Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's
Speaker 1: guest producer Andrew over there. Uh and um, this is
Speaker 1: stuff you should know everybody, the real, real edition, but
Speaker 1: not the online consignment retailer. Just meaning real twice over.
Speaker 1: That's right, very real. Yeah, not augmented it anyway. As
Speaker 1: a matter of factor. About as low tech as it
Speaker 1: comes as far as podcasts go. Oh, I think all
Speaker 1: podcasts are pretty low tech, right, No, some people really
Speaker 1: kind of you know, jazz it up a little razzle dazzle. Sure, Like,
Speaker 1: could you imagine a world where someone listens to Stuff
Speaker 1: you should Know and they're wearing a headset and in
Speaker 1: front of their face that was either us or what
Speaker 1: we're talking about, or any of a mix of those things,
Speaker 1: I like, the second idea or what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: or if it was an animated version of us. Remember
Speaker 1: those animated shorts. Yeah, gosh, those were good. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: you know we have a mutual friend, uh who I
Speaker 1: will tell name off air to you who was getting
Speaker 1: into this quite a few years ago with another company
Speaker 1: and came to me and was like, Hey, what do
Speaker 1: you think about maybe one day you and Josh, you know,
Speaker 1: doing these shooting videos. And at first I was like, Nope,
Speaker 1: now hear me out shooting videos to where we were,
Speaker 1: let's say, walking people on a virtual tour of like
Speaker 1: a neighborhood in New York City and telling about the
Speaker 1: history and the way that we do and stuff like,
Speaker 1: Oh man, that would be awesome. You think, yes, dude,
Speaker 1: I think people would love that. I would love that. Well,
Speaker 1: this person was also a big believer in a R
Speaker 1: and said, dude, in a few years, you won't be
Speaker 1: able to buy a pair of glasses or sunglasses that
Speaker 1: don't have this built in. Yeah. I think your friend
Speaker 1: is right. Well, no, this was a few years ago.
Speaker 1: It's like it's it should be happening right now according
Speaker 1: to this person. Yeah, I remember at the time thinking
Speaker 1: not only will that not happen in a few years,
Speaker 1: but that will never happen. I don't know, man, I
Speaker 1: don't know. So I I see what you're saying, Like,
Speaker 1: with a lot of tech, there's like, you know, in
Speaker 1: five years, this is going to be all the rage.
Speaker 1: And then five years comes and goes, and we're not
Speaker 1: that much further along. But if you step back and
Speaker 1: look at the progress that augmented reality is making, um
Speaker 1: I it's I think your friend is ultimately going to
Speaker 1: be proven right. Maybe not over the same time frame obviously,
Speaker 1: because they totally failed with their prediction, but I think
Speaker 1: in the end, your friend will be vindicated. I hope
Speaker 1: is this somebody? Is this somebody that I like, because
Speaker 1: I hope it's not someone I dislike, and I'm vindicating
Speaker 1: them because I feel like I'm trapped here. Here's my
Speaker 1: prediction is that in the future there could be for
Speaker 1: sure people that are into this and that you can
Speaker 1: easily buy glasses like this. But I think the notion
Speaker 1: that this is all of humans at some point walking
Speaker 1: around like this is silly. Well, we'll see, we'll see.
Speaker 1: We'll revisit this in five years, and I think things
Speaker 1: will will be a lot different than I think. You'll
Speaker 1: be singing a different tune walking around with your VR
Speaker 1: glasses on. All right, mark the date everyone, Okay, five
Speaker 1: years from now. Yep, I'm not gonna say I'll buy
Speaker 1: everyone a beer if that Halloween twenty uh twenty four, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's five years from now, if we don't look out
Speaker 1: of our house and see everybody walking around with living
Speaker 1: a virtual augmented world, right or I guess it's possible
Speaker 1: that that could also be the title of a rob
Speaker 1: zombie movie to Halloween. There's nothing but augmented Michael Myers everywhere,
Speaker 1: that's true. I just wanted to go ahead and I
Speaker 1: guess foreshadow my future poo pooing. Okay, that's fine, that's fine.
Speaker 1: That's easy to do when you're talking about predictions. But
Speaker 1: I guess we should probably tell everybody what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: It's augmented reality. It's in the title, so you should
Speaker 1: have some heads up. But to give kind of a
Speaker 1: brief definition of augmented reality, augmented reality, I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: it a fourth time here. Augmented reality is a type
Speaker 1: of technology that adds like a digital layer, computer generated
Speaker 1: layer of UM augmentation to real life. And it can
Speaker 1: be really actually any kind of sensory input. Typically it's
Speaker 1: something visual, but it could also be haptic feedback, so
Speaker 1: tactile like touch. It can be UM sound. You can
Speaker 1: be walking through a certain place that will trigger like
Speaker 1: a sound. Eventually it might be smells um warmth. Who
Speaker 1: knows what we'll be able to do, But right now
Speaker 1: most people are typically talking about visual stuff. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: they could combine the I smell with VR or a R.
Speaker 1: I love that idea, man, I think the I smell
Speaker 1: was just ahead of its time, not that it was
Speaker 1: a bad idea. They've already gotten music. They've had that
Speaker 1: since the Walkman. Sure, I guess it's a it's primitive
Speaker 1: a R SHT. So I don't know that I would
Speaker 1: call a sound a R except for the fact that
Speaker 1: maybe you could look at something and it's triggered, right,
Speaker 1: but it's all there. It's already two. Have us leave
Speaker 1: our material world on a daily basis and go somewhere
Speaker 1: else entirely Well, that technically is virtual reality, where you're
Speaker 1: plunged into an entirely alternative version of reality. Augmented reality
Speaker 1: is it's real, it's our normal reality, but there's there's
Speaker 1: an extra little touch to it that's digitized. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: the videos that I've seen, there was so much going on.
Speaker 1: In my opinion, you are leaving the real world. Atcha catch.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you're transported to you know, Venus or anything.
Speaker 1: But when you're sitting in a room and there are
Speaker 1: screens all in front of your face and the couches.
Speaker 1: You know, you can change your couch to a different
Speaker 1: fabric virtually, Like, I don't consider that the real world. Okay,
Speaker 1: I I think that you might be in the minority.
Speaker 1: But okay, oh, I think we'll see in five years
Speaker 1: that I'm not. Okay. So if you if you kind
Speaker 1: of are like, well, I still don't I don't quite
Speaker 1: get it. What we're talking about is Pokemon Go. Basically, yeah,
Speaker 1: so Pokemon Go in two thousand and sixteen, it was
Speaker 1: an enormous hit. It's this game where you walk around
Speaker 1: and you basically play Pokemon in the real world. You
Speaker 1: go visit with Pokemon creatures and try to capture them,
Speaker 1: and um, like your score is as is shown on
Speaker 1: the screen of your phone and you're using your camera
Speaker 1: and it's adding that digitized Pokemon layer to the real
Speaker 1: world you're seeing through your camera screen. And it was huge.
Speaker 1: Apparently it just past the three billion dollar mark, which
Speaker 1: is pretty pretty substantial profit made for a game that's
Speaker 1: actually free. It's a free game, but there's a lot
Speaker 1: of in app purchases and they've made three billion dollars
Speaker 1: off of that so far. So there's a huge appetite
Speaker 1: for augmented reality that Pokemon Go showed everyone. Oh for sure.
