From The Ramparts

From the Ramparts

Junious Ricardo Stanton

Pushing the Technology Envelop

“With augmented-reality gear barely on the market, rigorous studies of its effects on vision and mobility have yet to be done. But in reviewing the existing research on the way people perceive and interact with the world around them, we found a number of reasons to be concerned. Augmented reality can cause you to misjudge the speed of oncoming cars, underestimate your reaction time, and unintentionally ignore the hazards of navigating in the real world. And the worst thing about it: Until something bad happens, you won’t know you’re at greater risk of harm.” https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/portable-devices/the-reallife-dangers-of-augmented-reality

                                       

            More and more people are buying what are called augmented reality gizmos and gadgets such as: Microsoft Hololens, Magic Leap Lightwear, Google Glass Enterprise Edition, Vuzix Blade AR and numerous others soon coming to market. What is augmented reality you ask? Augmented Reality or AR is explained as: “Augmented reality is the integration of digital information with the user's environment in real time. Unlike virtual reality, which creates a totally artificial environment, augmented reality uses the existing environment and overlays new information on top of it…Augmented reality apps are written in special 3D programs that allow the developer to tie animation or contextual digital information in the computer program to an augmented reality ‘marker’ in the real world. When a computing device's AR app or browser plug-in receives digital information from a known marker, it begins to execute the marker's code

and layer the correct image or images”

https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/augmented-reality-AR

            AR is different from virtual reality in that AR is your real time environment with visuals and graphics superimposed while virtual realities is simulated three dimensional images, computer generated environments, fantasy or make believe. Now it has been discovered that Facebook is working on   technologies that can/will scan your brain and use AR technology to share one’s thoughts and images with the world.

            An article on the Waking Times Website http://www.wakingtimes.com/2018/04/23/facebook-teams-up-with-shady-darpa-exec-to-scan-your-brain-and-augment-your-reality/ claims Facebook is teaming up with the Defense Advanced Research Agency (DARPA) to  create new technologies that integrate AR with what we are thinking or doing and share that with the world (or allow Big Brother to know exactly what you are thinking and doing in real time). The article quotes Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as he describes the planned technology. “In the future, you’ll be able to snap your fingers and pull out a photo and make it as big as you want and with your AR glasses you’ll be able to show it to people and they’ll be able to see it. As a matter of fact, when you get to this world, a lot of things that we think we think about as physical objects today, like a TV for displaying an image, will actually just be $1 apps in an AR app store. So it’s going to take a long time to make this work. But this is the vision, and this is what we’re trying to get to over the next ten years” ibid.

            The article raises cogent questions about the impact of this technology on personal privacy, “Facebook users need to ask themselves whether or not they want to live in this world of augmented reality. It’s uncertain at this point just how many of our current abilities and freedoms we could lose if this kind of technology took over our lives. Would it be possible to have a private moment? With Facebook technology becoming ever-more invasive into our lives and their protection of privacy becoming increasingly moot, it’s possible that at some point in time we may not even remember what life was like before Facebook took control over our perceptions and intimate data.” Ibid

            Keep in mind this is already on the drawing boards at places like DARPA, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and others. This is all part of the New World Order/Big Brother surveillance society. AR and “virtual reality” are the next steps as the one pecent push the technology envelop.  But we don’t have to be willing participants in our own debasement and slavery. As I have been saying for several years, Facebook is not a benign or pristine technology; it is a monopoly, a Trojan horse we are being duped and socially engineered to install and use on our devices so corporations and the government can keep tabs on us, sell us stuff, manipulate our choices and behavior. In addition to the privacy issues there is also the issue of the unintended consequences of our digital addiction and concomitant distraction. See The Real Life Dangers of Augmented Reality at https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/portable-devices/the-reallife-dangers-of-augmented-reality to glean some of the real life adverse affects of AR.

 If you want to be a part of social networks that do not unduly expose you to unwanted surveillance and analytical data mining algorithms do the research to locate the spaces that respect your privacy that do not scrutinize or sell your information to third parties or share it with the government. Here is one site to get you started https://www.1and1.com/digitalguide/online-marketing/social-media/the-best-facebook-alternatives/

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