
Hyper-Reality [video] - dumindunuwan
https://vimeo.com/166807261?ref=fb-share
======
TeMPOraL
And some people are still asking why use ad-block?

This video is a perfect summary of the state of mobile and the web. As
'cryowaffle said, it's pretty much what we have today, without the AR [0].
That's why I think the whole ecosystem around web and mobile technologies is
sick and need to be fought against. We need less ads, less pseudoproducts that
in fact are just toys, less routing everything through third-party clouds.

[0] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11754750](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11754750)

~~~
amelius
I'm hoping the opposite will happen. That the advent of strong AI will bring
us better ad blocking technology, that may even block ads using augmented
reality techniques. Imagine all ads in real life replaced by beautiful
paintings :)

~~~
loup-vaillant
Strong AI is most likely to bring 2 outcomes: salvation (if we're _very_
careful), or doom (the default outcome). Because <very long argument about
intelligence explosion>.

Anything in between is likely moot: at the very least, strong AI has the
ability to end all jobs —overnight in the case of desk jobs. Ads and ad
blocking are meaningless in comparison: what is the significance markets,
money, and labour when the machines do all the work?

~~~
Florin_Andrei
> _Strong AI is most likely to bring 2 outcomes: salvation (if we 're very
> careful), or doom (the default outcome)._

Funny thing is, it's not like AI is going to make a landing here from outer
space. It's not some external factor that we don't control. It's us who are
building it. Any possible outcome could be avoided if we just stop working on
it.

I know this is not going to happen, but I feel this is the kind of obvious
thing that ought to be stated once in a while.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _It 's not some external factor that we don't control. It's us who are
> building it._

There's also another kind of obvious thing that ought to be stated every once
in a while: that at this scale, _we don 't control shit_.

There is no one on this planet who could ban AI research. Not one person, not
one organization. What humanity as a whole is working on is determined mostly
by factors like economic incentives and existing technology landscape - both
of them now push us towards building more and more intelligent software. To
stop that, you'd have to nuke the whole planet back to stone age.

~~~
hipjiveguy
rarely do i laugh out loud reading the web, but you got me ;-) very very true!

------
kdamken
The little shopping cart dog in this video reminds me how much I hate
"gamification" in everyday products and services. It's rarely something that
enhances your experience, and is there simply to separate you from your hard
earned dollars.

If I want to be "gamified", I'll play the video game I purchased on my gaming
machine.

~~~
binarymax
Yeah but that scene was so on point! Especially how there is a cut to the next
scene and the dog is wearing a hat, implying some achievement.

Such a great series of videos. Extremely well done, and horrifying because it
seems plausible (even if only a little).

~~~
kdamken
Haha it certainly was. I noticed that too. Even worse a part of me totally
wanted to deck my virtual pet out in a top hat as well.

~~~
jerf
Well, that's the thing, isn't it? We don't decry this stuff because it doesn't
work, we decry it because it _does_.

With years of practice, I've metaphorically calloused myself against a lot of
these things now. For instance, I'm nearly immune to the stupid "play half a
commercial, post link to 'see how it ends'" technique I see every few months.
By "immune" I don't mean that I no longer feel the draw, but that it is no
longer anywhere near enough for me to actually do anything about it. But it
took effort, and I find myself wondering, is there anything else I'm giving up
to have that metaphorical callous? What are the consequences of the brain
adaptations necessary to function under this constant cognitive assault?

(And I'm not at all sure the answer is easy. "More alienation" or "less
empathy" are really snap answers, but at the level of detail I'm interested
in, also vacuous. I'd really love to know but probably never will.)

------
rawnlq
At 4:00 you can see that not much of the world has actually changed other than
having tracking markers added everywhere:
[https://imgur.com/ffgbpjb](https://imgur.com/ffgbpjb).

So the tech depicted here is actually less advanced than we what we have today
(Hololens etc are all trackerless). Other than having a compact form for
glasses this kind of reality is achievable in just a couple more years.

Despite the theme of the video I am looking forward to it. The first decade of
having the internet sucked too with geocities design and crazy popups/viruses
on every click. But I wouldn't choose an alternate reality where the internet
didn't exist at all.

We should be more optimistic that all of these UI issues will be figured out
once it actually gets adoption.