Speaker 1: I think there are plenty of applications for augmented reality
Speaker 1: in the future, right and so, UM, we kind of
Speaker 1: got into it a little bit. The difference between virtual
Speaker 1: reality and augmented reality. Have seen it put really well
Speaker 1: in that virtual reality takes the user anywhere and augmented
Speaker 1: reality brings everything to the user. Um. I think that's
Speaker 1: a great description. But the idea is in in VR,
Speaker 1: you're transported to a different world. In augmented reality, your
Speaker 1: world is has that digitized layer added to it. And
Speaker 1: then there's also something called mixed reality, which if you
Speaker 1: read about it, that to me is that's the future
Speaker 1: of augmented reality. Yeah. I wasn't quite sure the exact
Speaker 1: difference here. It seems like very fine lines definition wise,
Speaker 1: it is because augmented reality and mixed reality are virtually
Speaker 1: the same thing as just mixed reality is kind of
Speaker 1: like the um more sophisticated version of augmented reality. But
Speaker 1: a good example that kind of distinguishes the two that
Speaker 1: I've seen is, um, let's say that you are you
Speaker 1: have your augmented reality phone going and you you hold
Speaker 1: a soup can up in front of it. Well, your
Speaker 1: your app says, oh, it's the soup. You know it's
Speaker 1: it's Campbell's low sodium Tomato soup. Obviously, user friend who's
Speaker 1: holding the phone up to the soup can wants to
Speaker 1: know more about this soup, and it triggers like some
Speaker 1: nutrition facts that aren't found on the label, or maybe
Speaker 1: a recipe or something like that. And when you're looking
Speaker 1: at this soup can through your phone, the additional layer
Speaker 1: of information that's digitized over it that makes it augmented reality,
Speaker 1: it doesn't look like it's on the soup can. It's
Speaker 1: just like a little it's like you're looking at your
Speaker 1: computer screen but it's in front of your face. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of yes, but not nearly sophisticated. That's a
Speaker 1: different thing that we'll get into later. But it's just
Speaker 1: kind of like this layer of information that's just floating
Speaker 1: in space over there. Mixed reality is far more sophisticated,
Speaker 1: where if you um held your hand up in front
Speaker 1: of in between the soup can and your phone, your
Speaker 1: your hand would would what's called acclude it would cover
Speaker 1: up that information. That's a big thing and it's really
Speaker 1: really hard to do, but it makes the the stuff,
Speaker 1: that digitized layer of augmented reality interact with reality that
Speaker 1: much more so it could wrap around the soup can.
Speaker 1: It could be covered up by something that comes in
Speaker 1: between you and it. Um, that's mixed reality, and that's
Speaker 1: really ultimately what augmented reality will be in the future. Uh,
Speaker 1: we'll see. I'm starting to suspect have a real opinion
Speaker 1: about this now. Again, I think there are totally people
Speaker 1: the same people that loved Google Glass, which we'll get
Speaker 1: too later. Uh, Whereas at the time, I was like,
Speaker 1: this is not gonna work. I'm gonna I think you're wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna argue against your argument later on. So, UM,
Speaker 1: we can explain a little bit about how this works.
Speaker 1: It is. We are not tech experts, and we're not
Speaker 1: gonna go bother Jonathan Strickland right now, no, or bother ourselves, frankly,
Speaker 1: but we can give you sort of a brief the
Speaker 1: briefest layman's overview of how this stuff works. Uh, there's
Speaker 1: a field of um, I mean, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: disciplines in it called computer vision, that's really super complicated,
Speaker 1: but for our purposes, I guess we can just say
Speaker 1: that computer vision basically, uh understands what's going on in
Speaker 1: the world around whoever is using the augmented reality. And
Speaker 1: they do this by you know, there's there's got to
Speaker 1: be an interaction, and we'll talk about the wearables and
Speaker 1: the headsets and stuff as opposed to smartphones. But what
Speaker 1: they use is something called a time of flight sensor,
Speaker 1: which is sort of works like a bat's use echolocation,
Speaker 1: except it's not echolocation. It's infrared light. So they bounced
Speaker 1: this light and if you look at these things, it
Speaker 1: looks like a almost like a little go pro camera
Speaker 1: or something like that on your forehead, which sends out
Speaker 1: these pulses of light that are reflected by the objects
Speaker 1: around you, and then it measures the delay of that
Speaker 1: light reflecting back to you to calculate, you know, everything,
Speaker 1: basically the depth of everything around you. Right, And then
Speaker 1: every time it makes this measurement, it also says, I'm
Speaker 1: a dork, that's right, because you're wearing this on your forehead, right.
Speaker 1: And we also see with two eyes, we have binocular vision,
Speaker 1: and so in order to simulate that Uh. They have
Speaker 1: something called stereo cameras that are you know, uh, basically
Speaker 1: placed like your eyeballs are at a fixed distance, and
Speaker 1: then triangulates everything together to work with your two eyeballs,
Speaker 1: right exactly. So if you look at them, if you
Speaker 1: have a new iPhone, if you look at the back,
Speaker 1: you'll see that there's two cameras on the back. Um,
Speaker 1: some cameras. I think hu way highway. I can't remember
Speaker 1: how to pronounce it. They have a phone with three cameras,
Speaker 1: but does it? Okay? Um? But the the the input
Speaker 1: from these cameras are providing slightly different information to the
Speaker 1: onboard brain on your phone, and so it uses this
Speaker 1: different information to triangulate it. Basically, um UM differentiates between
Speaker 1: the information and says, okay, this is how far away
Speaker 1: this this thing is, or this wall is, or this
Speaker 1: you know, walkway goes, and it uses that information to
Speaker 1: create UM the digitized layer that that is augmented reality
Speaker 1: within the space that it realizes it's looking at. It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: this is what I have to work with. Let's get rendering.
Speaker 1: And that's the next step is rendering, which can be
Speaker 1: as simple as UM adding like that layer of text
Speaker 1: in front of you when you hold up that soup can.
Speaker 1: Or it can be far far more sophisticated, like say,
Speaker 1: using a Snapchat filter that makes you look like you're
Speaker 1: wearing a cute little cat mask, but no matter where
Speaker 1: you move your face up and down, or if you
Speaker 1: open your mouth or something like that, it follows it perfectly,
Speaker 1: which would actually technically make the Snapchat filter mixed reality
Speaker 1: rather than augmented reality. Yeah, I don't do the Snapchat thing,
Speaker 1: but you can do that on FaceTime. And I made
Speaker 1: the mistake of doing that facetiming my kid, and now
Speaker 1: that's all she wants to do whenever FaceTime is be
Speaker 1: a monkey or a dinosaur or a lion or a
Speaker 1: lizard or a robot or whatever, or which is kind
Speaker 1: of fun and it is you know, uh, it is
Speaker 1: pretty amazing that on this little phone you can stick
Speaker 1: your tongue out and wrinkle your eyes and and you
Speaker 1: can do that as a kiddiecat or a monkey in
Speaker 1: real time. And so it does all this because of
Speaker 1: all the facial facial recognition UM software aboard your phone, UM,
Speaker 1: the gyroscope you know where you're like, who who needs
Speaker 1: a compass? So I'm not gonna walk around in the
Speaker 1: woods with this thing all the time. Actually, do you really? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I mean I've got in the woods, but you know me,
Speaker 1: I have a terrible sense of direction. So if I'm
Speaker 1: in New York or wherever and I'm like, I need
Speaker 1: to go north, then it's a very simple way to
Speaker 1: find out. Yeah. True, but I'm I've always just used maps,
Speaker 1: and it's really good for maps. That's how it knows
Speaker 1: which way you're facing is that gyroscope and GPS coordinates.
Speaker 1: So it's using all of this stuff, um, along with
Speaker 1: facial recognition to to map and track where you're moving.
