DT&D&T Newsletter 3:
Technological Perspective, Augmented Reality
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8-6-17
Welcome to the third Disruptive Technologies and D&T newsletter; If you didn’t see the previous ones, they are available in the archive and, if you want to know what it’s all about, there is an explanatory blog post.
This newsletter opens with an illustration of why having a well-informed technological perspective is important. Following that, the focus is on some recent developments in Augmented Reality (AR) and the finale is a short review of a book that I think teachers of D&T might find helpful as a source of information about leading edge technologies and technology movements.
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Please note that you should vet all links before sharing them with pupils.
I avoid obviously offensive material, but I can't guarantee the absence of fruity language or ideas that may not be suitable for under-18s.
Caveat Lector
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Technological Perspective
In a blog post earlier this week, I suggested that the nonsensical calls (in response to the recent terrorist atrocities), for the ending of ‘safe spaces’ on the Internet were excellent evidence of the need for people, perhaps politicians in particular, to understand the workings of the technologies around them. However, while it’s important to point out where policy suggestions don’t have a sound foundation in technical reality, it’s also useful to think about how the creative use of technologies could be used to keep us all safer; Tech That Takes the Controls from Terrorists explores this very question. For example, it points out that autonomous emergency breaking (AEB) is an existing technology that automatically applies a car’s brakes when a collision with a pedestrian is imminent. The EU has required all new cars to be fitted with AEB since 2015, but some adjustments to the regulations are required to prevent the deliberate use of vehicles as weapons. It’s that kind of creative thinking that we want to encourage in young people through their work in D&T.
Augmented Reality (AR)
Since we published a Teacher Briefing on AR a year ago, much has happened – not least the Pokémon Go phenomenon. A year on the game has largely dropped out of the news, but, although the active players count has dropped from the huge number at the start, it continues to be popular by any reasonable metric. And Pokémon Go’s Next Big Move is the active promotion of civic engagement by partnering with Open Streets events. That sounds like a positive use for a technology.
In other AR news:
- LightUp is an electronics kit that pairs with a tablet to put graphical features, such as a representation of current flow, over the image of the built circuit (or what LightUp call “x-ray vision to see how things work”).
- Meta has built an AR headset which, along with its Workspace software intends to replace the computer monitor and the familiar ‘desktop’ metaphor with a more flexible augmented reality experience. MIT’s Technology Review describes the experience and the BBC has a video report.
- Project Chalk is possibly worth keeping an eye on; it won’t be available until the autumn but offers the ability to provide technical (and presumably other) advice and support over a distance with AR, again the BBC has a video report.
- SwapBots is being threatened as the next fidget spinner, its 3D printed blocks come to life using AR and will be able to engage with other SwapBots. 3ders reports.
But the real confirmation that AR is about to arrive as a significant technology is the activity of four of the biggest technology companies; Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple.
Perhaps less welcome, but inevitable, is the news that Augmented reality prepares for the battlefield.
Disruptive Technologies – the book
Transcendence: The Disinformation Encyclopedia of Transhumanism and the Singularity by R. U. Sirius and Jay Cornell, published in 2015 by Disinformation books. Despite its rather alarming title and publisher as well as the unusual name of one of its authors, this is, in fact, a very informative encyclopaedia that provides very clear and (largely) jargon-free introductions to a wide range of ‘edge’ technologies and movements including most of the technologies we have included in our Disruptive Technologies project (neither Big Data nor the Internet of Things have explicit entries). If you’re planning some work to help pupils develop technological perspective, and you need to ensure that you are up to speed, this book isn’t a bad starting point.
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Links and comments from the community
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Do you have interesting news items you'd like to share?
If so, send them to me and I'll link to them in this section with appropriate acknowledgements.
And I welcome commentary and discussion on items that have taken your interest (or raised your ire!); again, with permission, I’ll be very happy to include elements of such feedback.
You can send items and comments by simply replying to this email.
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I’ll be back soon,
Cheers, Torben
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