Don’t worry, I never heard of Parallel Reality before, either Baked and Awake

January 8th 2020
Baked and Awake 
Episode 096
 
Don’t worry, I never heard of Parallel Reality before, either
 
Source:  Fast Company, via Slashdot
 
Original Article by Harry McCracken (https://www.fastcompany.com/90443495/deltas-parallel-reality-airport-display-sounds-like-sci-fi-but-its-real
Misapplied Sciences: https://www.misappliedsciences.com/



Delta Airlines bought ($8million in a Series A) into a Redmond WA Based startup not at all ominously named Misapplied Sciences (MSFT Alums). Misapplied was operating in “Stealth Mode” (since 2014!) while building a new tech that Delta now intends to deploy ubiquitously throughout airports all over the world (presumably) that would create a new experience for its customers whereby the signage the traveler sees will be entirely personalized to each individual. From the story: “It’s almost limitless, the product map,” says COO Gil West. “Curb to gate, for things like wayfinding, boarding, upgrades, service recovery if your flight is delayed or canceled.” The tech accomplishes this seemingly miraculous feat by hyper focusing pixels on a special display, which depending on the viewers position will only beam specific images, colors, text (anything) to each individual user. Oh yeah, and AI and a bunch of video cameras mounted all over the place where the system is deployed. I choose that word for a reason.    The screens, still early versions of the tech- currently have some limitations on the number of different subjects they can display unique information for, but even these limits are staggering:  one iteration of the parallel reality screen can display unique information to 18,000 different points in front of it, while another is claimed to be able to split it’s display A MILLION times. I’m imagining billboards on roadways and window signs of businesses that deliver customized targeted ads.  I’m also envisioning dystopian “Public Service” displays that beam reminders and warnings to people who have forgotten to pay a parking fine, or might be in the midst of considering other mundane civil infractions like jaywalking, littering, parking in the load zone, jumping a mass transit turnstyle etc.  The Company’s CEO, in a quote for the Fast Company story said that “The system is agnostic to the tracking technology—all we need to know is a three-dimensional location that we want to send a piece of content to.” This statement I find concerning when referring to a technology that mostly relies on *many cameras being arrayed and networked together to follow the traveler around the airport so that the system can tell when someone is standing in front of one of the displays, and can then perform it’s magic. For the sake of clarity and in order to quell my initial weird feeling about this choice of words, I looked up the definition of agnostic: As applied it is an adjective, although a person can also be labeled “an agnostic” and in that case of course the word is a noun.  Sticking to the adjective however we find, per Google, that: adjective adjective: agnostic- Relating to agnostics or agnosticism. Synonyms: skeptical, doubting, questioning, unsure, cynical, unbelieving, disbelieving, nonbelieving, faithless, irreligious, rationalist, nullifidian. Nevertheless, further clarity may be gained by also reading the noun’s definition, which reads: “A person who believes that nothing is known or can be known of the existence or nature of God or of anything beyond material phenomena; a person who claims neither faith nor disbelief in God” 
Speaking of magic, I saw some (weed and paranoia fueled no doubt) red flags in the language chosen by the article’s author, over and above Misappllied’s CEO’s glib take on his responsibility to acknowledge the true scope of their tech’s wider applications. The article opens with characterizing the airport traveling experience as a ritual. A couple paragraphs down, a statement ab