Speaker 1: And no matter whether it's rendering the soup can information
Speaker 1: or the snapchat filter, um, it does this. It does
Speaker 1: all these calculations in figures out where what's going on
Speaker 1: in the room and your motion and where your faces
Speaker 1: or where the soup can is all that stuff. It
Speaker 1: doesn't every time the camera sends a frame of info
Speaker 1: to the to the onboard computer on your phone, which
Speaker 1: happens thirty times per second, So these calculations are being adjusted, analyzed,
Speaker 1: and re measured, and then the output is being put
Speaker 1: out thirty times per second, which is pretty impressive. You
Speaker 1: know what. I think you just hit on the key
Speaker 1: difference in our outlook on this what it sounds like
Speaker 1: you are primed for a r because I am someone
Speaker 1: if I'm in New York, let's say, and I will say,
Speaker 1: I will say, uh, all right, I know I need
Speaker 1: to go northeast to get to this place. So I'll
Speaker 1: just chart what northeast is. I'll put the phone in
Speaker 1: my pocket and I'll start walking. Start walk, And I
Speaker 1: think you are more primed to look at your map
Speaker 1: and go along the streets that it's telling you to go.
Speaker 1: On m I listened to the computer, is what you're saying. No,
Speaker 1: not necessarily, but like the I think those are two
Speaker 1: distinct differences of like kinds of people and how they
Speaker 1: interact with technology in the world around them. Whereas I
Speaker 1: just want to know I'm going northeast and that's correct.
Speaker 1: A lot of people are wanted to look at that
Speaker 1: map the whole way, and now they're going, like on
Speaker 1: the exact right street to get them there. I guess
Speaker 1: the quickest right, Which one do you think is correct?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean I like to meander. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like me and doing too. I'm with you too,
Speaker 1: for sure, But I also use ways like everywhere I
Speaker 1: drive to I've never used it. It's really helpful, but
Speaker 1: I don't I don't just sit like. I don't sit
Speaker 1: there and like follow the ways app or anything like
Speaker 1: I'm looking out the windows. So I would say I'm
Speaker 1: somewhere between between you and like a Pokemon Go player. Well,
Speaker 1: I drive Emily crazy because I am quite comfortable get
Speaker 1: it unless I'm in a hurry, not getting someplace as
Speaker 1: quickly as possible, and she's always like, where are you going.
Speaker 1: I'm like, we'll get there eventually. I like that too.
Speaker 1: I like that too, So don't mistake me. I'm somewhere
Speaker 1: in the middle. But yes, I feel like I'm a
Speaker 1: little more um into yeah or um exploited by tech
Speaker 1: than you are. So where did we leave off here? Um?
Speaker 1: With the two types of augmented reality? Yeah? Did we would?
Speaker 1: Did you say those? No, we haven't talked about because
Speaker 1: I was just about to talk about marker and marker less. Yeah,
Speaker 1: those are the two broad categories. Yeah, and these, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's very simple and it makes a lot of sense. Uh.
Speaker 1: Marker based is basically if something is sort of pre
Speaker 1: programmed and loaded into your program or your app or
Speaker 1: your phone, and it knows you know, once you look
Speaker 1: up at that thing, like the New York Public Library.
Speaker 1: If you're let's say you have an app about New
Speaker 1: York history. I keep picking on New York here because
Speaker 1: it's easy. Well we were just there too. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So it would have something preloaded about the New York
Speaker 1: Public Library that will pop up in front of your face. Right,
Speaker 1: it recognizes the library goes oh, oh, I know that thing, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: and it's it's out there information. It's a marker, yeah,
Speaker 1: or you know, could be a QR code, um market
Speaker 1: loop can don't forget soup can chuck. Got to know
Speaker 1: those sup recipes, right, it's add water. I don't even
Speaker 1: add water. I think you're a chump if you add
Speaker 1: water to condensed soup, because it's condensed to perfection. If
Speaker 1: you ask me, do you just do the straight up? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'd like it to not run off the spoon when
Speaker 1: you hold the spoon upside down. Wow, all right, It
Speaker 1: depends on the soup. Actually, I'm I'm kidding, but I
Speaker 1: have eaten soup that I have not added water too.
Speaker 1: I would use a little less water like in a
Speaker 1: let's say Campbell's chicken noodle. Sometimes you can get a
Speaker 1: little watery, so I'll use like three quarters of a can. Maybe. Hey,
Speaker 1: I've got one for you. Have you ever had Progresso's
Speaker 1: I don't remember. It's like supposedly they're like healthier version
Speaker 1: or whatever, but they have a creamy chicken noodle. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: U me got it, And I just happened to be like,
Speaker 1: what's in the pantry. I'll open this and I ate it,
Speaker 1: and I like it so much that I would have
Speaker 1: felt bad not mentioning it. Since we're talking about soup, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of can soup, of having that around. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is that time of year. Two it is. It's
Speaker 1: can soup time of year. Everyone. No one ever eats
Speaker 1: can gaspacho in the summer. Can soup is like a
Speaker 1: fall winter kind of thing. This episode brought to you
Speaker 1: by Progresso. It's that time of year everyone. I wish
Speaker 1: it were that easy. Uh? Where were we? Marker lists
Speaker 1: is a little bit different and a little bit trickier. Uh.
Speaker 1: It basically means there are no markers, so your device
Speaker 1: actually has actually recognize things and be smart enough to
Speaker 1: say that's a soup can. Uh. And it's not pre
Speaker 1: programmed in but I know what a soup can looks like.
Speaker 1: So here's what you do. Add water, right exactly. So
Speaker 1: um that Pokemon Go apparently did that. For example, when
Speaker 1: you were walking by a river, it would say, oh,
Speaker 1: I recognize a river. I recognize this bit of land
Speaker 1: or something like that. And it doesn't have actual markers
Speaker 1: that are pre programmed. It's just smart enough to know
Speaker 1: a river when it sees a river, and it will
Speaker 1: show you like a water loving pokemon like gyro dose
Speaker 1: or something like that. Oh boy, all right, let's take
Speaker 1: a break. I'm gonna forget that ever happened. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about the history right after this. Stuff you should know, gosh,
Speaker 1: stuff you should know. So this is brand new, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: no one has ever done anything with augmented reality until
Speaker 1: Pokemon Go in two thousand six. I thought it was
Speaker 1: interesting though that the very common thing that people might
Speaker 1: not think about football fans is that that first down line. Uh.
Speaker 1: And now they have all kinds of off like yards
Speaker 1: to go to make a kick maybe and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: but their overlays And we talked about that on some
Speaker 1: other show some other episode. I can't remember. I couldn't
Speaker 1: remember which one it was either, but we've definitely talked
Speaker 1: about it. Yeah, but those screen overlays and from is
Speaker 1: when they debuted sports vision, the glowing line that is
Speaker 1: augmented reality. It is the kind I can get down with. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: that's the so that works because you can only see
Speaker 1: it from one point of view, right, So it really
Speaker 1: works on TV because you can only see from one
Speaker 1: point of view, which is the camera's point of view
Speaker 1: when you're watching TV. Works really well, and you can
Speaker 1: overlay all sorts of cool stuff. But um, what differentiates
Speaker 1: that from the augmented reality that's coming around today is
Speaker 1: that in the in the stands or whatever, maybe they
Speaker 1: could project it so you know, you could see it
Speaker 1: from one angle. Um, in the future, meaning like six
Speaker 1: months from now, everybody will be sitting around in a
Speaker 1: a football stadium and they will be able to see
Speaker 1: the first down line from whatever their vantage point or
Speaker 1: point of view is by looking through their phone, yeah,
Speaker 1: their headset. Eventually, I'll bet if there's not an app
Speaker 1: out that you can do that with your phone yet,
Speaker 1: I'm it's coming, yeah, very soon, I'm sure. I'm surprised
Speaker 1: they haven't overlaid ads on the field and stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: surprised by that too, which will probably push things forward
Speaker 1: as well. Advertising. So, um, that was the first down
Speaker 1: line came out, but it goes back way further than that.
