Living with hyper-reality

Hyper-reality describes distributed computing interfaces that weave existing environments with additional channels of sensory feedback to enhance everyday activities without confusing users. To be intuitive and non-intrusive these interfaces use illusionary pre-attentive content that is co-located with the objects and surfaces of a space and synchronous with a user's actions. Interfaces for an office, a laboratory, a kitchen and a public hallway are presented along with user studies suggesting that augmenting sensory feedback has the potential to simplify tasks and make them safer, while expanding the potential for interaction with everyday environments.