Magical Mashability
Casting spells in a Parallel Reality.
The Parallel Reality Computer is a new type of device that delivers “magical mashability” of our experienced reality.
The magical mashable reality
Ever since humans picked up tools and built huts, we've been seeking to mould our world, our reality, to suit us - to manifest in the real what we imagine in our minds. Our myths have always included people with magical abilities who can do more than the rest of us, by casting magical spells.
Arthur C. Clarke coined the phrase “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.
And there's no more advanced technology in human history than the networked computer!
The evolution of that technology means we can all now have access to its magic. We can use it to cast our own spells. We can shape and program our own experienced realities with unprecedented flexibility and power.
AR and the IoT
There are two such evolutions in networked computers that are key to enabling access to this magic:
Augmented Reality (AR), including holographic technologies, will give us the experience of virtual interactive objects around us that our minds can almost believe are really there.
The Internet of Things (IoT) will bring objects around us that are really there into the virtual, allowing us to control and program them however we like.
Our experienced reality is about to get very malleable indeed!
No PCs, no smartphones, no apps
And you can be sure it won't look at all like a PC or mobile desktop! It also won't look like "Spatial Computing": a desktop in 3D. Indeed, you won't even have PCs and smartphones any more.
You’ll probably have just unobtrusive AR glasses that connect to a small flat device in your pocket. You’ll experience an “ambient engagement”, where being portable means you can always drop in there and you’re always put right back where you left off.
Further, we'll be able to use our intuitions about the real universe to inform and shape the virtual universe:
Instead of a gallery app, we'll just "visit" a virtual gallery. Instead of a chat app, we'll just meet and chat. Instead of a book reader app, we'll just pick up and read virtual books, maybe while sitting in that gallery. Instead of a calendar app, there'll be calendars on the walls just like in physical reality. Instead of game apps, we'll just go somewhere where people play games together. It won't matter if the person next to you is real or virtual, they'll have all the subtle body language as if actually present.
The Parallel Reality
The merge of Augmented Reality and the Internet of Things, the real and the physical, 3D and 2D, is what I’m calling "The Parallel Reality".
The Parallel Reality Computer is a computer without apps that manifests this universe and empowers you with all the magic you need to cast your own spells there.
It’s a watermarked “free” illustration but I do like it, so…
Example spell!
To bring this all down from the abstract to a very small specific example, imagine making a game where you roll a ball down a ramp and try to get it into a hole. You want the living room light to come on if you succeed!
In The Parallel Reality, you start by building the virtual ramp and a panel with a hole, then test it by rolling a ball down. Then you put a "pressure pad" in the hole to detect it landing there. Now look over to your physical light, which also appears in its virtual form, so you can pull out a link to it and attach that link down onto the pressure pad. Roll the ball, in the hole, pad activates, light turns on in your room!
Now look back to the light and pull out a programming panel that works a bit like a spreadsheet; here you can write a simple rule that sets the light's colour to green when the linked pad is activated.
Imagine doing all that with apps!
Magical mashability
We humans want to mould our surroundings, we want to co-create with others, to express ourselves, and to make our lives and the lives of people we care about better.
Imagine having the freedom and power to create such realities ourselves, and to be able to animate and "mash up" all of our 3D and 2D world objects however we liked, and to build on each others' creations.
It would be like casting magical spells…
What do you think? Is our future in the Parallel Reality? Drop your thoughts into the comments below.