The future is here! We have the technology that could monitor just about anything dynamically at anywhere at anytime in scary details. For an example, you don’t have to put on a big coat, catch a taxi, or even drive your own car to a supermarket in winter since all you have to do is to turn up your computer, log online, go to Microsoft’s Bing Maps, and dive into this new map system which has augmented-reality feature that allows you to virtually travel from the streets into a supermarket and zooming into a product to check out its price. Virtual travel like this is possible since live video streams could be feed dynamically to Bing Maps.
Checking out live product prices without the need of a physical presence is one example of how augmented-reality maps could be used by everyone of us. The upsides are so promising which beg us not to take a closer look at the downsides. One of the downsides is the privacy issue. For some people, it’s quite scary for them to have the idea that anyone could have monitored them through augmented-reality maps as long the time of travel and the travel location made known to the prying eyes.
Microsoft’s Bing Maps with augmented-reality technology was demonstrated at TED by speaker Blaise Aguera y Arcas. Another example that Blaise Aguera y Arcas demonstrated with Bing Maps was the incorporation of sky and land, and so you could zoom around Bing Maps as if you’re the eyes of God — obviously it’s an exaggeration, but the feeling about this technology is mind blowing! For your viewing pleasure and brain stimulation vitamin, check out TED’s video on Bing Maps demo by speaker Blaise Aguera y Arcas right after the jump!
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf
Vinh Nguyen
