Forget Augmented Reality. What About Diminished Reality?

Technology Review ran an article this past weekabout a newfangled app calledPlaceAvoiderthat is being developed by computing machine scientist working at Indiana University . In a nutshell , PlaceAvoider reserve the user of a first - person lifelogging gimmick to essentially blacklist locating from visual storage and sharing by matching the ocular signature of a location against figure of speech of locations the user has designated as off - limit point , such as a bedchamber , bathroom or boardroom . The app sag such simulacrum for manual review before they are pass on to associated apps , such as photo computer storage or share-out . The idea , say PlaceAvoider ’s creators , is to both help gadget proprietor protect their own privacy and thwart visual malware , such as trojans that may be looking for exactly this fabric .

This got me thinking . The street , so the quote decease , finds its own uses for thing . What if we are the malware in a different scenario ? In other Logos , such apps , once they subsist , can and will be used at some point as a form as “ diminished reality ” app , where the user is not the executive .

What if we are the malware?

We make out that applications such as Google Maps , Google Earth and StreetView already acquiesce to regulations that requireobscuration of government installation , secret company ’ facilitiesin some instance , some brands , and individual citizens face and routine plates — even as it mould hard todecipher item like planetary house numbers . In other language , technology is used to secernate what we can see and not see , depending on the legal or honourable ( or otherwise ) standards of a particular plaza .

For the most part , Google Maps , Google Earth and StreetView are forms of augmented reality . They digitally render reality with forms of markup , of contextual data , which add to our perception of places . Except in the cases of blur , pixelation and , it could be argued , accidental presentment of various kinds ofrender ghosts — people and things only partially becharm or partly presented , artifact of digital fortuity or persistent memory . Some variety of determination is made that there are thing present in reality that we ca n’t or should n’t see .

Given this creeping designation of digital artifact of the real world as protected , only viewable to those of particular value or privilege , it seems reasonable to expect that at some spot in the penny-pinching succeeding machine such as Glass , or other head - up displays , such as digital windscreen , will contain apps that prevent us from regard , getting data on , and/or capturing look-alike of people and stead in public . We will , in outcome , be wearing a shape of subjective map on our faces , or driving through selectively rendered environments . We will be using increasingly advanced mannikin ofdiminished realism technology .

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Black sites for the digital world, both opt-in and enforced.

Such applications could be voluntary — preset based on your needs or selectively filtered . Are there hoi polloi or locations you do n’t want to see ? The dispossessed , protesters , or an ex - young man ? Consider them gone . Do n’t desire to notice the cupcake bakeshop , or that chip shop on the corner ? Not to worry . Sick of the billboards on the highway ? Blocked .

Or they might be inflict upon you . Not of sufficient wealthiness , ambition or sophistication to look upon the rich as they stroll by , or watch out the upwardly mobile board their special buses to work on ? Gaze redirected . Did n’t pay to enjoy the vista that a new museum or waterfront development present ? verbalize “ yes ” to donate and unlock this beautiful view . Not at a sufficient wage grade to look into offices on the window side of the 15th flooring ? It ’s all a haze . Have a track record of illegal peeping ? Those kid on the playground are now pel .

All of these could be reach with the similar technical approaches as those employed in PlaceAdvisor now , or those used incurrent retail facial acknowledgement software . black-market sites for the digital world , both opt - in and apply .

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