Augmented Reality, wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

[Cain]

Apparently set to be the next big thing in 2010:

Augmented reality (AR) has had a quiet launch on mobile handsets but it set to explode next year, experts say.

AR is a technology that allows data from the web to be overlaid on a view of the physical world.

Although a relatively small sector at the moment, analyst firm Juniper Research predicts that AR will generate incomes of $732m (£653m) by 2014.

AR allows mobile operators to combine the increasing functionality of smartphones, such as GPS, video and accelerometers, with the increasingly available number of location-based apps.

Already mobile phones use location technology to help people find their way around, such as an iPhone app developed by UK firm Acrossair to help people find their nearest tube station.

New look

US location-based social network Brightkite allows users to find friends in their vicinity simply by turning on the camera on their mobile phone and pointing it around them.

If any of their friends are in the same location, they can see their posts and photos.

Futurologist Ian Pearson predicts an explosion of such services next year.

"I'm surprised we haven't got there yet. But it makes a lot of sense if a friend is a street away then you can meet up for coffee," he said.

And it won't end there as the physical and virtual worlds increasingly blur, he says.

"Instead of seeing people as they are you might well be able to see their Facebook profiles appearing as bubbles above them," said Mr Pearson.

This is likely to raise some very important privacy issues but Mr Pearson thinks users will be in control of what others see.

"It will be up to individuals to set the privacy levels," he said.

Next year will see a range of "experimental" services rolled out as mobile firms grapple with how to make money from AR, thinks Martin Garner of analyst firm CCS Insight.

"It is an exciting area for mobile. It is a way for them to define a new area of the internet because phones can do it in a way that the desktop can't," he said.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

This is fun stuff. Steve Mann at the University of Toronto has done some incredible work in this area... I got to beta a set of his sunglasses for a while, it was really cool.

[Reginald Ret]

that would be pretty awesome actually.

[Triple Zero]

Am I a bad person for secretly wishing AR would stay an underground tech thing only used by crazy hackers?

and yeah what BAI said--they will probably use it as a way to augment our reality with even more advertising.

[NotPublished]

As long as they don't put adverts into your dreams

[Rococo Modem Basilisk]

AR has been the Next Big Thing since about 1998. Only recently has it actually become reasonably practical. I've been working on an AR app for the gphone -- once I get a gphone I'll see if I can get the damned thing working.

Side note: how the heck are people planning on making money off of AR? Outside of ads, are people selling the apps? Making people buy subscriptions? Or is the figure up in the OP like twitter's figures?

[Kai]

futurologist

[The Good Reverend Roger]

futurologist

SCIENCE!

[Kai]

futurologist

SCIENCE!

I think what they mean by that word is "person who makes random bullshit predictions about technology and somehow gets paid in the process".

[Cain]

No, they also make predictions about politics, too.

[Kai]

No, they also make predictions about politics, too.

What is your opinion of "futurology", Cain?

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

futurologist

SCIENCE!

I think what they mean by that word is "person who makes random bullshit predictions about technology and somehow gets paid in the process".

Having met some futurists... I think that sums it up.

I have no respect for 'futurists' that are incapable of interacting with "Now". If the Internet and forums and HTML are "too complex" and "too confusing" then you are not a futurist. You are an old person that desperately wishes they lived in a scifi story... without realizing that compared to your youth... THIS IS A FUCKING SCI-FI LIFE!

I get so fucking pissed off at these assholes that are gonna tell me about the Singularity or the Next Big Thing when they are incapable of fully grokking the Current Big Thing... or even the Thing that was Big Last Year.

Futurists, Transhumanists, etc.... some of them are really cool and are on top of their shit... quite a few of them however, appear to be mouths attached to post-40 bodies and pre-90's brains.

[Cain]

Most don't know what they talk about and have facile expertise in what they are futurologising about.

Some can be OK, but they generally don't call themselves futurologists (for example, historian Martin van Creveld, predicted more of the current decade in his 1999 book than most futurologists I've read, and economic analysts for Shell accurately predicted the fall of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War).  If they know the subject and have a historical, in-depth grasp of the material, then yeah, chances are they know what they are talking about.  Professional futurologists though might as well call themselves future bullshitters.

[LMNO]

NOSTRADAMUS WAS A FUTUROLOGIST, TOO.

[Kai]

In other words, I could predict as well as a futurologist. Good to know.