~~~
Reese1379
@rawnlq: "We should be more optimistic that all of these UI issues will be
figured out once it actually gets adoption."

The future as nightmare more likely. The theme of the video is how this
technology is going to further alienate people rather than facilitate
communication. You can already see a contemporary version where people
everywhere, faces buried in their devices obsessively txting and no doubt
looking up their 'friends' on Facebook. Anything but instigate a conversation
with the person sitting next to them. See 'The Congress (2013)' for an
interesting variation on the theme.
[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/)

~~~
coldtea
> _You can already see a contemporary version where people everywhere, faces
> buried in their devices obsessively txting and no doubt looking up their
> 'friends' on Facebook._

Yeah, and the response to that is "people were always doing that". As if some
billions of us weren't around in the 70's, 80's, 90's, and even 00's to see
what the real case was, and will be convinced by such bs.

------
newobj
Mostly inevitable, a little terrifying, but also some really creative use
cases I'd never pondered there, especially highlighting the street when
traffic is about to come through. There's probably a lot more interesting
ideas to ponder in this video then just "boo hoo ads", if you can "open your
mind, Quaid"...

~~~
flanbiscuit
The scifi-cyberpunk-geek in me can't wait for wearables like this! This is an
exaggerated view of what can happen but also not too unfathomable. And yes
there we'll be ads and unnecessary gamification, but like you noticed in the
video, there will also be very useful technology as well.

Some positive things I took away from this:

\- Real-time language translation

\- integrating map and directions into your view

\- (as you mentioned) clear and evident warnings that you couldn't cross the
street

\- be able to add more information about products at stores. I know this
similar to advertising, but if you're at a grocery store and are able to get
more info about products immediately, I see that a plus.

\- The fact that you have an HUD for all your apps helps reduce "text-neck"
sprain and also allows for ease of walking and and being on your device.

\- Fashion. The one person who attacked her, while that part being a negative
experience, her body was covered in videos. I can foresee the fashion industry
becoming more involved with this tech. (I think Snow Crash dealt with this in
the virtual world part of the novel)

~~~
tedd4u
I think the attacker has camouflage that obscures their identity. Also I
believe the attacker used her blood to do bypass biometric verification and
fully take over her account (draining all her points).

If you liked this video I'd highly recommend two episodes of the British
series "Black Mirror." Check out "Fifteen Million Merits" and "The Entire
History of You."

List of Black Mirror episodes:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Black_Mirror_episodes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Black_Mirror_episodes)

------
0942v8653
Also see "Sight", another short film with a similar premise:
[https://vimeo.com/46304267](https://vimeo.com/46304267)

~~~
leephillips
This is worth watching for the end credits especially.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Credits are pretty cool. I haven't watched them before (I've seen the video,
but didn't pay attention past the end of the action). One thing I've noticed
is an interesting design dark pattern. If you look at the "stats" of the film
crew, you can see that the "level 0" of the bars is past the label - which,
without a low stat to compare with, makes them look longer than they should
be. Not sure if they did this on purpose to bring some point across or not,
but this kind of stuff happens often in real-world publications and is done to
mislead readers.

------
purplerabbit
This reminds me of "Enter the Void". Both films are in first person, and draw
emphasis to the difference between external reality and personal perception.

New "augmented reality" stuff is super interesting to me because it's
basically the means of creating a shared illusion. So, like a drug trip, but
more social and controlled. Basically like video games, but way larger in
scale and social reach :)

Thoughts?

~~~
TeMPOraL
My thought? Not sure if I want a lot of that illusion to be shared. I wish AR
would be used to really _augment_ people, and that for me implies a degree of
customization.

This topic is super interesting to me too. I just don't want it to look like
on that video...

~~~
scotty79
Movie seems to indicate lots of customization. Same yoghurt is
branded/marketed differently when see as 'Emillio'. Dog pet shopping assistant
becomes scantily clad women.

------
AndrewKemendo
We are working really hard to make the underlying infrastructure of this type
of interface a reality.

I think every day about how to build these capabilities, without them becoming
overwhelming like you see in the video.

