Aurora: Concept Video Part 3

Vimeo’s having a little trouble with their HD streams right now. HD version available soon.

In Part 3 of Aurora, we look at connecting the Web more closely with the physical world.

Watch: Part 1 | Part 2


Credits for Part 3

Written and Directed by Jesse James Garrett

Producer: Julia Houck-Whitaker

Assistant Director: Teresa Brazen

Photography: Jean-Philippe Dobrin

Animation and Video Production by Whiskytree

Browser User Experience

Lead Designer: Jesse James Garrett

Design and Technology Advisor: Dan Harrelson

Visual Design: Kumi Akiyoshi and Sebastian Heycke

Production Support: Judd Morgenstern and Lin Lin

Web Page Design

Product Detail Workspace: Dave Shea

Cast

Patrick: Alex Ochoa

Moira: Rebecca Blood

Special Thanks

Ambassador Toys, San Francisco

There are 15 comments on this idea.

It seems like taking pictures of thing would be unnessesary if you simply used an augmented reality approach. Simply pointing the camera at an object could be enough to display relevant info about the object. You don’t need to make the user select to display the object because the fact that they are pointing their mobile device at it is indicative of the user wanting more info about that object.

Hi from Brazil!

I liked that concept of integration physical with virtual, but i don’t think that’s gonna happen that way, i think that the Aurora Browser, and all another physical parts will be integrated, when you walk in that store, the browser will receive the environment and everything will be accessible. You will go to the store just to “fell in your hands” the products or to talk to another people and sellers about yours desires.

Sorry by my English, good luck with future!

I agree with “linkreincarnate’ i dont think taking pictures would happen but think that it scanning some sort of identifier on the object woul blatently happen i.e barcode.

But everything else in this video is doable and probably the best out of the three videos for what could be developed in the future.

Really enjoying the concept and will watch the site with interest.

Excellent ideas that would certainly remove the many steps we take to do these kinds of things right now.

The menus around the borders are very handy, but I imagine that what might be even more efficient in this scenario is to use something like the radial menus, shown in the desktop version, rather than having to utilize those menus at the borders. I think radial menus might be best suited to this context because information density comes at a higher cost in terms of real estate and cognition. I point to that excellent debate about Edward Tufte’s vision for the iPhone Weather App that Chris Fahey started, because the point is relevant here.

I’d imagine something as simple as:

1) Point the device at the product and capture the product info via RFID or barcode, maybe there could even be a physical button on the device to begin these types of interactions with physical world. A product browser appears.

2) View product info in this browser and summon radial menu to see your options, which might include: view reviews, browse local or online vendors selling this product, share with someone, etc.

3) Choose what you want to do with this info and you’re done with the device, unless you use it to actually pay for the item in the physical world.

In scenarios like this, I think ultimately people want to use their devices as little as possible in the real world, so a seamless and smooth process would be great.

Very exciting concepts, and the video scenarios have been a really excellent way of illustrating.

Does the Aurora team envision that by the time this concept would become reality, the internet would feature semantically sophisticated AI?  I ask because the “review” function presupposes either a neat, tidy, and STANDARDIZED repository of reviews to be accessed in order for that graph to be generated, and to be meaningful (i.e., not just a handful of reviews from one place that could be negated by reviews elsewhere).  Otherwise the video presupposes your device’s intelligence in data gathering or roving internet AIs who can fetch and organize this data for you.

freds new military

This has way too much:

Step 1 collect underpants

Step 3 Profit!

Way too much reliance on conjecture of future tech. hell type name = review into google and you get tons of crap and NOT a review of the product.

I think you guys have ideas worth sharing, but would it be possible to have demonstrations without the unnecessary “scene”? It’s contrived and forced, I feel like I’m watching one of the supplementary videos in my high school German class.

Early adopters are tech people. Make some collateral that uses a direct approach with no fluff. Don’t make me listen to a discussion between two people about a birthday gift before I can see what it is you plan to show me.

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