Speaker 1: As a matter of fact, thirty years before that, there's
Speaker 1: a guy named Ivan Sutherland who is a computer scientist,
Speaker 1: and he came up with a headset that you wore.
Speaker 1: Um that looks a lot like a scary, clunky, old
Speaker 1: turn of the century version of a VR headset, but
Speaker 1: it drops you into these like wire frame rooms, wire
Speaker 1: frame like you know, line drawn computer generated line drawn
Speaker 1: like troni ish kind of rooms. I was gonna say
Speaker 1: battle zone, but sure, Um, I don't know what that is. No,
Speaker 1: it was it was another arcade game where you put
Speaker 1: your face into a into a sort of a headset.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Was it like a battleship. Yeah, they were
Speaker 1: like tanks and things, but it was green wire frame.
Speaker 1: It was sort of three D look in and uh
Speaker 1: you controlled that your tank with two two controllers like
Speaker 1: shifting controllers. I got you. I'm thinking of the one
Speaker 1: where it was like you're looking through a periscope and
Speaker 1: you had to like torpedo UM ships. So like you're
Speaker 1: like you're the joystick. Were two handles coming off of
Speaker 1: like the periscope face plate that you were putting your
Speaker 1: face up too. Do you remember that one? I do?
Speaker 1: What was that one? I don't remember. It was probably
Speaker 1: just called periscope or something stupid like that sub submarine bomb.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't think you said what year it was
Speaker 1: for I've been settled on though, that was the summer
Speaker 1: of love, my friends eight. I thought sixty nine was
Speaker 1: a summer of love. I mean, no, I really wasn't.
Speaker 1: But now I'm blessing that didn't mean that at all.
Speaker 1: This is what I'm saying, Like these things just kinda
Speaker 1: happened to me. I'm a victim. I think sixty eight
Speaker 1: was a summer of love. I might be wrong. Well
Speaker 1: let's just say both were. Okay, sixty nine was put
Speaker 1: post coital right or pre wow? Uh. So there was
Speaker 1: another UM researcher in four named Myron Krueger at Yukon.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a Halloween villain, and he sounds like
Speaker 1: a seventies computer researcher if I've ever heard Iron Krueger. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. The Krugs. He uh invented something called video Place,
Speaker 1: which if you look up, is kind of fun to
Speaker 1: look at. Two. It was interactive, and just think of
Speaker 1: the most rudimentary VR you could think of, UM, which
Speaker 1: is like someone going up to like a a nineteen
Speaker 1: seventies Apple computer, if there was such a thing, and
Speaker 1: being able to touch the screen to make something happen.
Speaker 1: Very very rudimentary, very rudimentary. But for the seventies in particular,
Speaker 1: this was like really ahead of its time, and like
Speaker 1: you know, UM, I'vean Sutherland and Myron Kruger. They were
Speaker 1: both working in in computer science labs just generating like
Speaker 1: proof of concept, the fact that this was even possible,
Speaker 1: and here's a here's a possible path forward to this
Speaker 1: UM And then that's kind of how things like augmented
Speaker 1: reality get pushed forward as there's people who figure out
Speaker 1: how to do it in the clunkiest, most primitive way possible,
Speaker 1: and then over time other researchers and other students come
Speaker 1: along and they figure out how to shrink it down.
Speaker 1: And then the next thing, you know, you have a
Speaker 1: smartphone that's capable of doing this kind of thing. And
Speaker 1: that's really where VR just took an enormous leap forward.
Speaker 1: Was when the first smartphone started to come out, Because
Speaker 1: if it weren't for smartphones, we would still be pressing
Speaker 1: like bed sheets at video place, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But the fact that smartphones were able to carry the
Speaker 1: hardware needed, like things like onboard cameras and gyroscopes and
Speaker 1: GPS coordinates and connections to the Internet. The fact that
Speaker 1: all this was suddenly in the palm of people's hands.
Speaker 1: People said, well, we should start doing things with with this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I'm not knocking those those early pioneers, Like I
Speaker 1: think that's the coolest part about any anything like this
Speaker 1: is the people that were brave enough to say, like, hey,
Speaker 1: put this microwave on your head, and this is the future.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, if you want to talk about an
Speaker 1: adorable presentation, you could go back to February two nine
Speaker 1: and look at the Ted talk on six cents. It's
Speaker 1: really great because things were smaller, but they still didn't
Speaker 1: know how to like bring it all together in one
Speaker 1: uh small like thing. They had to cobble a bunch
Speaker 1: of stuff together. So they had a camera that you
Speaker 1: wore around your neck like chest height. You had a smartphone,
Speaker 1: You had a mirror. You had initially a projector strapped
Speaker 1: to a helmet that you wore on your head, dork,
Speaker 1: and it was all strung together, and you wore these
Speaker 1: little colored caps on your fingers, uh, to be able
Speaker 1: to interact with the thing that the projector on your
Speaker 1: head was emitting. They do. They work for that. They
Speaker 1: also work really well to keep your fingers clean when
Speaker 1: you're eating buffalo wings. I used to work with a
Speaker 1: commercial director named Tom Schiller, who was one of my
Speaker 1: idols because he was an early writer for Saturday Night
Speaker 1: Live and did all those old black and white SNL
Speaker 1: things with Blushi and Chiller was great and he kind
Speaker 1: of took me under his wing, and I want to
Speaker 1: get in touch with the guy again. But he wore
Speaker 1: just as a gag. He would walk around on set
Speaker 1: and eat Cheetos with a surgical glove. Oh nice, nice,
Speaker 1: And he told me one day. I was like, man,
Speaker 1: that's so funny, and he went, I don't even like Cheetos.
Speaker 1: He's like, I just do it for the gag. It's
Speaker 1: pretty great. Yeah. Um those So they make surgical gloves
Speaker 1: that are just fingertip protectors, and you me got me
Speaker 1: some of those. At one time we went out to
Speaker 1: eat with a friend and I was eating buffalo wings
Speaker 1: like that. So yeah, and he like it, didn't say anything,
Speaker 1: didn't make a big deal out of it, and he
Speaker 1: just looked toward just lost it. It was pretty great.
Speaker 1: It was. It was about as good as you can hope.
Speaker 1: I think I've seen those What are those four I
Speaker 1: don't know, man, I don't know, but I can tell
Speaker 1: you they really do work for eating buffalo wings for
Speaker 1: some reason. I remember my grandmother had those when I
Speaker 1: was a kid, and I think it may have been like, uh,
Speaker 1: to protect a cut or something if you're washing dishes,
Speaker 1: or maybe that's what she used him. For sure, I
Speaker 1: think it's one of those things where it's like we're
Speaker 1: just gonna manufacturers and put them out there in the
Speaker 1: world and whatever you're using, whatever you whatever you want.
Speaker 1: Of course, this was the mid seventies. This is pre
Speaker 1: buffalo wing. Okay, I was about to get crazy. I
Speaker 1: just wanted to rile up all the people in Buffalo,
Speaker 1: New York. So, yes, you're wearing these caps on your fingers.
