Amplifying reality

Abstract

Many novel applications take on the task of moving the personal computer away from the desktop with the approach to merge digital information with physical space and objects. These new applications have given rise to a plethora of notions and terms used to classify them. We introduce amplified reality as a concept complementary to that of augmented reality. To amplify reality is to enhance the publicly available properties of persons and physical objects, by means of using wearable or embedded computational resources. The differences between the two concepts are discussed and examples of implementations are given. The reason for introducing this term is to contribute to the terminology available to discuss already existing applications, but also to open up for a discussion of interesting design implications.