Abstract
Recent developments in wireless communication and mobile computing have prompted a new vision of the world in which we live. Augmented reality has been proposed as the integration of physical and digital space. This approach is built upon the idea that it is possible to blur the distinctions that currently exist betweencomputers and of artefacts, ranging from household appliances to pieces of furniture. The exchange of digital information both about and between these artefacts creates powerful opportunities for context-awarecomputing (Ishii&Ullmer, 1997). Inspired by this vision, we decided to engineer a practical and extensible system for augmented reality using ‘off the shelf wirelessenabled computing devices. The first demonstration of this technology was to be the development of electronic notes that could be attached to inanimate objects and read using a PDA. Wireless links were used to trigger the presentation of information when a user approached a ‘tagged’ object. They were also used to update information on the notes in real-time from any location. Rather than extending this metaphor of augmented reality or proposing further developments to the abstract ideas of context-aware computing, this paper describes the practical challenges of engineering such an interface. The hope is that others might learn from our mistakes.
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Cheng, YM., Johnson, C. (2001). The Reality Gap: Pragmatic Boundaries of Context Awareness. In: Blandford, A., Vanderdonckt, J., Gray, P. (eds) People and Computers XV—Interaction without Frontiers. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0353-0_26
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0353-0_26
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