Security in AR and the dark side of the future.

"The user interface you think of today will radically change over the next five years for the apps you buy and for the applications you build." - Gartner Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends 2018

It is understood or expected that AR is in Gartner's horizon for 2018.
What is surprising is the emphasis on net security and specifically setting up decoys for digital intruders. Netsec very large and over looked market by interaction designers, largely because it is not a consumer facing experience. It is an experience no one wants to face.
As AR becomes the interface to innovations that we cannot see, such as the blockchain, UAVs and UMS, machine learning, and ambient computing, it will also become an interface or seam to our lives that can be hacked.
I gave a talk on the dark side of AR UX and cited Neal Stephenson's novel the Diamond Age and how someone was infected with " a meme that ran advertisements for roach motels, in Hindi, superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner of his visual field, twenty-four hours a day."

We may not face threat of 24/7 visual hack anytime soon as AR contact lens ventures have been invested in but not innovated upon. But what about "pop-ups" or visual attacks while driving, walking, or operating machinery? We understand the work place, manufacturing, and other enclosed environments to be the first contexts for digital eyewear to reiceve adoption.

As we design the interface to ubiquitous computing we not only need to make it usable (something we struggle with), useful (something we constantly aspire to), but also safe. That's something we're not aware of. People question how advertising will be non-intrusive with AR. But there are deeper sides that public discourse has not touched upon yet.
 

 

Notes taken on a mobile device. Pardon any auto-corrections or incorrection.