Lots of designers are using video simulations or video prototypes to develop ideas that aren't yet possible. Some of the most fun ideas imagine a digital world in which our hardware devices shrink, dissolve, or vanish altogether. This animation from Keiichi Matsuda shows a futuristic lifestyle full of data but devoid of devices. According to Matsuda,
Augmented reality is an emerging technology defined by its ability to overlay physical space with information…. It may lead to a world where media is indistinguishable from 'reality.' The spatial organization of data has important implications for architecture, as we reevaluate the city as an immersive human-computer interface.
Watch Matsuda's video with 3-D glasses to get the full effect!
There's also Julia Tsao's "Curious Displays," a product proposal for a new kind of display technology. Tsao says,
The display surface is instead broken up into hundreds of ½-inch display blocks. Each block operates independently as a self-contained unit, and has full mobility, allowing movement across any physical surface…. The blocks become a physical embodiment of digital media, and act as a vehicle for the physical manifestation of what typically exists only in the virtual space of the screen.
Monday Enhancements is a weekly series on interaction design and augmented reality.
