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TOWARD AN AUGMENTED FUTURE: MAPPING THE PROMISES, CONTESTATIONS, AND SOCIO-TECHNICAL FUTURES PUSHING AN EMERGING TECHNOLOGY A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Chung Li Liao August 2014 © 2014 Chung Li Liao TOWARD AN AUGMENTED FUTURE: MAPPING THE PROMISES, CONTESTATIONS, AND SOCIO-TECHNICAL FUTURES PUSHING AN EMERGING TECHNOLOGY Chung Li Liao, Ph. D. Cornell University 2014 This dissertation is an empirical examination of a group of people working on a set of technologies referred to as ‘augmented reality’ (AR). The dissertation examines who the stakeholder groups are, how they are conceptualizing and pushing the technology, and the future uses and applications they are advancing in order to build coalitions and make the technology a reality. Through participant observation, in-depth interviews, and document analysis, this work has followed the AR community for several years. The dissertation reports on five major areas of contestation: the first is a debate over the form that a commercial AR device should take, whether it is mobile or headworn. The second is the debate over what AR is, and the ways that the definitional debate helps understand the community itself and the tensions within it. The third is the relationship between a particularly strong stakeholder group, marketing and advertising, and the ways that other actors are adjusting and reacting to their influence. The fourth is a contestation over standards in this industry, and how certain groups are negotiating the standards that will enable certain uses of AR. The last debate is over the industrial AR space, as certain groups have been advocating a turn away from consumer AR to more industrial applications, and some of the implications for that move. This research is aimed at expanding our theoretical understanding of AR and the social, political, economic, and discursive dimensions surrounding its development, and what they tells us about how emerging technologies are formed. The ways actors are envisioning technological innovation and development is contested through the structure of the community, who gets to be a part of the community, and the types of work that is valued within the community, all of which ultimately shapes the development and trajectory of the technology. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Chung Li Liao earned two Bachelor of Arts degrees in International Relations and Political Science from the University of Southern California in 2007. He received his Master of Science degree in Communication in 2012 from Cornell University, after which he joined the doctoral program in Communication at Cornell University. He has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the Glass Fellowship Award for Leadership and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Teaching Assistant of the Year Award. He has also presented his work at major conferences such as the International Communication Association, National Communication Association, the Association of Internet Researchers, the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (SIGCHI), and the IEEE International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality. His work has also appeared in major journals in the field such as New Media and Society, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication, and First Monday. Next fall he will be an Assistant Professor in the Department of Media Studies and Production at Temple University. His dissertation, titled “Toward an Augmented Future: Mapping the Promises, Contestations, and Socio-Technical Futures Pushing an Emerging Technology,” was supervised by Dr. Tarleton Gillespie. v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS When I was very young, my father earned his Ph.D. in physical therapy from New York University. At the time I was still too young to know what this meant except that these letters followed his name – Wen Shen Liao, Ph.D. To my father, the original Dr. Liao, it is only now that I know what it means to earn the title. I want to dedicate this work to my mother, Li Yu Liao, who brought the family to the United States for our education and our future. For her unwavering dedication, sacrifice, and love, I only hope that I have made her proud. To Grace and Vivian, who made sure I was never the smartest person in the room, like all older sisters should. I was always following their example, and they led the way even if they didn’t realize it. Special thanks goes to my committee, for all their support in making this possible. To my chair Professor Tarleton Gillespie, for first giving me the opportunity to study at Cornell, and for pushing me to ask the big questions. To Professor Lee Humphreys, for setting the example and showing me how to conduct research. To Professor Steven Jackson, for pushing me to make connections to broader literatures. To Professor Steve Hilgartner, for introducing me to many of the foundation literatures for understanding emerging technologies. From each of these people I have learned what it means to be a scholar, and I hope to emulate their mentorship style. Lastly I also want to thank the New Media Society reading group, Josh Braun, Dmitry Epstein, Megan Halpern, Caroline Jack, Chris Langone, Elizabeth Newbury, Sandy Payette, Oya Rieger, and Leah Scolere, who read my work more than anyone and helped me think through the process of research. This work was supported financially through grants from the National Science Foundation #1330297 and a Small Grant from the Institute for the Social Sciences. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Biographical Sketch iv Acknowledgements vi Table of Contents vi List of Figures vii List of Abbreviations ix Chapter 1 – Introduction 1 Chapter 2 – Methods 29 Chapter 3 – Mobile versus Headworn AR 57 Chapter 4 – But is it AR? 124 Chapter 5 – Marketing, Retail, and AdvARtising 171 Chapter 6 – Positioning Before the Standards War 222 Chapter 7 – Industrial AR 271 Chapter 8 – Conclusion 297 Appendix 306 References 316 vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 – Four-Quadrant Map 7 Figure 2 – Sociotechnical Systems 15 Figure 3 – Communities of Practice 23 Figure 4 – AR Conference Map 36 Figure 5 – Interview Participants 40 Figure 6 – AR Adoption Curve 58 Figure 7 – Mobile AR System 62 Figure 8 – Metaio Augmented City 63 Figure 9 – Image from AWE2013 82 Figure 10 – GlassUp 86 Figure 11 – Using Mobile AR 87 Figure 12 – Facial Recognition and Social Networking 90 Figure 13 – Spectrum of Mobile Futures 92 Figure 14 – Spectrum of HWD Futures 95 Figure 15 – Google’s Project Tango 100 Figure 16 – Seebright 103 Figure 17 – Google Glass Advertisements 111 Figure 18 – MetaPro 115 Figure 19 – Mixed Reality Spectrum 129 Figure 20 - 1st and Ten® 133 Figure 21 – User Centric Interactivity 136 Figure 22 – System Centric Interactivity 137 viii Figure 23 – Classification of AR Systems 165 Figure 24 - #RealityCube 166 Figure 25 – InsideAR Map 176 Figure 26 – Developer Investment in AR 179 Figure 27 – AR Software Developer Kits 181 Figure 28 – Cool Cola Orange 189 Figure 29 – Metaio Visual Search Demo 191 Figure 30 – Visual Representation of Marketing 196 Figure 31 – Augmented Hyperreality 204 Figure 32 – AR Ad Takeover 206 Figure 33 – Visual Representation of Marketing Opponents 211 Figure 34 – Band Aid for Kids 213 Figure 35 – IKEA Catalog 215 Figure 36 – Sterling Keynote 226 Figure 37 – Markup Language Comparison 234 Figure 38 – AR Interoperability 255 Figure 39 – Proposed Interchange Format 256 Figure 40 – ARML Specification 260 Figure 41 – Henderson and Feiner 276 Figure 42 – Vuzix & S&P 277 Figure 43 – AR Power Lines 280 Figure 44 – Vuzix M100 287 Figure 45 – Microvision Nomad 291 ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AMH – Arts, Media, and Humanities AR – Augmented Reality ARE – Augmented Reality Event ARML – Augmented Reality Markup Language ARNY – Augmented Reality New York AWE – Augmented World Expo AWENY – Augmented World Expo New York CARIF – Common AR Interchange Format CEO – Chief Executive Officer CoP – Communities of Practice CTO – Chief Technical Officer HTML – Hypertext Markup Language IARSC – International AR Standards Community IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers ISMAR – International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality ISO – International Standards Organization KML – Keyhole Markup Language KARML – KML Augmented Reality Markup Language Legitimate Peripheral Participation - LPP OGC – Open Geospatial Consortium S+T – Science and Technology SCOT – Social Construction of Technology x SDO – Standard Development Organization SSO – Standards Setting Organization SWG – Standard Working Group VC – Venture Capital W3D – Web 3-D W3C – World Wide Web Consortium xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION It was in 2009 that the application Layar application first launched, billed as one of the first augmented reality (AR) applications to be commercially available. In the first video advertising Layar, the scene opens with a panoramic view of city buildings with text proclaiming “this is reality.” It then shows a mobile device, running Layar, panning over the scene with the text now proclaiming “this is augmented reality.” As the mobile phone moves across the physical setting behind it, information begins to pop up about various locations it identifies in the scene. The advertisement showed that by moving a mobile device, one could get information about your surroundings such as which houses are for sale, the distance of the house, the price of the house, and photos of the house. Using the touchscreen, one can adjust the settings of the search, show an overhead map, and switch between themed layers. The video advertisement was impressive, and raised many questions about AR’s potential as well as possible implications. First, the potential psychological implications of AR were unknown, as well as how people might perceive augmentations in relation to their physical surroundings. Second, these applications might alter people’s perceptions and how people communicate with one another. Third, the content shown was relatively uncontroversial, but the potential for many different kinds of AR content was there, depending on how existing media industries might adopt/integrate AR technologies.