The Mirrorworld

I am curious about the future – both within my lifetime and beyond.

I saw the title of an article in Wired magazine, “Mirrorworld.” I was hooked.

Eighteen pages later, I struggled to identify a suitable ‘bit of a think.’ After summarizing the article with my wife, the answer just appeared. Enjoy this week’s ride.

Mirrorworld refers to having everything in the real world mirrored in a digital world—every fence, post, building, light—you get the idea.

I thought, give me a break.

After reading the article, I’m not so sure it is preposterous.

Before Google Street View was a reality, I would have thought the same thing.

In the mirrorworld, the objects in Street View will have a volume; they will take up space. We will interact with them much as we do in the real world.

Pokemon Go gives a hint of this. I played this outdoor game for a while. I walked about my neighbourhood and saw the real world on my iPhone while discovering fanciful creatures I could collect. And I was still leaving these creatures for others who came after me.

Sometimes, I had to blink as I thought the creature was hiding under that park bench!

We’ve had significant plateaus to get to the mirrorworld. First, Google dominates digitized information. Social Media was next with digitizing human behaviour and the myriad of relationships. Facebook is a dominant player. The third platform is dawning now as the mirrorworld.  This will produce impressive numbers of new ideas we couldn’t now imagine and an equal number of problems.

It is estimated that 80% of the workforce doesn’t have a desk. Some of these workers are currently wearing approved safety helmets in factories with built-in ‘goggles.’ This assists them in repairing the equipment by laying an image of the machine over the faulty machine and walking the worker through how to repair it, piece by piece.

A very primitive example you may have already used is taking a picture of a room in your house to allow you to try out placing furniture and changing colours and patterns to get the exact look you are after.

Apple’s Vision Pro goggles are one of the latest devices that tries to straddle the real with the mirror. Remember, the latest iPhones are in about year 15.  When I try to imagine such devices as the current array of goggles on the market from a large handful of manufacturers 15 years from now, my imagination gives up!

I haven’t even touched on the downside of ever-increasing technology. We are just at the start of educating ourselves and those younger than us. We are slowly adapting by changing legislation and informally setting ground rules for things like cell phone use in schools.

Please give this a bit of a think. What is one thing coming at us from the future that you are fearful about, and what is one thing you are excited about?

Photo by Caroline Veronez on Unsplash

Thanks to Wired Magazine for inspiring this Blog.

I’m curious about your thoughts. Please share your bit of a think in the comment section below. It will come to me for approval before posting.

If you enjoyed The Blog, please share it with others. Thanks.

And my thanks to St. Albert Seniors Association for making this Blog possible.

glenn.walmsley@icloud.com