Monthly Archives: February 2010

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Augmented reality fiction

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augmented reality headset conceptHere’s another option to add to the list of new avenues for fiction writers worried about the possible demise of the novel – augmented reality fiction, as (quite literally) dreamed by Web2.0 maven Tim O’Reilly [via @globalculture; image by The Lightworks]:

Last night I dreamed that one of my authors (no name or face that I can recall – one of the phantasms created by the half-waking imagination) had sold me rights to a novel he’d written, and was eager for me to publish it as an ebook. It turned out that the “ebook” we were developing was actually a movie that took place in an augmented reality overlay projected directly onto the mind’s eye, mixing what the author had imagined with what the viewer was actually seeing and experiencing at the time. Every version of the movie was different, because the story had to be overlaid on what the viewer was encountering in the real world. At one point in the dream, Eric Schmidt of Google was particularly excited because a sailing scene in the story warned him about a hidden reef that his boat had to avoid.

I don’t often share dreams on this blog (at least not sleeping dreams), but this one seemed worth putting out there, because I do think that augmented reality could be an important component of a new kind of storytelling, making today’s 3D entertainments as dated as silent films.

[I guess you have to move in pretty rarefied circles to have Google’s CEO appear in your dreams…either that, or have the sort of extreme tech fetish that warrants medical attention.]

I very much doubt that O’Reilly’s the first to think of AR fiction, but having someone that influential kicking the idea around in public can only be a good thing; the dead-tree book may have a finite lifespan ahead of it, but storytelling will probably last as long as humanity itself, in one form or another.

O’Reilly continues with an anecdote about an intriguing format for theatre he once experienced, which (more so than the AR fiction idea alone) threw all sorts of interesting switches in my head:

Many years ago, I saw a play in LA called Tamara, a story set in the mansion where WWI hero and author Gabrielle D’Annunzio was held under house arrest by Mussolini. A fascinating experiment in theater, Tamara took place in many different rooms of the house. As an audience member, whenever a scene ended, you had an opportunity to follow the character of your choice to another room. No audience member could see the entire play. My wife and I went with her parents (who were back for the third or fourth time, seeing parts of the play they’d missed on previous visits), and afterwards, we all compared notes for hours about what we’d seen, and what we’d missed.

Now that’s an interesting idea… not to mention a neat way of making history a more immersive and interesting experience. Someone needs to start pitching that structure to the museums-and-stately-homes sector… *reaches for rolodex*

Of course, the layered nature of augmented reality means that there’s all sorts of potential for weird and unforeseen overlaps and mash-ups – it’s easy to think of ways to add a game component to that immersive theatre idea, for example. But there’s nothing that says you have to get permission to mesh your game with another layer. Let’s say that someone makes an AR guide to Victorian-era London, for instance; it’d be pretty easy for someone to independently develop an extra layer that threaded in a Sherlock Holmes-esque game element to the proceedings. But just think of the IP headaches that sort of mash-up is going to produce – if you develop a game on top of a free-to-view ad-supported AR layer, should you have to pay the creators of that layer? Or should the extra traffic you’re sending to it be considered payment enough? That sound you hear is the hands of a thousand lawyers rubbing together in glee…

And let’s not forget that all games can and will be gamed – for instance, you’ve probably heard of FourSquare by now (if not signed up already), but that casual geolocational contest is easily fiddled, as demonstrated by one Jim “KrazyDad” Bumgardner [via @qwghlm]. Games that are played upon games, realities that are recursively layered upon realities… things are going to get a whole lot more meta in the not-to-distant future.

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Garage 3D printers working with ceramics, bioplastics

3D-printed clay vesselWatching the backyard fabrication and 3D printing scene is fascinating, not least because it’s developing so quickly – a mere pipedream just five years ago, but currently expanding its capabilities in leaps and bounds. One thing that will increase the versatility of these systems is a wider selection of materials with which to work… and while you can already print in sugar (with other foodstuffs remaining strictly hypothetical at this point), we’ve got people brewing up their own stove-top bioplastic blends [via BoingBoing] and tweaking their fabbers to work with clay [via Chairman Bruce; image clipped from linked article].

The former is promising because it gives hobby-level users the opportunity to work in cheap biodegradable plastics by using off-the-shelf ingredients that can be scored at the corner store (e.g. glycerin, vinegar); that recipe has a way to go before being usable, but you can bet your boots that other fab-fanatics will be working to refine it and sharing their results online… many eyes make bugs shallow, after all (though Microsoft’s Shawn Hernan would disagree). And being able to print in clay really opens up the arts & crafts market to the fabbers; consumer-level 3D design tools should lead to a minor renaissance in ceramics design.

I wonder if this will provide some counterbalance to the seemingly inevitable loss of jobs in the US due to the rise of robotic, computer-controlled and/or outsourced manufacturing? Short runs of custom designs (and those very simple products for which the current profit margins of Chinese made-for-export factories will not hold forever) would seem ideally suited to small local businesses based around a few fabbers, an oven or kiln and a finishing bench… and if someone can work out a way to scale down plastics recycling so it can be used to generate the necessary materials using locally-sourced waste, you’ve got a whole new economic sub-circuit operating at a local level.

