Augmented reality idea to make transparent walls

From New Scientist: "An augmented reality system that makes walls transparent could prevent road accidents."

Augmented reality system lets you see through walls

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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Anonymous

You’d have to put up cameras everywhere. Perfect technology for the UK then.
Xenu

All fences, walls, and other impediments will soon be obsolete anyway.

For more information: http://www.flickr.com/photos/9024682@N06/3398538826
shorty433

Just like Counterstrike hax! :P
Gutierrez

Finally a use for all those pointlessly placed cameras that keep sprouting up! To think, ubiquitous observation could work for you!

… Right?
se7a7n7

Knowing how dumb some drivers are, it would be a short time until someone attempts to drive straight through the wall.
Church

Lag is a killer.
Anonymous

Driving around dividing my attention between what I can see through the windscreen and a display on a screen that shows a psychedelicised version of what I can see through the windscreen. Nice.
Cunning

I think Wiley Coyote developed something similar. I’m not sure it’s going to have the desired effect.
- Felton
  
  Heh! Speaking of birdstrike…
Axx

Someone should invent a sort of “’round-the-corner-seeing-engine”. You know, something that would augment man’s ability to see only in straight line paths to the ability to see AROUND corners where his straight line vision would be otherwise obstructed by a wall or other opaque object! I don’t know…some device for projecting the scene on the other side of said opaque object in the direction of the viewer. Such a “seeing-engine” could be placed at corners to facilitate motorist’s negotiation of the corner. But, GODS! that we had such a contrivance!
JoeKickass

For better or for worse, at least this is a practical application of AR. So far all we have a seen is a (vaguely) interactive magazine cover from Esquire.

This technology has soooo much potential that 20 years from now we’ll look back on “pre Augmented reality days” the same we we now think of “pre Internet days.”

—ie: how did we ever live that way?
—conversely, oh how I long for pre AR days :)
- peterbruells
  
  @JoelKickass Here’s the vision from the future, a comic by the German artist “Jamiri”
  
  http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/fotostrecke-50124.html
  
  I’ll provide the translation.
  
  Page 1
  
  “At first we couldn’t imagine why we should be reachable at any time.”
  
  “Soon we couldn’t imagine not being reachable at any time”
  
  Page 2:
  
  “1999/2009 the same for mobile internet”
  
  “I supposed augmented reality will be the next big thing.”
  
  Page 3:
  
  “In tens years we won’t understand how we were ever able to understand reality without superimposed additional information”..
  
  ID: Beate (Wife)
  
  Mood: kinda bda
  
  Probability of choleric fit: 54%
  
  Options:
  
  - avoid eve-contact
  
  At imminent danger
  
  - don’t talk back
  - accept guilt
  - seek out save place
  - gollux
    
    Augmented reality for guys, tells you your wife is ticked and about to clock you…
Anonymous

I’d prefer to see the wall, so as to, er, steer around it.
Anonymous

This seems like it would could be easily enough done with a wireless mesh network between cars. Put a camera on each and let the network identify objects and do AR stuff like this. Once it reached a certain saturation point it might even make automated driving practical.

OTOH, this specific AR might cause an accident if it made an obstacle transparent.
Anonymous

I’m sure Vernor Vinge is thrilled to see that someone read “Rainbow’s End”.
Anonymous

How could that work and update the angle as you move by like that? Even if they had it rigged so that it moves as you move, it would only work for one person at a time.
simonbarsinister

The Americans will deploy this sophisticated augmented reality system for several million dollars that will project blended camera views on dangerous corners.

The Russians will install a mirror at the corner.
- gollux
  
  Heh heh, wonder how many gigawatts of power generation the US will have to add if this becomes commonplace?
Anonymous

I understand as well as anyone the benefits of something like this. I was actually hit by a car just last week on my bicycle when the car went through a stop sign at a blind corner without stopping. (He slowed down somewhat because of car traffic going across, so I wasn’t hurt too badly, thank God. My bike was totaled though.)

