How do you define your reality?

This came to me, as many ideas do, at 5 o’clock in the morning:

Google Earth now has Street View. To many, it comes as no surprise; Google has many web properties which will work quite well in unison once they are integrated. With the addition of Street View, though, the company is well on its way to creating a static, visual representation of the physical Earth. Furthermore, as technology progresses, a human’s ability to interact with this digital “environment” will be greatly enhanced. At an intersection in the near future, the boundary between the “analog” and “digital” worlds will be seemless. A person will be able to transition from one to another, with no conscious observation of the technology in between.

To quote my friend Shane out of context, the seeds for this future are already sown. Barring a complete collapse of civilization, it will happen and it will happen soon. Communication is taking the same route too, coincidentally enough.

One big question, however, is this: how do you make the “digital” representation of the “analog” environment dynamic and live? Is it a matter of everyone having embedded video sensors and GPS receivers which broadcast realtime to a connected web? Will the future be in nano clusters, swarms of technology which capture the environment for us? Or will there even be a need or desire move around in an “analog” world if we can manipulate far more in its “digital” counterpart?

Now take one step back. Who else in the blogosphere has already “created” these worlds, this idea? When will I be able to be aware, to be conscious of that knowledge without having to search?

AI is soon.