Interaction and Augmented reality

Let's start with what I have learnt in the lecture this week, 'Interaction' is the integral component embedded in the following concepts: enactivism, behaviourism, cybernetics and cognitivism. In media, interaction is naturally conducted and goes beyond our physical motion and social reality to produce a sense of constant change within an entity or an event. For example, 'the machine in the middle' (from last lecture) which in other words, the human that is making an interaction with the machine, the computer, to transmit certain set of instruction via assembly language of representations and symbols to complete tasks. In fact, computing has gone way further than the limitation of the computer itself in this stage. In Dourish's(2004, p.2) article, the rise of embedded computing are now usefully harnessed for more than just traditional desktop computing. Rather it has helped us to move around in the world, which we no longer only sit at desks. We are now empowered by the new ways of interacting with computers, ways that suggestively blurred our the boundaries between virtue and reality.

Quickly running through the four parts mentioned during the lecture as well as Dourish's article. Electrical, symbolic, textual and graphical interactions are the four that radically change our ways to interact. Electrical is the one that required for rigid rules and instructions to specifically connect, reconfigure and possibly through the incorporation of new circuits which indeed not so convenient. Symbolic, the evolution is created by humans in a need to facilitate the communication of the computers without directly and manually conducted. Textual, simply refers to break input text into commands, literally talks to the machine to create a meaningful context of interaction to the sense of the whole. Lastly the graphical, in which opens up a new dimension to replace the old ways of interaction nowadays. Graphical interaction exploits in two dimentional interfaces allowing us to convey information through patterns recognition and spatial information. Meta-information, in turn, another expression of information density, which now can be compactly extends the presentational forms into a graphical form of knowledge.

I find graphical interaction is the most interesting one augmented our reality and much more. Think about what some apps have offered us in our daily experiences, such as the one Andrew showed in his lecture, Junaio augmented reality app using to indicate where you are, in particular, what your surroundings all are, seen to be a recommendation if you go to a new place because it digitally scans the environment at first, and subsequently allows computation to be made to offer you the signs of location embedded with information that you need to familiarize with the surroundings.

Now, let's come back to the major term 'Augmented reality' again, what I think about this term in my own comprehension is that computational power can really enhance our physical presence in a mixture of real-world and computer-generated data. Interaction design such as Google glass, an exceptionally fascinating design ever made to integrate and amplify a new form of experience.

I've found another example to illustrate the point of 'augmented reality' via an interaction design project.

The following video is an interaction design project, named as 'Pillow talk', aiming to connect long distance lovers. Each individual has a pillow next to them and a wearable ring sensor for them to put on before they go to bed at night. The pillow will begin to glow softly once they go to bed, in order to indicate their presence. To have further connection with the loved one, placing the head on the pillow allowing you to hear their real heartbeat.  

                                 From:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrfJ9EOSFEU

Reference:
Dourish, P(2004), 'A history of interaction', p.1-23, in Where the action is: the foundations of embodied interaction, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press