I doubt this sort of thing would be applied at a large scale, though, because of aesthetic issues. Must building owners probably won’t want their buildings to be semi-transparent.
ian71

This can’t possibly work as well as is shown.

The projector displaying the image on the side of the building would need to know exactly where the viewer was in order for the image to be shown. If you’re 20 feet or 200 feet away from the corner you won’t see the alley car in the same position on the wall.
- Aleknevicus
  
  Further to this, such a system would be unable to handle multiple “viewers” at the same time. How would the system decide which image to project — the one for the viewer at 20 feet or the one for the viewer at 200 feet?
RyanMcFitz

Solving the technological challenges in camera-placement has tremendous utility in ushering in a new, safer age where motorists approach blind corners while staring at a monitor while driving.

As a side-effect, this might finally catalyze the long-overdue personal jetpack era so the rest of us can hover in relative safety above motorists who are essentially watching TV while driving.
Anonymous

OMG! wall hax0r!
Anonymous

hmmmmmmm…. cool but stupid at the same time!…i can see ppl driving right into the wall thinking its not there! @_@
wobblesthegoose

Vernor Vinge wants his royalty check.
Anonymous

@12, 13: I assumed that it would be a video feed transmitted to special AR-capable car windscreens or something, not actually projected onto the wall.
SamSam

The “drivers” use of this is silly, I think, for all the reasons listed above.

However, I can see much more use for this for the military, cops, and I’m sure dozens of others.

If you’re the commander of a squad moving through an urban landscape, you could (1) rely on people’s reports of what’s ahead, (2) equip men with video cameras and view multiple feeds on a bunch of screens, or (3) equip men with video cameras and see through walls via your own video camera. The third seems like it could be very useful.

Even more useful, indeed, if everyone is feeding everyone else information. That way every squad member could have see-through-walls capabilities in their flip-down heads-up display. Of course you wouldn’t be able to see any further than the furthers individual could see, but it’s a start. Add a few small mobile robots with cameras and you’re seeing much further.
misterfricative

Ah, progress, eh? Gotta love it!

Old way: Blind corner; proceed with caution.

New way: Blind corner; drive around it while watching TV. Oh, and look out for that invisible wall!
A Dot in the cosmos

This would probably be more useful for the military than anybody else. Although, that’s the way most of the technology today was formed
Itsumishi

You be projecting anything on a wall.

You’d have a windscreen that has a built in display. Your cars computer would connect to the videofeed and process that information knowing where it (the car) is in relation to the camera. It would then display the image directly in your windshield and skew the original image to match the angle you are from the camera accordingly.

Certainly sounds feasible with a powerful enough computer and reliable wireless transmission, but I’d say we’re no where near there yet. Maybe in 5 or 10 years.
2k

lol. they project the overlay onto your retinas not the wall.
and soon; a port in the base of your spine. nomnom.
Brainspore

It would be totally awesome if someone hacked the system in such a way that drivers would see a T-Rex coming toward them around the next turn.
Walt Guyll

The future is just around the corner but you never see it coming…
Itsumishi

Wow sorry that first sentence should read.

“You wouldn’t be projecting anything on a wall”.
hhype

Hey, I recognized those buildings from my long ago days at Carnegie Mellon just from the preview picture on the YouTube video.

Those crazy researchers at Carnegie Mellon, what will they think of next.

I would echo the comments above about the ubiquitous surveillance you would need to enable such a system. I like simonbarsinister’s (at #14) cheaper implementation. In Soviet Russia, reality augments you.
Anonymous

There is an existing technology for this problem that is implemented at some intersections: MIRRORS
sumi

Well, that’s nice and all…but I am rather fond of the low-tech answer to this problem – convex mirrors. The one in the alley next to Storrow Drive has saved my ass a few times.
jwb

Alternately, drivers can just slow down when approaching a blind alley.