Speaker: 

Blair MacIntyre

Title:

Augmented Reality + Internet of Devices + Big Data: The End of Privacy? 

Abstract:

Augmented reality, for all it's hype, is still far from the magical technology many people imagine: it will be many years before the beautiful graphical integration of virtual and physical worlds seen on televised sports is possible in an always-worn personal display. On the other hand, the Internet-of-Devices is already arriving, as everything from televisions to fitness monitors to thermostats and door locks are rapidly become networked and sending streams of information to the cloud. Individually, each bit of data is unconcerning to most people, but taken together and combined with everything else that is known about us, they reveal a shocking amount about us. This consolidation is already beginning to happen, as big corporations snap up companies like Nest and Moves. But the amount of information yielded by the IoD's about our homes, lives and those we pass by during the day pales in comparison to the data that will be generated and collected by the idealized Augmented Reality systems being imagined and developed. New technical, policy and business models are needed if the addition of such systems is not to lead to the end of privacy as we know it. In this talk, I will discuss these issues and the ecosystems in which they exist, highlight issues particular to Augmented Reality and talk about how this problem is guiding our ongoing work in the Argon AR Browser project.

Bio:

Blair MacIntyre is a Professor in the School of Interactive Computing in the College of Computing at Georgia Tech. He co-directs the Augmented Environments Lab, the Argon AR-Web Project, and the GT Game Studio. He has been doing Augmented Reality research since 1991, and been at Georgia Tech since 1998.  His research focus is on the design and implementation of interactive mixed-reality and augmented-reality software, games and experiences. In his work he aims to understand the potential of AR as a new medium for games, entertainment, education and work, and the software architectures needed to make AR widely available.