Two Augmented Reality Technologies That Are About To Change The World
Annalee Newitz, io9.com: Augmented reality is a technology futurists and scifi authors like Vernor Vinge have been talking about for decades. Now the tech has matured and is entering the market. Two videos of new products show you the near future.
In a nutshell, what augmented reality does is provide you with an information overlay for your daily life. In Vinge’s latest novel Rainbows End, the sci-fi author and computer scientist imagines a world where everybody has computers networked into their glasses and clothing. These wearable computers allow people to do things like google information straight into their eyeballs while chatting on the street corner — or project a map overlay on the street in front of them, labeling every store. Or turn the local vacant lot into a wonderland filled with Pokemon characters ready to do battle. This is an augmented reality scenario.
Now our technology can actually do this, using smart phones as a crude mobile interface, [as seen] in these demo videos below:
