A Window Into Anywhere

Augmented reality isn’t just webcams and smartphones (or really weird haptic floors.)  Sometimes they’re windows into other places like this Winscape.  While the name is unimaginative and makes you think it’s a Microsoft product, the idea is spectacular (albeit for only one person.)

Using an iPod, a Wii remote, and some other gadgetry (see this video for the how-to), the setup gives you a window into another place.  We’re not talking a fireplace on your TV, but an interactive illusion.  The views they choose were pretty mundane.

Though if I’m going to take the time to set all this equipment up in my living room and carry an iPod around my neck all the time, I want a panoramic view of a distant planet like Mars or the bottom of the ocean.  Or give me a mock-up of my favorite science fiction and fantasy novels.  What LARP’er wouldn’t want to have a window that looks out of Minas Tirith?

The makers of this call it Situational Telepresence.  I’d call it a ‘window into another world.’