Speaker 1: That is used to to you know, act as your
Speaker 1: go between and manipulate the images that project your on
Speaker 1: your head is showing everywhere, which is kind of cool
Speaker 1: because it's on your head, right, So anything can be
Speaker 1: turned into a surface sure, Like I mean ideally you're
Speaker 1: looking at a white wall, right, or your wrist was
Speaker 1: one that they used, so like you could put like
Speaker 1: a numeric keypad projected onto your wrist, which is neat,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't mean anything unless if you press the numbers,
Speaker 1: it does something. And that's where those finger caps came in,
Speaker 1: Like the the allowed the camera to track what your
Speaker 1: fingers were doing. And that was a really really big
Speaker 1: proof proof of concept that sense put out there, which
Speaker 1: is tracking how we move because there's a difference between
Speaker 1: just adding a layer of recipes on your soup can
Speaker 1: and being able to swipe through recipes just by making
Speaker 1: a gesture in the air with your finger. And that
Speaker 1: was something that sixth cents showed could be done. And
Speaker 1: that is starting to show up on phones as well,
Speaker 1: where now you know you squeeze your phone, like the
Speaker 1: screen of your phone, it's using all sorts of sensors
Speaker 1: and pressure gauges and and um vibration measurements to to
Speaker 1: figure out what you're doing with your fingers. Now they're
Speaker 1: starting to track it using things like the infrared um
Speaker 1: uh time of flight camera, so that you don't actually
Speaker 1: touch your your screen, you just kind of make these
Speaker 1: gestures above it. And when when that becomes further and
Speaker 1: further developed, that will very clearly be used for a
Speaker 1: r in the future. Yeah, and it's kind of funny
Speaker 1: and clunky. Is something from two thousand nine appears now
Speaker 1: just ten years ago. Just scrub through to the end
Speaker 1: of that Ted talk and see the audience go wild
Speaker 1: like that. That's the cool thing about this early tech.
Speaker 1: At the people at these Ted talks, Man, they can
Speaker 1: see it. They can see the future because they know
Speaker 1: they can see beyond the fact that you've got six
Speaker 1: different things hanging around your neck and strapped to your head. Sure,
Speaker 1: it's the proof of concept because like you said, they
Speaker 1: can always package it in the future and a nice
Speaker 1: little tidy thing that you can sell. Well, everybody knows
Speaker 1: that Ted Talks were populated by only the best people
Speaker 1: on the best So there's a lot of this going
Speaker 1: on now all around you, beyond the NFL, on the
Speaker 1: football field, the n C double A they use that
Speaker 1: stuff too, right. Uh, Yeah, I think everybody uses that
Speaker 1: that glowing line for first douns. And remember they had
Speaker 1: it following the hockey puck for a little while. The
Speaker 1: last it didn't. And I specifically remember we talked about
Speaker 1: that too wherever we talked about this before. But icky
Speaker 1: fans were like, I don't like it. I don't want
Speaker 1: my puck to glow. Um, but the the it kind
Speaker 1: of is popped up here there and all sorts of
Speaker 1: random places. There was an Esquire cover once where when
Speaker 1: you waved your smartphone over it using the app Robert
Speaker 1: Downey June, you would start talking to you. Um, there's
Speaker 1: Starbucks Valentines you can send where you like looked at
Speaker 1: a cup and it would say, hey, be my Valentine
Speaker 1: or something stupid like that. There was a beta production
Speaker 1: in the nineties called Dancing in Cyberspace. People are like, oh,
Speaker 1: you can do stuff like this, so let me figure
Speaker 1: out a neat way to use it. But it hadn't
Speaker 1: really started to accumulate until the last probably five or
Speaker 1: seven or ten years, when people really started throwing money
Speaker 1: at a r development and and app creation. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean one of you know, I use some of this
Speaker 1: stuff here and there. Um, I'm not like a total
Speaker 1: poop who er. I'm just saying I'm never gonna walk
Speaker 1: around the world with a headset on. I don't think
Speaker 1: that that's correct. Oh man, I will not do it
Speaker 1: just despite you. Now it's correct, But it wouldn't have
Speaker 1: been had I not said, had I just been like, sure, sure,
Speaker 1: of course I'll be doing stories on the last man
Speaker 1: on earth. To not do this all right, I wish
Speaker 1: I could go back and edit out your mind here
Speaker 1: are there, because this is one time I would do it.
Speaker 1: But I like stuff like the sky maps. Um these
Speaker 1: apps where you can go out at nighttime or in
Speaker 1: the daytime, but it's more fun at night and look
Speaker 1: at the stars and hold up your phone and um
Speaker 1: see what what planets and constellations are out there, and
Speaker 1: tap on one to get information. Stuff like that's really neat. Um.
Speaker 1: My uncle, or rather I guess Emily's uncle, Tim, came
Speaker 1: to visit not too long ago, and he I looked over,
Speaker 1: was with um with my kid, showing her the room
Speaker 1: around him, and I was like, all right, what's that
Speaker 1: all about? And I went over and looked and I
Speaker 1: don't know what the program was, but it's just the
Speaker 1: walls were dripping with blood and that wasn't there, but
Speaker 1: it very well could have been because they were like sharp.
Speaker 1: You were like an aquarium. There were sharks and fish
Speaker 1: and all these things, and she just of course it
Speaker 1: blew her mind. Sure, but this is the world that
Speaker 1: she's growing up in. This is to be totally normal. There,
Speaker 1: that and that application when she's in her one ease,
Speaker 1: will seem as primitive and clunky as a walkman does today.
Speaker 1: For sure. You know, oh, I mean it looks clunky now, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say, I would say, so, how about like
Speaker 1: people walking around with the phonograph, We're gonna say that
Speaker 1: one instead. I'm gonna just double down even more triple down.
Speaker 1: I guess you could say triple down. There are also
Speaker 1: other applications, like, um, there's one for the for the
Speaker 1: Gatwick Airport. It's a passenger app where you can hold
Speaker 1: it up and find out information about wait times and
Speaker 1: where the restrooms are, where you know where the restaurant
Speaker 1: you want to go to is. Yeah, there's also one
Speaker 1: that's helpful. Actually, there's a handful of them, where like
Speaker 1: you remember where you park your car and then when
Speaker 1: you're walking through a parking lot, there's like a big
Speaker 1: giant like arrow or something over your car that you
Speaker 1: just walk towards. I would use that because your head, buddy,
Speaker 1: because it's out there right now. I use the primitive
Speaker 1: version now, which is I just take a picture of
Speaker 1: the the road number. Knowing you you probably like just
Speaker 1: carve a picture into a piece of tree bark, and
Speaker 1: then you'll use your you'll use your phone to note
Speaker 1: where you know what direction your car is so you
Speaker 1: can walk into No man, I'll drop a pin. I'm
Speaker 1: not a total luddite. The military, obviously, with anything tech,
Speaker 1: is where a lot of the application goes. Um. They
Speaker 1: are they have something called synthetic training environments where you
Speaker 1: can fully uh well, there are a couple of ways
Speaker 1: to use it. You can fully practice stuff like you
Speaker 1: could practice a raid on a terrorist compound over and
Speaker 1: over again, um with like as much information as you
Speaker 1: have about the compound and the building. You can build
Speaker 1: that out virtually. Or you can potentially at some point
Speaker 1: have soldiers on the field that where this stuff and
Speaker 1: look up and have overlays of uh you know, stuff
Speaker 1: beamed down from satellites about blueprints or just information bring
Speaker 1: you know, instead of hearing it to your walkie talkie
Speaker 1: or whatever. Yeah, you know how like when you zoom
Speaker 1: in at us and you accidentally like move your your
Speaker 1: thumbs in a certain way, all of a sudden, the
Speaker 1: street map and I think Google Maps like becomes three
Speaker 1: dimensional and like you're kind of looking at it in
Speaker 1: a little bit of a three Well you would know
Speaker 1: everyone else listening to this episode knows what I'm talking about. Um,
Speaker 1: But that's what they're saying. Like you could be on
Speaker 1: a battlefield and all of a sudden, there's like a
Speaker 1: three dimensional visualization of what's ahead that you can know
Speaker 1: where to go and it will show you where your
Speaker 1: car is parked, which is great or potentially, Uh, my
Speaker 1: friend was working on an app in Los Angeles for
Speaker 1: like music festivals so you can find your friends. Yeah,
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Well that's one that's um that kind
Speaker 1: of pops up for something called Wikitude, And this is
Speaker 1: UM that's a pretty good example of an entire kind
Speaker 1: of type of augmented reality app where you're just are
Speaker 1: looking at the world around you and it shows you
Speaker 1: all sorts of different information. So like a building you're
Speaker 1: passing might have a restaurant in it, and it will
Speaker 1: show you, like the daily specials for that restaurant, and
Speaker 1: then over here there's um, somebody walking down the street
Speaker 1: and it has their Twitter handle over their head. Um,
Speaker 1: and then there's uh, you know, like the hotel rates
Speaker 1: for a hotel down the street, and all this stuff
Speaker 1: is right there on your phone, which is pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: But um, I guess I hopefully you have to opt
Speaker 1: in for your Twitter handle to like be shown in
Speaker 1: an app like this. But that's a really good example
Speaker 1: of an entire variety of apps which is just basically
Speaker 1: like that overlay of information, additional information about the world
Speaker 1: around us as we're moving through it. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: could see a world where and this is what I
Speaker 1: told our mutual friend, because he was just like, what
Speaker 1: applications could you see? What could be cool? I was like,
Speaker 1: I could get I guess I could see like if
Speaker 1: you go to the Museum of Natural History, you could
Speaker 1: load up anyone from Ary Seinfeld to us to us
Speaker 1: to be your docent for the day. We could dress
Speaker 1: like Teddy Roosevelt, we could, yeah, or you could just
Speaker 1: point your camera at someone and it dresses them as
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt. Because that's the thing. If that's not a thing.
