Virtual worlds, augmented reality, blended reality

The internet could be considered just another collection of digital tools, but it has had a more profound impact on how we live, work and play than most people would have predicted. The intemet makes everywhere local. For the exchange of ideas and data, it does not matter where you are on the planet. For an industrialized society, or for one forming to emulate existing ones, this creates an interesting situation. If people can work and communicate at any distance the current organization of corporations, cities and even countries changes. However, the legacy set of tools available to communicate at distance miss many of the vital elements we use as humans. Telephones, email and web pages filter out much of who we are. It is very easy, therefore, to dismiss any new technology as more of the same and to stick with the legacy tools. We lose the notion of space, location, size, physical presence and nonverbal communication in the "traditional" interne tools. This tension between what we currently do and what we need to do acts as a flashpoint that causes new inventions to emerge. The intemet helps spread these inventions, and acts as the expression of them. These evolutionary steps in our communication are not restricted to the keyboard and screen, so not only challenge our organizations they also challenge our ideas of what the norm is for computing. Looking at the components of some already exciting technologies and combining them with a changing society becoming well versed in freedom the Internet can offer, leads us to a very close future, etc. One with a blended reality where digital and physical mixes in combinations that suit us as people. The future is already here we just have to join it. (c) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.