Can’t Wait For My Augmented Reality Glasses

With Droid and other technologies, the augmented reality concept is becoming real. Never heard of it. Here’s a definition from Wikipedia:

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer.

In the case of Augmented Reality, The augmentation is conventionally in real-time and in semantic context with environmental elements, such as sports scores on TV during a match. With the help of advanced AR technology (e.g. adding computer vision and object recognition) the information about the surrounding real world of the user becomes interactive and digitally usable. Artificial information about the environment and the objects in it can be stored and retrieved as an information layer on top of the real world view.

The simple examples that many of us may be familiar with are the simulated first down line in football or the line of the hockey puck. They are graphics that are applied in real-time to a reality.

Here’s a couple of cool examples:

Dialing using your hand.

Yelp via Monocle on your iPhone. (Just look thru your camera phone)

Travel Guide using Wikitude. (Just look thru your camera phone.)

First off, the geeky side of me finds this fascinating. Practically speaking, as someone who struggles with names especially at large social events, this would be great in my glasses. If I had pictures of everyone I knew and had ever met and that could pop up into my view in my glasses with some basic information on them (John, works at X company, went to University of Michigan, has two kids, last spoke on April 09).

Maybe at some point this becomes the Matrix meets SecondLife meets Wall-E where everyone’s obese and the only thing you see of them is their Avatar as they move thru some augmented reality.