In 2013, You'll Use Gadgets to Share Your Reality in Real Time

It's 2013, winter. What's Jimmy up to? A couple of clicks on the remote, and you bring up his page, big as life on the plasma TV. Whoa! You're hurtling down a black diamond slope, adrenaline pumping into your system before you can hit 'pause.' With Sam's page, you're climbing up a steep rock face, handhold by handhold. Karen must be on vacation because it looks sunny, and you're sailing in a brisk wind across the bay.

While we may not be at the point of true virtual reality quite yet, things have definitely gone way beyond status updates and "tweets." Check out some of the tech that you’ll be able to use in 2013 to share more than ever before:

Wireless Technology + Cameras

One thing that's way different is wireless technology. When you can watch live HD video on your mobile, things have changed a bit. Now you can stream it to your mates, too, where ever they are. The video cameras now strap to your head, legs, chest, wherever you want the point of view to be.

A ski area in North America has already hooked up season pass wearers to social media, updating their speed, distance, vertical drop, and runs completed and letting friends know where they are on the mountain. It's only time before personal video gets hooked into a system like that. You’ll be able to share live video feeds, and track your friends during a variety of different activities.

In the old DVD players there was a rarely used feature that allowed you to use discs that had been filmed from several angles. On your remote you could change the angle while the video was playing. It was kind of like video games, where you can look around as you play the game. Anyway, if you strap on a few of those body cameras, add a little wearable computer, you're streaming multi-angle video. Bet you're the first with that one!

At a concert, what's the one thing you don't see? What the performer is seeing! He might be looking right at you in the front row, or somewhere in the balcony even. With a body camera, you'll see what he sees, just as you're getting into the song. You can even see yourself waving on the video wall.

How You’ll View and Share This Video in the Future--Ultrabooks

There are these spy equipment laptops, too, called Ultrabooks. Smaller, lighter, metal case, faster and longer battery life together. They're ready to go in a few seconds after you flip them open, and no hard drive is spinning inside. Hey, look! There's Jimmy, he's heading for the ski jump. Whoa, again! You could almost see one of these laptops under his arm, ready to flip open after his run while the bad guys zero in on him.

This kind of content isn't going to look like much on a few centimeters of mobile phone display. Tablets might do, and they can do a decent job as a video camera, some in 3D. A couple of companies have video glasses out that will do the job nicely, though they're a bit pricey so far. It gives you, the wearer, huge display but it's compact and just fits on your head. You might want to get ready for a bumpy ride, though!

For the producers among us, slicing up reality for display is becoming easier and easier. With new touchscreen, convertible laptops there's a choice between mashing up content on the device, and working with footage stored directly to the cloud. You can move it to cloud-based editing suites where editors can even team up and come up with a quickly cut extreme reality piece in minutes, ready to air or share.

2013 is going to be about the technologies that capture and share reality in high quality and high speed. From wearable video, audio, and computing to always-on high speed data, gone are the novelty days. 2013 will be about the experience. To get an idea what types of XPS laptops are available on the market today, visit Dell.

Author Bio:

Brian Jensen works with Dell. In his spare time he enjoys traveling, cooking and spending time with his family. He has a passion for learning and writing about all things technology.