Page 114 - The Fourth Industrial Revolution

Shift 3: Vision as the New Interface

The tipping point: 10% of reading glasses connected to the internet
By 2025: 86% of respondents expected this tipping point will have occurred
Google Glass is just the first of many potential ways in which glasses, eyewear/headsets and eye-
tracking devices can become “intelligent” and lead to eyes and vision being the connection to the
internet and connected devices.
With direct access to internet applications and data through vision, an individual’s experiences can be
enhanced, mediated or completely augmented to provide different, immersive reality. Also, with
emerging eye-tracking technologies, devices can feed information through visual interfaces, and eyes
can be the source for interacting with and responding to the information.

Enabling vision as an immediate, direct interface – by providing instruction, visualization and interaction
– can change the way that learning, navigation, instruction and feedback for producing goods and
services, experiencing entertainment and enabling the disabled are helping people to engage more fully
with the world.

Positive impacts
– Immediate information to the individual to make informed decisions for navigation and work/personal
activities
– Improved capacity to perform tasks or produce goods and services with visual aids for
manufacturing, healthcare/surgery and service delivery
– Ability for those with disabilities to manage their interactions and movement, and to experience the
world – through speaking, typing and moving, and via immersive experiences

Negative impacts
– Mental distraction causing accidents
– Trauma from negative immersive experiences
– Increased addiction and escapism

Unknown, or cuts both ways
– A new segment created in the entertainment industry
– Increased immediate information

The shift in action
Glasses are already on the market today (not just produced by Google) that can:
– Allow you to freely manipulate a 3D object, enabling it to be moulded like clay
– Provide all the extended live information you need when you see something, in the same way the
brain functions
– Prompt you with an overlay menu of the restaurant you pass by
– Project picture or video on any piece of paper

Source: http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/augmented-reality-smart-glasses/

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