Speaker 1: It's about to be next week, I'm sure. So I
Speaker 1: could see applications like that, um historically walking around a
Speaker 1: neighborhood getting information instead of um going through the trouble
Speaker 1: to read the plaque by the statue. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1: Um there's also one. There's one for Pompeii that somebody built.
Speaker 1: That's where you hover over the ruins and you look
Speaker 1: at your screen and it shows you what the building
Speaker 1: looked like before Pompeii was destroyed. Yeah, that's kind of cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so there's a lot of you know, um, really
Speaker 1: great applications already for learning about our world. My prediction
Speaker 1: is is that is what our world is just gonna
Speaker 1: look like. When you're walking down the street or walking
Speaker 1: around historicals that are walking anywhere, You're going to be
Speaker 1: inundated with information like that, and I think you will
Speaker 1: be able to curate it yourself where you select. Say,
Speaker 1: you know, if you're a Instagram user and you don't
Speaker 1: really use Twitter, well, it wouldn't show you people's Twitter handles.
Speaker 1: It would show you their Instagram handles or um, if
Speaker 1: you if it knew you were looking for a hotel,
Speaker 1: hotels dot Com would would show you rates, but it
Speaker 1: wouldn't otherwise, like if it if it was in the
Speaker 1: city that you live in or something like that, Like you,
Speaker 1: it will be ultra tailored to the to the individual. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they would never just feed you content that you didn't
Speaker 1: want to see automatically, right exactly, no one, No one
Speaker 1: does that. No. Healthcare is obviously a big, big field
Speaker 1: for a R because you can do practice surgeries um
Speaker 1: that aren't just generic. You can do it very specific
Speaker 1: to the person. Um there are Maybe the situation is
Speaker 1: like somebody could come in and have a wound and
Speaker 1: they could uh point a camera or you know, your
Speaker 1: phone a phone. I guess I would imagine the hospital
Speaker 1: would have something a little more advanced, but maybe not.
Speaker 1: I don't think you need it. I think you just
Speaker 1: need a smartphone. I just think they would gus see
Speaker 1: it up at least so you didn't feel like you
Speaker 1: did you set that down on a food tray on
Speaker 1: an airplane, I mean, like, is that thing clean? But
Speaker 1: it would look at the wound and it would send
Speaker 1: a message that says you're screwed or yes, or you're great. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the yeah, one of them. One of the diagnoses
Speaker 1: as you. Yeah, but um, reading about this, I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess I'll go look up images of wounds for
Speaker 1: a little while. And I did. Did you really? Sometimes
Speaker 1: I can't help myself whenever I see the word wound.
Speaker 1: If I'm researching, I'll just be like, let's go see
Speaker 1: what some wound pictures look like. I'll do that. And
Speaker 1: Emily always just like, why do you do that? It's
Speaker 1: like picking at a scab or something. It's tough not
Speaker 1: to well, And I also argued this just happened the
Speaker 1: other day. I was like, you know, it's that same
Speaker 1: curiosity that is why Josh and I do what we
Speaker 1: do for a living. Yeah, the same one that also
Speaker 1: kills cats left and run. Uh. What are some other
Speaker 1: great applications if you're have sensory impairments? That is huge? Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to give a shout out real quick here
Speaker 1: because I got this from this article called thirty nine
Speaker 1: ways augmented reality can change the world in the next
Speaker 1: five years, and it's by yet see Weener on Thrive
Speaker 1: Global on Medium. It's a lot of words I just
Speaker 1: spit out, but they all make sense eventually if you
Speaker 1: type them into Google. Um, and yet see weener. I
Speaker 1: guess asked like thirty nine different people what they thought
Speaker 1: about the future of a r and stuff that's like
Speaker 1: just around the corner, and this was one of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you think about if you have partial vision and
Speaker 1: it can actually help you to see, you know, it
Speaker 1: can make things pop more and make edges more visible. Um,
Speaker 1: it's it's you know, it's not going to restore vision obviously,
Speaker 1: but it can actually help out partially cited people. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or if you have a hearing impairment, Um, you can
Speaker 1: say walk around and it'll say, oh, there's a train
Speaker 1: coming because it hears the sound of a train, you know,
Speaker 1: flash on your screen maybe a picture of a train
Speaker 1: or just the word train or something like that. Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of applications for that that will basically, um,
Speaker 1: cure is not the right word, but that will make
Speaker 1: living in you know, the world so much easier for
Speaker 1: people with with um disabilities. That it's just that's a
Speaker 1: really exciting thing too. And shopping is also exciting. Well.
Speaker 1: That's probably as as much as the military's funding will
Speaker 1: push this technology forward, retail will be at least as
Speaker 1: big a contributor as well, and it already is like
Speaker 1: some of the coolest VR apps around are ones that
Speaker 1: help us consume better. Yeah, I mean I definitely see
Speaker 1: this happening um all around us and in the near
Speaker 1: future even more and more. You walk into a store
Speaker 1: you're shopping for a couch, let's say, and you can, um,
Speaker 1: you can see what that couch might look like in
Speaker 1: your home or if it fits through your door or
Speaker 1: in your space. Yeah, or glasses look like uh, instead
Speaker 1: of trying them on they don't have them in the store,
Speaker 1: you can virtually try them on. Yeah, and you don't
Speaker 1: even have to leave your home either to Another way
Speaker 1: to do it is like you can just hold your
Speaker 1: your phone up and you can, you know, look at
Speaker 1: the space where you want a couch to go and
Speaker 1: select that couch and it'll show up and you'll be
Speaker 1: able to see what it looks like in that space. Yes,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure it will be complete with suggested purchases
Speaker 1: and add ons. Right, You'll just be able to like
Speaker 1: click it, like you say, and purchase it and it'll
Speaker 1: show up at your house. And you might also want
Speaker 1: this ottoman and this throw rug right the yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right about what I'm talking about. Yeah, For sure, Um,
Speaker 1: but the the the idea that all of this that
Speaker 1: are world are augmented world in the not too distant
Speaker 1: future is going to be very personalized. That kind of
Speaker 1: comes through to um one of those those people that
Speaker 1: yit se Weener spoke to, which, by the way, yits
Speaker 1: Weener has one of the better names of all time.