Everything from how to interface (gesture actually sucks: non-haptic,
unnatural), to how to serve contextual data using natural visual input without
relying on engineered visual markers (QR codes etc...).

We have come a long way from the infrastructure perspective (mobile visual
mapping and re-localization) and are really looking forward to having better
visual interfaces - though they are years away from becoming mainstream.

One other thing that nobody has commented on, that is critical to these
systems working is having content. 3D content is an order of magnitude harder
to build than 2D content, so that is also a big focus of ours.

~~~
sillysaurus3
_3D content is an order of magnitude harder to build than 2D content_

Not really. It requires a different process and a different training regimen.
ZBrush makes 3D content creation easy enough that you can be done with the dog
model in the video in a matter of minutes, but only if you're trained with
ZBrush.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_but only if you 're trained with ZBrush_

Only proving my point - but not really taking it far enough. If I asked the
average designer to give me an image of a dog for my website/app etc... they
could do it incredibly easy. Either get a dog and take a picture with a
regular camera, maybe crop and edit or find/edit many of the ones you see now
in well known software.

If I asked that same group to make me a 3D model of a dog it would be
_literally_ orders of magnitude more complex. Knowing a 3D interface takes
quite a bit of time. Building the model, especially if you want any kind of
accuracy, even moreso.

~~~
sillysaurus3
That group isn't qualified to do the task that you're asking them to do.

There are different types of artists. A 3D artist isn't the same as a 2D
artist, which isn't the same as a designer.

It wouldn't make sense to ask a devop to write you a website, then claim that
webdev was an order of magnitude more difficult than devops.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_That group isn 't qualified to do the task that you're asking them to do._

Again, this is my point. The number of 3D content developers is staggeringly
low for the amount of content that needs to be created. Irrespective of that,
for comparable skill levels the time it takes to produce 3D content again
dwarfs that of 2D content - often cause you need a lot of structured 2D
content for it to be shaded and texture mapped/baked correctly.

~~~
sillysaurus3
_for comparable skill levels the time it takes to produce 3D content again
dwarfs that of 2D content_

In my experience, the skill levels can't be compared like that. A 3D artist is
a difference in kind from a 2D artist.

It's not nearly as difficult to create 3D content as you're suggesting,
though.

 _you need a lot of structured 2D content for it to be shaded and texture
mapped /baked correctly._

Actually, this isn't how ZBrush works. You can paint your model in whatever
fashion you want. There's no structure needed, and no baking process. The
final step is to convert the high-res painted model into a low-res exportable
version, which is largely an automatic process.

Your points appear to be (a) many more people are trained in Photoshop than
ZBrush, and (b) ZBrush isn't Photoshop. That's true.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
_It 's not nearly as difficult to create 3D content as you're suggesting,
though._

Not to go all "appeal to expert" here but I've been 3D modeling since the
mid-90s. My company is deep into 3D rendering, scanning and content
generation. Creating _something_ in 3D is trivial. Creating something _that
looks like something_ with accurate scale, correct UV mapping and polygon
normalizing is a highly technical skill which increases in difficulty
logistically.

It takes our expert modeling team at the absolute fastest, 1 hour to build a
single 3D model of a small 5 foot long sofa, without baked textures or high
quality detail. Compare that to lighting and taking a photograph of the same
sofa in a studio. Actually this is an interesting comparison because we have
worked so heavily on this particular problem.

I know how Z-Brush works. All I can say is that it is not how you create
content for VR/AR - it's not high enough precision and it's really only suited
for "organic" 3D modeling. Characters? Sure. Environments, engineered objects,
interfaces? Absolutely not.

No the point is, "content" as generated today - by your average Joe in the
form of 2D images and text, or by retailers/designers in the form of 2D
product pictures, is trivial to produce and takes marginal skill. The content
of AR is 3D. Your average Joe cant produce it at all, most retailers/designers
have no clue how they would start, and those who do know can't find enough 3D
modelers to keep up with demand.

