How will technology affect our future interactions with the world? The video above shows a possible track with ‘augmented reality’ turned up full – see Hyper-Reality for more background on the film (originally picked up from Boing Boing).

I’d put that at the dystopian end of possibilities; I don’t think such a hellish vision would feel cool for very long! Even today’s technology makes a significant difference to our interactions. I’m reading an early Peter Robinson novel that was recently republished (No Cure for Love) and, although it was only written 21 years ago I can see a lot of points where a modern investigation would be quite different. So far the key subject of the story is an actress who has moved to Hollywood from the UK; in 2016, I’m sure Arvo Hughes – the detective looking into threatening letters she has received – would have been straight onto IMDB.com to look up her public filmography.

It is too early in the book yet to say what difference that would make but it has led me to musing on the many ways in which the present day puts previously impossible volumes of information at our fingertips. The hyper-reality film makes me wonder at what point we’ll start realising we’ve gone too far (unless adblockers kill the funding stream of this information pool first!).