The state of California will soon have an additional law on the books regarding the use of mobile phones while driving. Motorists will not be allowed to use their mobiles for text messaging while driving– something that common sense *should* tell us, however, a law was believed to be needed. This recent piece of legislation joins the previous law about *holding* the cellphone while driving, despite studies that show that it’s not the handling of the device, but the conversation which is the distraction. The act of holding a bottle of water to your head while driving, while nonsensical, doesn’t have a law restricting it.

Aside from the obvious need for best practices (possibly read: laws), the way media presents current events surrounding misuses of safe use of technology is critical to how a new technology is pitched to the masses. A train engineer was discovered to have been sending text messages 22 seconds before the Metrolink train he was operating crashed in a Los Angeles suburb.

The short version: texting = bad. The extrapolated version: technology may = bad, when applied to environments where safety should prevail, such as the operation of a motor vehicle.

In our cars, we have had a staggering array of option to enhance our travel: GPS navigation screens, satellite radio (with song data prominently displayed), dialing controls on the steering wheel, temperature gauges in the rear-view mirror casing, etc. Arguments can go both ways about the safety or enhancements that these technologies encompass.

We must be cautious with our cheerleading of certain technologies, and augmented reality is certainly no exception. The notion of overlaying visual, virtual information over our field of view is a concept that will be easily challenged, regardless if there are benefits.

As technologists, we tend to be caught up in the mechanics of what we’re building. We obsess over standards and business models, interoperability and systems that are open and closed. Yet we tend to miss the relevance outside of our early adopter circles into the Main Street world of consumer adoption and law.

This is compounded by  headline-driven, media illiterate societies. The video game industry is no stranger to sweeping condemnation by way of headline. “Teenager stabs teacher” + “some video game reference” and the impression is set in the mind of the reader before diving into the details of the story. Ergo, “Video Games Cause Violence” becomes a de-facto assumption. Should we make the ’sell’ fit in 140 characters so your media business will grow and gain traffic? Or should we have a deeper responsibility to technologies that will inevitably be beneficial and dangerous.

We can’t control the conversation (but it’s easy to see why many wish to), but we can control *our*  conversation, by anticipating the headlines in advance. Concerning augmented reality, the perception that may play out in the media will have to do with distraction. Legislators exposed to that will create regulations that may or may not hamper the growth of an industry. The augmenting of realities in an entertainment sense (read: blurring) is ripe for targetting by those that wish to condemn an evolution of gaming (he couldn’t tell the difference if it was real or not).

While it’s still early in the augmented reality and next gen interface and entertainment spaces, we won’t have much mainstream to battle for a long time to come. Yet we should be aware–regardless of our industry– of how media biases, literacy and legislative ecosystems work, so we can be prepared to make the case for technologies that will have greater positive effects than negative ones.