Speaker 1: If fantastic Um you see Weener spoke to somebody who said,
Speaker 1: you know, this is gonna be really personalized. So this
Speaker 1: a r world that you're experiencing. If you go to
Speaker 1: a restaurant that a friend recommended, they might have left
Speaker 1: like a recommendation for a dish for you to eat,
Speaker 1: just scrawled on the wall and no one else would
Speaker 1: be able to see it because your friend left it
Speaker 1: for you. But this is this is like the kind
Speaker 1: of personalization that that will have. Or if you walk
Speaker 1: into a store, rather than like tailored ads coming up
Speaker 1: in your in your web searches, like tailored ads will
Speaker 1: come up in your field of view where it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: we heard that you were talking about this, uh, this
Speaker 1: Depeche Mode album. Well it just happens to be right there.
Speaker 1: Even though nobody buys albums anymore, go buy it because
Speaker 1: this is a terrible example. But you get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: That's what the ad will say. You get what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take our last break here and we
Speaker 1: will talk a little bit about some of the potential
Speaker 1: pitfalls and hurdles facing a R. Stuff you should know,
Speaker 1: lush stuff you should know. Okay, Chuck so Asis, which
Speaker 1: makes UM all sorts of tech hardware and stuff. They
Speaker 1: released a phone recently called the Zen Phone a R
Speaker 1: and it is basically made for augmented reality. It does
Speaker 1: all the other stuff that a phone does, but it
Speaker 1: has like an extra bit of hardware and software that
Speaker 1: makes it like a ACE augmented reality. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that has on board is Google's Tango software,
Speaker 1: and Tango is basically like an a R suite. It
Speaker 1: has things like UM amazing motion detection, area learning. UM.
Speaker 1: Do you remember how we talked about marker less a
Speaker 1: R where it's like, oh that's a river, Oh that's
Speaker 1: a walkway. Like it's really really good at that at
Speaker 1: determining UM markerless objects to to figure out what needs
Speaker 1: to be projected where UM. And it's a really amazing
Speaker 1: phone as far as a R goes. Um. The fact
Speaker 1: that it's out there really kind of shows like people
Speaker 1: are really pouring money into this, this idea, this a
Speaker 1: r idea, UM and eventually that is why I think
Speaker 1: it's going to hit. Yeah. And the zen phone looks uh,
Speaker 1: it's not it's not so clunky, it's like a regular
Speaker 1: smartphone and just at the top in the center has
Speaker 1: a little bit of a hardware situation, but it seems
Speaker 1: like it could probably still just fit into your pocket nicely.
Speaker 1: It's not super bulky, nothing on your forehead, nothing on
Speaker 1: your forehead yet. But that's the thing though, you still
Speaker 1: need a phone. UM. And most people, not most people,
Speaker 1: but over three billion people close to you know, inching
Speaker 1: towards the global population has a smartphone at this point, right,
Speaker 1: So that's not an issue, not the biggest issue. But
Speaker 1: there are some challenges, uh, and they are basically boiled
Speaker 1: down to hardware and bandwidth. UM. Bandwidth is a really
Speaker 1: big deal right now until five G is like fully integrated. UM,
Speaker 1: it's just really tough to meet the band with needs
Speaker 1: of a r right now on a day to day basis. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And like the kind of a are that we're talking
Speaker 1: about where it's called always on augmented reality, where you're
Speaker 1: just walking through the world and there's just digital that
Speaker 1: digital layer is everywhere, and it's really mixed too, so
Speaker 1: that it's really interacting with reality in a very believable
Speaker 1: way that is extraordinarily banned with hungry. Whereas like walking
Speaker 1: down the street and streaming a YouTube video and HD
Speaker 1: requires something like five or six megabytes per second of
Speaker 1: bandwidth and something like thirty to fifty milliseconds of latency,
Speaker 1: which is lag time between your phone sends a commando
Speaker 1: server and then receives the info back. That's that's that's
Speaker 1: about what it takes to watch an HD movie, to
Speaker 1: stream an HD movie, But with UM, with augmented reality apps,
Speaker 1: it's that's nothing like you wouldn't get anywhere with that.
Speaker 1: Now you need about a hundred per second bandwidth and
Speaker 1: a latency of one millisecond. And they think five g
Speaker 1: could solve this problem, but we'll see. I think that
Speaker 1: it definitely well. I think, I mean they're talking about
Speaker 1: like an average download speed of a gigabyte a second
Speaker 1: in peaks of like ten gigs a second, which is
Speaker 1: way more than enough for an a r UM, an
Speaker 1: a r APP. So I think five G really will
Speaker 1: help move a r along. But you still you said
Speaker 1: it earlier. We still have that problem with hardware with
Speaker 1: a phone like the phone. Holding your phone up in
Speaker 1: front of you is no way to move through the world.
Speaker 1: But that's basically what you have to do if you
Speaker 1: want to take part with augmented reality. Well, Google said
Speaker 1: we have an idea, how about Google Glass? And everybody said,
Speaker 1: that's a terrible idea. To get that thing out of here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was six years ago. I remember Jonathan Strickland. I
Speaker 1: think he was sent some in his defense. I don't
Speaker 1: think he purchased them, but Google, he definitely he really
Speaker 1: wore them a lot, if I remember correctly. Yeah, they
Speaker 1: that did not work out, And one of the big
Speaker 1: problems was they didn't have it fully worked out before
Speaker 1: they said, hey, do you want to go ahead and
Speaker 1: try this thing out. They should have probably worked on
Speaker 1: a little longer, but the prototype was released as the product,
Speaker 1: and they thought that this would just get such a
Speaker 1: claim that it's going to be the next big thing
Speaker 1: and then we'll work out the kinks as uh, the
Speaker 1: money comes flooding in, And that didn't happen because people
Speaker 1: didn't like the idea of people walking around with a
Speaker 1: camera honed on everything or themselves. No, that was a
Speaker 1: that's a big one and it still is today. I mean,
Speaker 1: privacy is an enormous problem with um with augmented reality,
Speaker 1: because to to be a part of it, like you
Speaker 1: have your you're you're either you're wearable or your phone
Speaker 1: or whatever, has to be taking in the world around it,
Speaker 1: and that very frequently includes people. And it's like you said,
Speaker 1: maybe there will very soon be an augmented reality app
Speaker 1: where if you look at somebody, they're suddenly dressed like
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt. That's probably pretty innocuous, but also maybe it
Speaker 1: takes their clothes off and it shows them naked right
Speaker 1: there standing in front of you, and all of a
Speaker 1: sudden you're leering at them and they know what you're
Speaker 1: looking at. And that is an enormous invasion of privacy.
Speaker 1: Plus also, with as much stuff as we share on
Speaker 1: social media, all that stuff can be cobbled together to
Speaker 1: pretty amazing profile of you. And if all of that
Speaker 1: comes up when you look at somebody, when somebody comes
Speaker 1: into your field of vision while you're wearing an augmented
Speaker 1: reality wearable or something Um, that's an enormous invasion of
Speaker 1: privacy too, especially if the person hasn't opted in for
Speaker 1: that to be shared. That's right, and they are. Here's
Speaker 1: the real scary thing. They're talking about a r contact
Speaker 1: lenses that you wear on your eyeballs where this is
Speaker 1: just the world you see at all times. They're not
Speaker 1: clunky glasses, they're not headsets. You wouldn't even know that
Speaker 1: someone has these in necessarily. And the problem now is
Speaker 1: they can't provide a power source, which means that they
Speaker 1: have not figured out a way to make them run
Speaker 1: on human tears. Right, human tears are UM blinking. Surely
Speaker 1: there's a way to make them work from blinking, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Well, yeah, I could see that.
