Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Like most people I spend much of the day digitally connected, gazing at screens that make my life and work more interesting and productive. In this troubling scenario, the only reality we might experience will be artificial simulations inside helmets or goggles that prevent us from touching, seeing, feeling or interacting with a real person or object.

Fortunately, there’s an alternative digital future taking shape that I call Integral Reality, which combines the best of the digital and analog worlds. Integral Reality intertwines the wonders of the digital within the physicality of real things. With digital components embedded and invisible within objects, Integral Reality won’t separate us from the real world but instead promises to create emotionally engaging experiences with it.

This is already happening with the first wave of connected smart home appliances, like thermostats and air-conditioners, and wearable technologies that monitor health or physical activities. Consumers are getting their first taste of how unobtrusive sensors and aggregated data and connectivity between the physical and the digital can make their lives more comfortable, convenient and secure. At Altitude, the innovation and design consultancy where I work, we’ve completed several such projects including Under Armour’s performance monitoring for extreme athletes, a wearables platform for WIMM Labs, and even a concept project for a digitally connected home bar....