~~~
sillysaurus3
_I know how Z-Brush works. All I can say is that it is not how you create
content for VR /AR - it's not high enough precision and it's really only
suited for "organic" 3D modeling. Characters? Sure. Environments, engineered
objects, interfaces? Absolutely not._

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPf1V-_Z6E8#t=33m34s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPf1V-_Z6E8#t=33m34s)

I appreciate how much thought and effort you've put into your replies. It's
reciprocated. But I think at this point we should agree to disagree.

~~~
AndrewKemendo
This is comparable to showing me this and saying that Paint is a good tool for
content creation.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EemkRXpoeEg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EemkRXpoeEg)

Ben is the outlier of outliers - the guy is a design genius and worked years
at Weta.

Best of luck.

------
r8ssi
Wonderfully done. Both this and the Domestic Robocop one they did six years
ago linked by 'Karunamon. I appreciate the density. Lots of detail to read
into.

Two pieces this was reminiscent of and I'd suggest, if you're interested, are:

    
    
      Black Mirror
        especially Series 1 Episode 2 "Fifteen Million Merits" 
      and 
      Terry Gilliam's Zero Theorem

~~~
PavlovsCat
That "speech" in that Black Mirror episode for me is up there with the
"Network" rant.

> _All we know is fake fodder and buying shit. That 's how we speak to each
> other, how we express ourselves, is buying shit. What, I have a dream? The
> peak of our dreams is a new app for our Dopple, it doesn't exist! It's not
> even there! We buy shit that's not even there. Show us something real and
> free and beautiful. You couldn't. Yeah? It'd break us. We're too numb for
> it._

------
hosh
I saw this last week. I couldn't tell whether it was utopia or dystopia, yet
recognized how many of the present-day technology and trends will result in
something like that. Seeing it all together in a first-person perspective like
that was startling.

Dukkha, that is, the existential anguish (Sisiphyus) is present, whether
technology is sophisticated enough or not. Technology cannot address dukkha.

It also resembled some of the psychedelic experiences I had, yet not quite --
for example, the way colors overlay the streets and grocery store aisle is
close, and yet, the sense that the symbols overlaying are conscious, sentient,
and alive is missing. The way you move through space and have the visual and
audio overlay change the space around you reminds me of some of the way
journeying happens. It is also interesting how, when the devices rebooted and
the colors of the world bled out, gives the same kind of contrast that some
people feel when their initial spiritual awakening experience fades. Lastly,
in a psychedelic experience, there is a connection between the inner
experience and the outer experience; this set of technology does not give that
sense.

~~~
purplerabbit
You need to see "Enter the Void"

~~~
hosh
How come?

~~~
nyolfen
it's entirely shot in a continuous first person like this video, but
incorporates explicitly psychedelic elements. the first scene of the film has
the protagonist smoking DMT and showing the visuals, which persist to some
degree through the film

~~~
hosh
Sure, that's great. Or I can meditate or do a ceremony and get a first-hand
journey like that. Why watch a film?*

In Hyper-Reality, it's showing an experience where mainstream access to VR and
AR gives mainstream access to some of the psychedelic experiences, and what
that says about our civilization, and what's coming in the future. When I read
the Wikipedia entry for "Enter the Void" does not seem as interesting to me.

* I do watch films like this. My point though isn't that Hyper Reality resembles a psychedelic experience, but that it gives us a glimpse of the future where pseudo-psychedelic consciousness shift is available in the mainstream, and part of the fabric of every day experience.

~~~
purplerabbit
No pressure, just thought you might like it. It's got a take on reincarnation
that you might find interesting to think about.

It's an extremely visual film -- as an experience it's nothing like its
Wikipedia entry :)

~~~
hosh
Ok, I'll check it out sometime.

