Part 1: Augmented Reality and Historical Issues
2. From Augmented Reality Systems to Cyberphysical Systems
2.3 Cyberphysical Systems as Sociotechnical Systems
Social networks of more or less autonomous robots are only one possible devel-opment in a general trend of future technology. In a technical co-evolution, glob-al information and communication networks are emerging with surprising sim-ilarity to self-organizing neural networks of the human brain. The increasing complexity of the World Wide Web (www) needs intelligent strategies of informa-tion retrieval and learning algorithms simulating the synaptic plasticity of a brain (Berners-Lee 1999). The Internet links computers and Augmented Reality-technologies with other telecommunication devices. At the router level, the nodes are the routers, and the edges are their physical connections. At the inter-domain level, each inter-domain of hundreds of routers is represented by a single node with at least one route as connection with other nodes. At both levels, From Augmented Reality to the Internet of Things 37
the degree distribution follows a power law of scale-free network which can be compared with the networks in systems biology. Measurements of the clustering coefficient deliver values differing from random networks and significant clus-ters. The average paths at the domain level and the router level indicate the small-world property.
In the future, global information networks will grow together with societal infrastructure in cyberphysical systems (acatech 2011). Current examples are complex smart grids of energy. Many energy providers of central generators and decentralized renewable energy resources lead to power delivery networks with increasing complexity. Smart grids mean the integration of the power deliv-ery infrastructure with a unified communication and control network, in order to provide the right information to the right entity at the right time to take the right action. It is a complex information, supply and delivery system, minimizing loss-es, self-healing and self-organizing.
Smart grids with integrated communication systems accomplish a dynami-cal regulation of energy supply. They are examples of large and complex real-time systems according to the principles of cyber-physical systems (Lee 2008).
Traditionally, reserve energy which is used to balance peaks of consumption or voltage drops is stored by large power plants. The main problem of changing to renewable energies is the great number of constraints depending on questions of functionality as well as security, reliability, temporary availability, tolerance of failures, and adaptability (Wedde et al. 2008). Cyber-physical systems with local and bottom-up structures are the best answer to the increasing complexity of supply and communication systems (Cyber-Physical Systems 2008). In a techni-cal co-evolution mankind is growing together with these technitechni-cal infrastruc-tures. Their collective abilities emerge like swarm intelligence of populations in evolution which are sometimes called “superorganisms”.
Increasing computational power and acceleration of communication need improved consumption of energy, better batteries, miniaturization of appliances, and refinement of display and sensor technology (Weiser 1991, Hansmann 2001).
Under these conditions, intelligent functions can be distributed in a complex network with many multimedia terminals. Together with satellite technology and global positioning systems (GPS), electronically connected societies are transformed into cyberphysical systems. They are a kind of symbiosis of man, so-ciety, and machine overcoming traditional Augmented Reality-technologies.
Communication is not only realized between human partners with natural languages, but with the things of this world. Cyberphysical systems also mean a transformation into an Internet of Things. Things in the Internet become locally active agents equipped with sensors, apps, and AI (Mainzer 2016a). From an eth-ical point of view, all these cyberphyseth-ical systems should be initiated and
devel-oped as service and assistant systems for human well-being and saving the Earth system. The ethical point of view makes the difference to technology-driven vi-sions and distinguishes human dignity.
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Javier Vilanova
Extended Reality and Abstract Objects:
A pragmalinguistic approach
Abstract: In this paper I carry out a grammatical clarification of the main con-cepts and expressions commonly used when dealing with “Augmented Reality”.
I specifically focus on resolving ontological puzzles concerning the nature of en-tities produced by new technologies. I offer an analysis of the grammar of the terms “virtual”, “reality”, “extension” and “augmentation”, and I compare Aug-mented Reality with other problematic domains of language (universals, fiction, mathematics and social phenomena). I conclude that: (i) Augmented Reality is constructed via linguistic procedures; (ii) entities within the realm of Augmented Reality belong to the family of abstract entities; and (iii) Augmented Reality is the ever-evolving culmination of a process that humans started when we created language and have continued to develop through science, engineering, art and other instruments that empower us both to expand reality through the inclusion of new kinds of objects, and to extend our epistemic and existential access to reality.
Keywords: Augmented Reality, extended reality, virtual, abstract, pragmalinguis-tic.