Things ain't what they used to be

Not so long ago, objects were simply objects. They only came alive in Disney cartoons, or after a heavy drinking session. Most of the time, objects were simply there to be used to perform a task the user required. Now that is all about to change,  as we advance into the next phase of Web evolution. We are about to see the emergence of what Kevin Ashton called 'the Internet of Things'. In a recent blog post, Jamillah Knowles wrote that a revolution is about to begin where the objects in our homes and workplaces will become smarter, more context aware, and will be able to interpret data fed to them, before taking action. As physicist Michio Kaku wrote recently, 'now we can say to Siri, move my meeting back an hour from 3 to 4, soon we will be able to say to Siri, mow the lawn.' The difference is, at present we can use our devices to interact directly with virtual space, but with smart context aware objects surrounding us, we will be able to interact through virtual tools into the real world.

Already we have QR codes and RFID embedded into objects. These are very effective, but they are superficial compared to what comes next. The next stage, according to this generation of Internet gurus, is to embed smart chip technology, so that objects can have a conversation with our devices. Not only does that have promising implications for health care, engineering, architecture, business and entertainment, it also makes a bright future for ambient learning. Imagine a group of children going on a visit to a museum. Each is equipped with a smart phone. An app on their phones interacts with all of the exhibits in the museum. If they stand in front of a statue, or a model of a dinosaur and hold their phone up, the object will send information to the phone. The longer they stand in front of the exhibit, the more information it will feed them. When they return to their classrooms or homes later, they have a complete archive of all of the objects they have seen that day. They can use this information for projects, essays, blogs, podcasts. It can then be used in whatever content they create to show what they have learnt in the form of text, images, sounds and video. The real learning happens when the kids begin to integrate their experiences, the information they have captured and their interaction with it into creating, organing and sharing their own content.

All of this has been made possible because of the disaggregation of computer and microchip technology. In 2011, the number of smart objects connected to the Internet surpassed the number of people on the planet. This trend will accelerate exponentially in the next few years to the point where we see ubiquitous computing. No longer do we need to carry computers around with us to be able to interact with digital media. Using the smart device in our pockets, and the ubiquitous computing power that is being embedded in objects all around us, we will soon be able to learn from those objects, invest our memories inside them, and even get them to do our bidding.

Things ain't what they used to be. Things are about to get a whole lot smarter.

Photo by Rod Senna


Things ain't what they used to be by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Are QR codes redundant?

It seems only a short while since we first became aware of Quick Response (QR) codes. In fact, they have been around since 1994, and were originally created to enable the Japanese car manufacturing giant Toyota to track its vehicles during the manufacturing process. Now QR tags are just about everywhere you look, including advertising hoardings, buses and trains, magazines and even coins. They are essentially two dimensional bar codes that you can scan using your mobile device. The beauty (if you can call it that) of the QR tag is that it will quickly take your mobile device browser to a web site with no other effort than a button click. But as many users will tell you, scanning a QR code can be a little hit and miss.

QR codes have polarised the education community over their usefulness. Some argue that they have no real use beyond faddishness and 'wow' factor, whilst other educators are forging ahead, developing ideas for their pedagogical use. Slowly over the last few years, educational uses have begun to emerge, with some pedagogical applications already being tried out in authentic contexts. And yet, even while QR codes in education are still in their emergent state, questions are being asked about their future, and whether they have already become redundant.

Enter Blippar, an augmented reality tool that is hailed as the QR killer. Apparently it can do everything QR codes can do, but a whole lot more too. I first heard of Blippar when I picked up the November 2012 issue of the ShortList magazine, currently the most widely circulated free men's lifestyle magazine in the UK. The banner headline read 'Special Interactive Gaming Issue', which immediately piqued my interest. From cover to cover, the magazine features, articles, adverts and editorial are all marked with a small yellow 'Scan this page for more' symbol. Using the downloadable app from Blippar, readers can capture the image of the page, which takes them to an interactive website or gaming application. Blippar's managing director Jessica Butcher is fairly triumphant about what she naturally considers to be the advantages of Blippar over QR tags, declaring 'Rather than adding an ugly black and white pixellated box to an ad creative, Blippar can take the creative itself (the whole poster, a logo, the product itself) as the trigger for an interactive engagement.'

She has a point. We certainly wouldn't wish to ruin the aesthetics of adverts, would we? Seriously, I have always thought QR tags to be a little ugly in their appearance. The Blippar app is designed to recognise an image from almost any angle, at a distance, and even in poor light conditions, depending on the quality of your mobile device camera. This makes it a whole lot more reliable than scanning a QR tag, in my experience at least. Just like QR codes, Blippar can also recognise where the user is geographically through the GPS system on the mobile device they are using. For advertisers this is a distinct advantage, but I can also see many educational uses for these features.

Ultimately, those who are speculating on the future of paper based resources might like to consider Blippar and other similar data capture augmented reality tools. The future is likely to see a combination of paper based and e-books, or more likley a hybrid of paper based and AR enabled products, designed to function together with the user's mobile device, working in concert to provide students with interactive learning experiences wherever they are. Paper is not dead yet. It's just become enhanced.

Read the full article here: Can Blippar make QR codes redundant?

Image by Steve Wheeler


Are QR codes redundant? by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.