Out of curiosity, what's the take on reincarnation? I saw it draws some ideas
from the _Tibetan Book of the Dead_. Is the take it has something that is a
twist on those ideas, or is it more that it's bringing the "Tibetan Book of
the Dead" out in a visual display that's interesting?

~~~
purplerabbit
I know nothing about the Tibetan book of the dead, but it portrays the
experience of death as an infinite psychedelic experience. (At least that's
how I surmise it -- others might justifiably disagree.) To me this seemed
prescient because I've heard of DMT users they've lived out entire lifetimes
during their trips... Got me thinking that maybe, since our brains
(proportedly) release DMT when we die, it could be a different sort of
experience than just entering an infinite blackness.

I'll have to check out Vistas of Infinity :)

------
lomnakkus
This looks so hyper-active that I'd honestly be completely overwhelmed by the
amount of 'information' pushed at me that I'd just end up a blubbering mess
lying in the fetal position until somebody turned 'reality' off.

(I mean, obviously that doesn't say anything about whether it'll happen or
not, but I _really_ don't want this to happen. It looks like an incredibly
scary and above all _vapid_ state to be in.)

EDIT: Btw, wasn't this posted a few days ago? Can't find it, but I'm pretty
sure I saw this around here. (Then again, maybe I saw it on reddit.)

~~~
TeMPOraL
This is the reality companies would like you to embrace, only on the web and
mobile because AR is not yet here. The video isn't that far from the way an
average non-tech person experiences their smartphone and the Internet.

About the amount of information - humans are good at tuning things out. Banner
blindness, and all. But what really bothers me about that vision is the amount
of _bullshit_ that's pushed on people. All forms of interruptions trying to
make you buy more stuff or interact with some useless crap (also known
nowadays as "user engagement"). AR could be an awesome tools. Maybe it will be
- if we can keep the people who ruined the mobile and the web out of it. I
don't see how to do it though, especially if we're talking commercial devices
for non-tech people.

As a counterbalance, here's a video from 7 years ago, which makes me
appreciate the idea of AR / VR on many different levels:
[https://vimeo.com/3365942](https://vimeo.com/3365942).

~~~
lomnakkus
> All forms of interruptions trying

Yes, exactly. What really struck/scared me was how this kind of AR would
really prevent me from concentrating on _anything_ for more than 1 second at a
time.

I'm sure commercial interests would want this type of thing, but presumably
they'll need _some_ humans to actually pay attention to things so that they
actually have some pool of people to recruit programmers from... but maybe
they aren't thinking that far ahead. Maybe the 'dead end' for humanity will
just be some type of AR where there's no way out because there's nobody
_outside_ AR enough to do anything else than just sit there in rapt attention.
Hmmm... maybe I just had an idea for a dystopian sci-fi novel.[1]

[1] Yeah, somebody _must_ have thought of this before.

EDIT: Just grammar and things. Plus, I discovered that I actually _really_
like the word 'actual'.

~~~
alttab
Sounds very similar to wall-e.

------
nsxwolf
I thought the part where her device was rebooted was chilling. I had never
considered that a fully augmented reality could lead to a real world stripped
of all its aesthetics to make room for AR target images to support the graphic
overlays. And if everyone is lost in their own audio visual world, why should
a grocery store even play background music anymore? It would be a sterile,
alien world with your visor or whatever turned off.

~~~
TeMPOraL
What you seem to call aesthetics I personally call "ad litter". I think this
type of AR-enabled world could be much prettier than the one we have today.
Imagine how beautiful it would look if all ads moved to virtual reality and
you turned off your AR set.

Speaking of which, one of the best features I could imagine for full-field-of-
view AR would be an ad blocker for physical world.

~~~
nsxwolf
But not just ads - artwork, facades, human-readable street signs, just about
anything could be on the chopping block to enable a better AR experience.
Imagine grinding the friezes off the Parthenon and replacing them with
checkerboard patterns to enable 3D animated ones.

------
asadlionpk
Btw the creator Kickstarted this video:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/723600195/hyper-
reality...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/723600195/hyper-reality-a-
new-vision-of-the-future)

------
Karunamon
This same person did another movie along the same lines a while ago - this one
in the home. I think the hyper-reality got quite a bit more hyper since last
time...

[https://vimeo.com/8569187](https://vimeo.com/8569187)

There's an interesting mechanic there. The person is seen modifying the
advertising intensity while something to do with money comes up on the UI. It
looks like you get paid to sit in crazy ad land, use the "service" for free
with less (but still ridiculous) ads, and presumably, you'd pay for ad-free.

~~~
kdamken
The implication you'd have to pay to not have your wallpaper be made of ads is
by far the most depressing part of this video.

Reminds me of this episode of Black Mirror
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits))
that takes place in the future. In your room there are ads everywhere, and if
you're not looking it stops and yells at you. To not see them you have to pay
money.

