“Funny how a living rock in space can offer a lifetime of worlds in just a click.”
Anna said this out loud as she motioned her hands through AR stories popping up through her screen. Swipe your hand left to move on to the next story. Swipe right to go back. Use both hands to fast forward or rewind clips for your instant gratification. For years, human behavior evolved alongside AR technology, closing the gaps between online and offline realities.
In 2030, living life to the fullest meant living several lifetimes in a day. As a researcher, Anna found it fascinating how fake realities and living in reality was just a matter of putting on a pair of AR glasses.
Anna closed the palm of her hand to turn off her screen.
She sets up the car, packs her bag, and locks the house with a simple face ID through her smartphone.
She puts her sonar pods on and steps out into the driveway. The car moves itself and welcomes her to take the wheel. She says “let’s get to work.” And for the heck of it, she still drives even when the car can already drive itself.
On her drive, holographic billboards make their appearances in broad daylight. It isn’t as apparent yet, but by nightfall, it turns the city into a greenscreen of light shows with every goal to budol. Over the decade, brands learned that personalization is key. So whatever you shop every 10.10 / 11.11/ 12.12, you bet it’s going to take every shape and form to get you to add to cart –even if it means millions worth of ad spend on K-pop appearances or having Jose Marie Chan serenading jingles as early as September. Plus, with sonar pods auto-translating ads in every country, it didn’t matter where you lived. Diversity’s fully embraced, and language barriers were no longer an issue. The entire world is your ad space.
“Signal that we’re making a right on the next turn.” Upon Anna’s voice command, the car immediately sends notifications to vehicles close by. Honking cars no longer existed because health and safety is now proactive over a reactive effort.
Driving to work is one of Anna’s favorite things to do, because it meant seeing a cityscape balanced between nature’s foliage and 3D printed buildings. Yes, the world still had trees. Thanks to 3D printing, it was possible to grow communities with less harm to the environment. Sustainability is probably one of the biggest achievements of our time as more and more companies finally ask themselves “what good would it bring if our world died before our business grew?”
Ping. NOTIFICATION: Time to start your day.
Thank you for exploring AR0417. We hope you enjoyed your stay.
And just like that, Anna takes her AR glasses off, gets on her wheelchair and says,
“Now it’s time to step out into the real world.”