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Stealth mode

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Folks, I hope you’ll excuse the next couple of days being pretty quiet around these parts, but I’ve a whole raft of non-Futurismic work to get sorted this week, plus a few bits of housekeeping here as well… and dropping a few days worth of blogging will mean I can get everything done without the need for a modafinil overdose (let alone being lynched by my patient yet long-suffering girlfriend).

Back to business as usual on Wednesday – thanks for your patience! 🙂

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Ideological cyberwarfare and the marketing of intangible threats

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Ars Technica points us to a BBC report that claims botnets are increasingly being deployed by ideological and political activist groups as well as the more traditional spammers ‘n’ scammers. There’s undoubtedly a kernel of truth here, but given that the data that informs this conclusion comes from Prolexic, a company whose profits depend on selling computer security solutions to businesses and governments, I find myself wanting to poke holes in the story. It’s easily done, too.

First of all, Anonymous are described as an “anti-Scientology group”, which is a massive oversimplification. If they can be said to be anything at all, Anonymous is an amorphous and capricious cloud of nihilistic pranksters, but framing them as a single-interest group makes them more understandable to the corporate mind-set, as well as portraying them as “something that could happen to you“.

Next item – look at this excerpt:

In one attack both large and small perfume firms were hit in an apparent attempt, said Mr Sop, by green activists to express their disquiet with the way the companies made and tested their products.

[…]

These techniques are far removed from those favoured by organised criminals. Some targeted databases behind a website in a bid to swamp that with bogus login attempts or lengthy search requests that would knock out the server and take out the website too.

Note the use of “apparent”, and the lack of any defined enemy. They have no idea who did it, in other words; the “green activists” thing is likely a guess, one that plays into current fears about ideological activism by companies whose business practices might put them in line for such. Isn’t it at least equally likely that the botnet was hired by another perfume business in order to throw some caltrops in the path of its competitors? Is it so implausible that “organised criminals” could have upped their technological game in recent months? It’s not an area in which I have great experience (or, indeed, any experience at all), but I’d imagine that staying on top in the world of international gangsterism involves making sure you’re using the best tools available… because if you’re not, your competition surely will be.

Furthermore, how many “green” activist groups with a special interest in perfumery have the spare money to waste on this sort of warfare? A big part of activist psychology is the desire to be seen to be doing something; this sort of clandestine skulduggery doesn’t sound like the work of placard-waving protesters to me, and I doubt they’d have the money or contacts to call down the botnet fist-of-god on their enemies. There’s nothing to say it couldn’t be, of course, but I’d want better proof – especially from a source who stands to benefit from setting up straw-man opponents which it can then offer protection from.

A few more bits from the bottom:

Mr Sop said Prolexic suspected that some of the attacks it had seen in recent months were being mounted by governments or their proxies in the hacking community as a way to demonstrate their cyber capabilities.

*cough* *wink* China *nudge* *cough* The Red Peril! The Other! The monsters under Western capitalism’s bed! They’re coming for you!

The resources being put into the attacks, some of which targeted very expensive pieces of net hardware, ruled out the involvement of organised crime, he said.

Really? Why would organised criminal syndicates not be interested in attacking “expensive net hardware” when political or ideological activists would be? And this hardware – what is so different about it that makes it expensive by comparison to “not-so-expensive” net hardware, exactly? Are the victim servers plated with gold, perhaps?

OK, so I’m going a bit overboard here, but everything about the report from these Prolexic people stinks of under-the-radar button-pushing infomercial. Ideologically-targetted botnets are certainly a real issue, and probably more so than they were a year ago… but I suspect this shift in PR focus by security firms to be born of the realisation that defined threats enable sales better than amorphous ones. Which is the more tangible risk, as perceived by a CEO – “scammers might hijack your server because it’s essentially a box that can do anything if instructed properly” or “people who object to your ideology or business practices could treat your network infrastructure as a weak point”? The former is a statistical long-shot; the latter plays on the fear of competition that is key to any successful business.

Getting back to the core point, though, the rise of ideological deployments of botnets is hardly surprising. The people who run botnets are mercenaries of the old school, renting out their services by the day (or maybe even by the hour) to anyone who can meet the price… and for those groups who can’t meet the price (or don’t like dealing with middle-men), it’s depressingly easy to build one yourself, if you’ve the time and motivation. But that’s the key – time and motivation, and the afore-mentioned visibility. Single-issue activist groups want their protests to be seen and attributed to them, because otherwise they’re wasting their time; the stealthy anonymous attacks are logically far more likely to originate from corporations (legitimate or criminal) and nation-states.

So, yes, ideological cyberwarfare is a real and rising threat… but I’m not convinced it’s as grass-roots a threat as it’s being portrayed. After all, if you want to sell your product to corporations and governments, you can’t go demonising your potential customers in your ad copy.