lifestories Kiosk.)
The day when anyone can create a stunning 3D Augmented Reality simulation is getting closer. Last month, General Electric's innovative AR media campaign to promote its 'Smart Grid' platform helped to push Augmented Reality out into the masses by giving users a chance to try it at home using a printable marker download and webcam.
Now Digital Urban has featured a new Google Earth Plug-in and Printable Marker download developed by InGlobe Technologies. The company has expanded its Augmented Reality Media software beyond Google Sketchup into the increasingly 'mirror world'-esque Google Earth. Downloads are available on the company's ARSights.
Technology promises radical change in relationships.
We are in the midst of a sea of change, in which not only are
many traditional relationships failing, but unexpected new
arrangements are beginning to appear; gay marriages are becoming
increasingly popular, and many people are consciously choosing to
live alone. How does technology affect relationships? Telephones,
cameras, and camcorders have long been instrumental in bringing
people together. Today, many spend time chatting on the phone or
the Internet – trying to develop or strengthen friendships.
Now technology is entering a bold, but controversial new step.
In the UK, University of Redding’s Kevin Warwick, and his wife
Irena will soon link their emotions together with chip implants.
Tiny silicon chips will enable the couple to “read” each other’s
feelings wherever they are. Every feeling – positive and negative –
will be shared.
This technology will not be endorsed by everyone. Many believe
sharing every feeling is too invasive – some feelings need to be
private. But we live in a time when over half of all marriages end
in divorce, so researchers in their search to fill needs, examine
where technologies might help. (cont.)
It has been said that the reason doctors and surgeons have not
embraced simulated training to the same degree as airline pilots is
because they don’t “go down” with their patients. The implicit
message is that pilots have an incentive to utilize the very best
training tools.
This distinction is important because as 3-D display and virtual
reality technology continues to improve it will soon reach a point
where it is just as good if not better than current training
techniques. The U.S. military has already embraced virtual reality
training to prepare soldiers before they go into actual combat
because it has been demonstrated to save lives. The same will soon
be true in the health care industry, but first doctors and surgeons
(and the medical institutions that train them) will need to unlearn
existing training methods which they have relied on for the past
many decades.
This lesson in unlearning is not, however, limited to the health
care sector. As this article suggests, innovative leaders in the
automotive industry are already embracing the technology. There is
no reason educators and professionals in a host of other industries
can’t do the same.
My question to Future Blogger readers is what other industries
you think can benefit from 3-D/virtual reality training.
Virtual worlds are created by us – so why limit ourselves to
reality? We could create entirely new realities. By realising that
we are free of the rules of real life, the doors are open to
incredible new possibilities. In many ways, virtual worlds already
provide us with glimpses of alternate realities. Its time we took
notice of these instrumental differences. In the future, we may decide that a virtual existence, a
life inside a fully immersive computer game where our every desire
is fulfilled, is a more appealing option than the real world we
currently inhabit. Many people have presented the idea that we are
already in such a virtual reality, but I don’t believe this is
possible. This is because virtual worlds provide us with many
possibilities that the real world does not, so why have they not
been “programmed” into the real world we know?
Since the early 21st century, the residents of the virtual world
Second Life have been working hard to recreate real life as
accurately as possible. Despite the virtual platform giving
occupants the ability to fly and teleport, they still prefer to
meticulously create staircases to walk their avatar up and down. At
discos, people require the coolest dance animations and best
looking clothes. In meetings, virtual characters sit down to rest
their virtual legs. It seems the confines of reality provide a
comfortable and familiar environment.
But virtual worlds are created by us – so why limit ourselves to
reality? We could create entirely new realities. By realising that
we are free of the rules of real life, the doors are open to
incredible new possibilities. In many ways, virtual worlds already
provide us with glimpses of alternate realities. Its time we took
notice of these instrumental differences. (cont.)
It seems that in these times of economic decline, people don’t want to forgo the luxuries that they’ve grown accustomed to over the years, so are choosing to indulge themselves in a virtual manner instead. There’s certainly a lot to be said for staying home surrounded by cheap entertainment compared with going out and being ripped off and mugged. Could this be the future? As Virtual Reality improves, we’ll be finding it replacing more and more of the “Real Life” things we currently take for granted.
Why travel on dangerous, expensive, and environmentally unfriendly airlines when you can immerse yourself in a Virtual holiday? Google Earth and Google Street, not to mention other “virtual sightseeing” options have recently taken a lot of big steps towards this. Although virtual reality interfaces have a long way to go before we can experience all the delights of a trip to somewhere beautiful, in the next few years it will be possible to walk down a foreign street on your computer screen, with the realism of a TV documentary. You’ll be able to go into a real shop, select a real item from a real shelf, and make real purchases from the shops on this street, to be delivered to your door. In Second Life, you can already wander around the accurately recreated streets of Dublin and other major cities. Primitive as it is now, we’ll soon be taking it for granted.
In the very distant future, personal nano-fabrication devices could allow us to recreate the exact tastes and textures of foods available anywhere on Earth. And if not, computer interfaces to our brains will merely simulate the feelings and tastes of eating these exotic cuisines. Whether as part of a virtual reality interface or not, the ability to remotely indulge our senses will surely come from somewhere.
France-based Easy Web develops 3D video projection systems for 'monumental architecture', but could they be developing new cultural expectations for human-city interfaces where everything becomes a template?
How do we properly remember and honor the dead? Our cultural answer to this question has changed over the millennia alongside with the invention of memory-enhancing technologies such as symbols, spoken language, writing, photography, video, digital information and the web.
How does technology affect relationships? Telephones,
cameras, and camcorders have long been instrumental in bringing
people together. Today, many spend time chatting on the phone or
the Internet – trying to develop or strengthen friendships.
In the future, we may decide that a virtual existence, a
life inside a fully immersive computer game where our every desire
is fulfilled, is a more appealing option than the real world we
currently inhabit. Many people have presented the idea that we are
already in such a virtual reality, but I don’t believe this is
possible. This is because virtual worlds provide us with many
possibilities that the real world does not, so why have they not
been “programmed” into the real world we know?