Speaker 1: You just gotta blink a lot. Yes, So there was
Speaker 1: something that we ran across, UM that I think if
Speaker 1: you asked me, this is why a lot of people
Speaker 1: are going to start UM using things like UM augmented
Speaker 1: reality wearables or implants or something like that. There's gonna
Speaker 1: be what's called or there could be. I should say,
Speaker 1: I don't mean to say gunna because it's definitely not
Speaker 1: a foregone conclusion, but UM, there could be a UM Uh,
Speaker 1: like a career arms races. How I've seen it put
Speaker 1: where somebody who has like this implant or who has
Speaker 1: gone out and bought these contact lenses or whatever is
Speaker 1: going to be a much more productive employee than somebody
Speaker 1: who still goes to the trouble of typing out, you know,
Speaker 1: how to you know, an internet search or something for information.
Speaker 1: And they're doing it the old school way, They're going
Speaker 1: to get left behind. And when you're talking about things
Speaker 1: like livelihood, people are going to say, well, I need
Speaker 1: to go get those contact lenses, right, I need to
Speaker 1: undergo that surgery to get that implant so that I
Speaker 1: can keep up in today's job market. That is what's
Speaker 1: going to get everybody into the world of a r Yeah.
Speaker 1: And they're also clearly just day to day physical pitfalls
Speaker 1: like walking into traffic or driving off a cliff um,
Speaker 1: because you're wearing those wearable while you're in a car
Speaker 1: or something like that. I would think that some of
Speaker 1: those are going to start coming with UM like you
Speaker 1: want be able to operate it if it's moving, you know,
Speaker 1: over a certain miles per hour or something. I don't
Speaker 1: know how they're going to I don't know, man, I
Speaker 1: do not know. Um, I do know that One of
Speaker 1: the issues that was raised about that though, is the
Speaker 1: ability to hack into stuff like that. And I mean
Speaker 1: if we're if we're just completely reliant and trusting of
Speaker 1: our apps or or a r apps to like kind
Speaker 1: of take us from place to place, we might stop
Speaker 1: thinking for ourselves and just kind of follow them blindly.
Speaker 1: Like you don't use ways, but ways is very well
Speaker 1: known as good as it is um for leading you
Speaker 1: on some real like dingbat side side trips to save
Speaker 1: you like a half of a second um. And I
Speaker 1: follow them like very rarely, am I like, Okay, wait
Speaker 1: where are you taking me? And you'll scroll ahead or
Speaker 1: whatever look at the turns you know in texts. Instead
Speaker 1: you just follow it, and you know you have to
Speaker 1: look over sheepishly at the people who just watched you
Speaker 1: get off on a spur and then get back on
Speaker 1: and really not get anywhere. That's a really great example.
Speaker 1: But imagine if that lead you off of a cliff
Speaker 1: or something like that, and that happens. People literally have
Speaker 1: walked off cliffs playing Pokemon Go because they weren't paying
Speaker 1: attention to the real world around him. Yeah, and this
Speaker 1: isn't exactly a r But my again, Emily's uncle came
Speaker 1: to see us and he has he's a drone guy,
Speaker 1: and he had a setup where you could fly the
Speaker 1: drone up and then he put a headset on me,
Speaker 1: and then I could see through the drones camera, so
Speaker 1: the drones two feet in the air, and then I
Speaker 1: can look around and operate the camera as if I
Speaker 1: was up there, and I could not get that headset
Speaker 1: off of my head quickly enough. Yeah, well that's another
Speaker 1: thing too. I think that's another reason why that five
Speaker 1: G is going to have to take places, like this
Speaker 1: thing needs to be as smooth as possible as people
Speaker 1: are just gonna walk around throwing up everywhere. Oh it
Speaker 1: didn't make me sick. I just it's just not my thing, man.
Speaker 1: I was like, I want to be in the real world.
Speaker 1: I don't want to wear a headset and look at
Speaker 1: something projected. I think I think that is I think
Speaker 1: that will definitely be a thing, Chuck, or there will
Speaker 1: be like there'll be a whole movement of you know,
Speaker 1: back to reality types where rather than back to nature,
Speaker 1: will be back to reality where people are like, no,
Speaker 1: we we just want to experience reality as it is.
Speaker 1: None of people will be like, how can you ever
Speaker 1: say what reality really is? You know, what is subjective consciousness?
Speaker 1: You leon? And then they'll say, you're right, We might
Speaker 1: as well just get digitized. Do you got anything else?
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. Well, let's revisit this poet in
Speaker 1: five years. Okay, hawe. If you want to know more
Speaker 1: about augmented reality, go online and start finding apps and
Speaker 1: see what you think. You'll love it. There's also a
Speaker 1: pretty good article on how stuff works you can check
Speaker 1: out too. And since I said that, it's time for listener,
Speaker 1: ma'il ah. This is called a disagreement about trunk or treating. Okay,
Speaker 1: we had a very minor spat. Oh yeah, yeah, I thought, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: been listening since. And consider myself a devotee. I've marveled
Speaker 1: for some time about how good natured, good natured you
Speaker 1: are toward each other, even when you disagree slightly on
Speaker 1: some of the controversial topics. I think it's an important
Speaker 1: skill to have, especially in the midst of divisive ages.
Speaker 1: After over three years of listening to your dulcet tones, however,
Speaker 1: your masks finally began to slip. The most unlikely of
Speaker 1: episodes trunk or Treating. I thought that the disagreement over
Speaker 1: the presence of apple bobbing at trunk or Treating is
Speaker 1: going to boil over, but being the consummate professionals you are,
Speaker 1: you swiftly moved on. I did find the momentary annoyance
Speaker 1: in your voice is hilarious, though, and it just goes
Speaker 1: to show you uh to take that you take every
Speaker 1: episode very seriously, despite the seemingly laid back manner in
Speaker 1: which you deliver your pearls of wisdom. I've long been
Speaker 1: waiting for a conflict between the two of you because
Speaker 1: I've found your on my relationship very funny. And the
Speaker 1: fact that the first sign of an argument came when
Speaker 1: discussing a child's Halloween event is the most stuff you
Speaker 1: should know thing that has ever happened and made me
Speaker 1: laugh out loud. So that is from one Alex in London.
Speaker 1: Thanks Alex. You should go back and listen to the
Speaker 1: Barbie episode. We had a little spat in that one too,
Speaker 1: if I remember Craig and I will say this is
Speaker 1: not a grass watering grass level vindication. But we got
Speaker 1: at least one email from a guy They said our
Speaker 1: trunk or Treating has Fall Festival stuff too, because yes,
Speaker 1: that's fine, he said, because the kids it would take
Speaker 1: them fifteen minutes to visit the cars and that's not
Speaker 1: long enough, right, So in this case, trunk or treating
Speaker 1: is a feature of the larger Fall festival, but apple
Speaker 1: bobbing has nothing to do with trunk or treating. Let's
Speaker 1: just send this, okay, let's do it all right. Well,
Speaker 1: if you want to get in such with this, like
Speaker 1: Alex from London did, you can go on to stuff
Speaker 1: you Should Know dot com and check out our social links.
Speaker 1: You can also send us an email The stuff podcast
Speaker 1: at iHeart radio dot com. Stuff you Should Know is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeart Radios. How stuff works for more
Speaker 1: podcasts for my heart Radio because at the iHeart Radio
Speaker 1: app podcasts and where ever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: M h m hm