Throughout the last 50 years augmented reality has taken on a number of meanings. In the 60s it meant necking LSD and holding hands with hairy naked men, in the 70s it meant getting lost in an episode of The Sweeney, the 80s forgot about augmenting reality and focussed on making pots of cash and in the 90’s it meant sweating in a warehouse listening to barely audible Altern8 remixes. Now, deep into naughties, augmenting reality has become the job of mobile companies.
Augmented reality is basically combining meatspace with cyberspace, flesh with flash and skin with SIM. By combining the technology in your phone with the connectivity of your network, augmented reality takes real life and imposes data over the top. You never need to be disappointed with real life ever again. This post over on Mashable has got some pretty interesting pics of the new Wikitude iPhone app, which pulls down geotagged data from Wikipedia and lets you interact with it using your camera, compass and GPS. Another step towards Johnny Mnemonic then.
Pingback: Tweets that mention Reality bytes -- Topsy.com
Reads like the start to an epic sf novel. I like it. Hopefully AR pans out as an industry changer and not a flash in the pan.