tesh – LookingOutwards07

Reality Editor

MIT Media Lab – Fluid Interfaces Group

Using Bi-Directional AR, the user can control robotic devices in real time and activate different functions from the AR interface itself

Reality Editor is a web-based tool from MIT that uses AR interfaces and Logic Crafting to connect devices over the web and help control the physical world. These interfaces both act as input interfaces for the Logic Crafting system as well as output displays for numerical values, search results, and other forms of data display.

The user can connect this digital knob to the lamp using the AR app for the Reality Editor

Something interesting about how the Reality Editor system uses AR is that it tries to minimize the amount of AR visual space that is dedicated to inputs and actually helps bring physical input devices into the digital world as a form of Augmented Reality.

By connecting to cloud services, users can search for certain kinds of products and using image recognition software, the app can give back relevant information through the AR interface

We have naturally and intuitively used our hands to interact with the physical world around us for hundreds of years, and the Reality Editor system is trying to give back some of that physicality that has been somewhat lost in our current overabundance of ambient tech devices or flashy, eye-catching screens and signage. The AR is only mainly used to help the user determine what physical objects are connected and how they work together.

Users can connect essentially any input to any number of outputs to create a whole system that goes into motion based on a simple physical trigger

Reality Editor works using Open Hybrid and is actually available on the iOS App Store to mess with right now!