~~~
Bartkusa
My Amazon Kindle and Fire Tablet already do this. I would need to pay $15 for
the ability to skin my Fire's lockscreen.

(Although it's much easier to not look at my devices, than to not look at my
apartment's walls.)

------
pYQAJ6Zm
What I found most disturbing in this short is how devoid of a personality the
protagonist seems to be. She appears at times bored, annoyed, exhausted, lost
– and all of these, yes, are marks of an individuality still present – but
what happened after the AR hijack was revealing: after a moment of
disorientation, once her AR system got back online, she simply walked to the
closest AR stimulus, and promptly entered the game. This one happened to be a
game of a Catholicist theme, but could probably have been about anything else.
Her lack of pause, her willingness to enter a new game just for relief, for
purpose, show how empty the protagonist is.

This world seems one where the self is constructed mostly from the gamified
narratives of the AR system, whose creation mechanism is not revealed, but
appears to lie completely beyond the reach of its consumers. Here there are, I
think, hints of a free, wildly competitive market not only of goods and
services, but most importantly of identities.

If something like this is in reach of our (imminent) technology, I hope we
have the sense to avoid it becoming a reality.

------
coenhyde
You have to use your hands? That's a babies toy!

Seriously though. People are too lazy to use their hands to navigate an
invisible interface. It's a lot more work than using a mouse and keyboard.

~~~
Loughla
I don't know that it's laziness, as much as just fighting human evolution.
With nothing to actually touch, touch-based interfacing with things isn't very
easy. Our fingers are literally designed to feel input, not to act as a simple
stylus for our optic nerve.

And anyway, this type of invisible interface makes you look dumb
([http://dilbert.com/strip/1994-10-12](http://dilbert.com/strip/1994-10-12)).

~~~
scotty79
Probably future UI will be people touching themselves and only occasionally
waving in the air.

------
cryowaffle
Creative, well done. Pretty much what we have today without all the AR.

~~~
lomnakkus
... and people wonder why we use ad blockers.

(Btw, I agree that this was incredibly creative, imaginative and well-done.
It's just _really_ really scary.)

------
partycoder
If anything I would appreciate an AR that FILTERED content.

~~~
zardo
Remove ugly things from the world and replace them with beautiful things. I
think that might be something that people would put weird glasses on for.

~~~
partycoder
Or auto format poor code

------
l33tbro
The extreme isolation here got under my skin. The immediacy and tangibility of
all these illusory elements is frightening, particularly for children born
into this environment.

Even if we solve the design issues, we remain sequestered in a simulation
where there seems to be no respite. Guess I'm a sucker for authenticiy,
whatever that still means.

Congrats to the filmmaker here for dramatizing extreme virtuality with nuanced
storytelling.

~~~
djsumdog
Authenticity is...

[http://catandgirl.com/?p=2291](http://catandgirl.com/?p=2291)

------
pdkl95
Is "hyper" used in the "hyper-active" sense?

The video is portraying _augmented_ reality (as satire about current marketing
practices and corporate attempts to minmax everything). If I understand
Baudrillard correctly, Disneyland or "reality" TV are hyperreal. To be
hyperreal, wouldn't you would have to believe all the augmented ads/etc in the
video _were_ reality?

------
In2TheBoundless
Reminds me a little of Porter Robinson's flicker (music video).

Recently I read a Scientific American article that suggested there may be a
link between navigational ability and memory. If that's true, then push to
"Always On" GPS/Navigational Support could have deleterious effects on our
capacity for memory (this was one idea in the article)

------
Kiro
I know it's supposed to be dystopian but I can't wait until this is reality.

------
powertower
If there is such a thing as the Illuminati, that is bent on destroying the
human spirit - this is what I imagine their plans for the future world would
entail.

------
ashitlerferad
Looks like it could be a Black Mirror episode.

------
In2TheBoundless
Reminds me a bit of "Flicker", by Porter Robinson (music video)

------
beamatronic
I want this, but only if I can control exactly what I can see.

~~~
scotty79
probably same way you do with the web, bit of css here and there, some plugin
that drops contents from some sources wholesale...

