45º views act as a transition between the standard top-down view and Google's new Google MapsGL, a full-3D Maps experience powered by WebGL in the browser. That part won't work on certain low-end graphics cards, but for those who can run it, Google Maps gets pretty magical. Google has good reason to push the envelope on 3D maps. Its competitors are working on magical maps of their own.

In addition to the full-3D WebGL views, desktop Google Maps also got a flyover feature for travel routes last year. When you put in travel directions, the map viewer gets a "Play" button that switches to a Google Earth 3D view and flies you from point A to point B. It's not the most useful feature in the world, but it's a nice way to check out the terrain on your route.

Google is even taking 3D mapping indoors. It's sending people with backpack-mounted Street View cameras inside local businesses, so Google can put a panoramic interior view into Google Places results. Google is also building mobile 2D maps inside buildings, including malls, airports, hotels and convention centers. When all these maps combine, Google can take you from a desktop or mobile search, down the street, into the mall, to the store, inside the store, and eventually, it wants to be the way you pay, too.

Sounds like Google has this whole business locked up, right? Well, let's not get ahead of ourselves. Google has competitors to worry about. There's Microsoft, whose Bing Maps got interior mapping first, but it's still a distant second in terms of market share. Amazon may not have the maps, but it has unparalleled reach into shopping. And Apple has Siri, a mobile assistant that already routes around Google when able, and it has made some intriguing mapping acquisitions.

The missing piece in Google's end-to-end mobile shopping chain is the shopping part, and no Web company does shopping like Amazon. Amazon has released an augmented reality iPhone app that lets customers scan products in a store and buy them (or cheaper alternatives) on Amazon. That's a pretty serious diss to local businesses, but it makes Amazon customers happy. Also, if they're buying through Amazon Flow, they aren't paying with Google Wallet. Amazon also bought a voice recognition company last year, sparking comparisons to Apple's Siri.

For Apple's part, Siri is the piece that threatens Google. Currently, Siri searches the Web using Google when it can't find the answer itself. Apple's iOS Maps app also uses Google for now. But certain features of the Siri beta are telling. When you use Siri to search for a local business, it uses Yelp, not Google. What can we expect from later versions of Siri and iOS? Here's a hint: In November 2011, Apple bought C3 Technologies, a 3D street view and interior mapping company.

What apps, maps and Web services do you use to find your way around?

Back in 2010 we put together our first list of the 30 best and worst Web tech tattoos. Here's our latest compilation, including an augmented reality tattoo, HTML tags, Javascript and C++, Debian, Wordpress, Google, Microsoft, RFID, QR codes, even Bill Gates' face. If you have work that's better, or worse, show it off in the comments.

Unix commands/C++/Javascript

Google

Microsoft

Next page: RFID, Augmented Reality, QR codes and Tux sitting on Windows eating an Apple!

RFID

Augmented Reality

Android

HTML

Networks

Tux

Debian

QR Code/Shotcode

WordPress

Sources: Machine gun Tux: wrightzen; Jobs, left: Cult of Mac; Jobs, right: SODAPOP; RIP toe, Geeky Tattoos; Jobs, arm: Cult of Mac; Stay hungry, wrists: Speak Truth, Breath Love; Stay hungry, arm: Gristle Tattoo; Apple/Jobs icon: gadgetpolice.com; "There is no reason": wease.com; "One more thing": Cult of Mac; Unix commands: Geeky Tattoos; Google It: jessversus; Powered by Google: Geeky Tattoos; Windows XP: traviscostrrr; Windows: bremiclem; Bill Gates: Big Tattoo Planet; RFID: The Loom; Augmented reality: iheartchaos.com; Android: eagyn; Android skateboard: the brand show; HTML body: iamdonte; : interbent; : interbent; CCIE: knuckletattoos.com; Tux: Sabrina Ricci; Debian arm: MicheleM_; Debian back: NiNiaX; QR code: Geeky Tattoos; ShotCode: Ad Lab; Wordpress: Hugo Baeta

Would you look at the world through Google Glasses? If you did, what would you see? That may be an option soon, if a reliable report today that the company is in "late prototype stages" on just such a product, proves accurate.

The Wow factor is clear - but what would fashionable cloud (connected) glasses really mean? How might they change what it means to be human and to live in this world? Make no mistake, they certainly could have a deep impact for those who wear them - and possibly for those who are seen through them as well. There's no better time than now to begin considering it all. The best way to start is to recognize those who have already begun before us; in this case science fiction author Vernor Vinge is a key source of illumination.

Hints and Clues

Hot in the news today is a report from Nick Bilton of the New York Times that Google is developing wearable computers in the secret Google X Lab that Bilton wrote about last month. That prompted Google specialist Seth Weintraub, now at Fortune and formerly of Computerworld, to call the news "an open secret among some in the Google community."

Weintraub asserts the following based on his previous reporting and one unnamed source he cites today:

[Google is] "in late prototype stages of wearable glasses that look similar to thick-rimmed glasses that 'normal people' wear. However, these provide a display with a heads up computer interface. There are a few buttons on the arms of the glasses, but otherwise, they could be mistaken for normal glasses.

"...In addition, we have heard that this device is not an 'Android peripheral' as the NYT stated. According to our source, it communicates directly with the Cloud over IP.

"...We do not have a release date for this new device, but we know that Google Co-founder Sergey Brin is closely associated with the project and it will be Google-branded hardware."

From battery power to proper contextual understanding of a user's location to price to form factor - there are a lot of problems that Google is going to have to solve beyond the imagery and signal reception. Cellular devices are now so small and so cheap that connectivity is probably one of the easier problems the secret team is working on.

What Could it Mean?

The how-and-wow is certainly interesting, but questions of use cases and implications are important too.

Sci-fi authors and artists have been talking about this future for years.

New media choreographer Johannes Birringer has said he looks forward to a future where cloud glasses can be used in art "to enhance and enrich the performer and audience experience with the media."

Mike Kuniavsky, co-founder of smart connected device design firm ThingM, invokes science fiction writer Vernor Vinge's ideas when it comes to widespread Heads Up Displays:

"I think that [Vinge's] idea of consensual imaging among belief circles is interesting. I consider it a kind of physical manifestation of software skinning, mixed with ideas shared among members of a social-network (as a blogroll is, for example).

The implications of this both excite and scare me: it would be totally cool to overlay a trusted source's view of a given scene on mine, but I feel people already ignore the complexity of reality too much and tend to live on parallel planes that exclude ideas that challenge theirs.

I don't want Orrin Hatch's world skin (though I'd try it on to see what it looks like), and I don't think he wants mine."

Architect and urban futurist Dr. Cindy Frewen Wuellner references Vinge as well in imagining how devices like this could change the way people experience the cities they traverse.

"The social city..where IRL [In Real Life] meets virtual, means people/you are the manipulators. The dumb city gets smart and social. The explosion of mobile phones brings the internet into the streets.

"Augmented realities give maps, twitter, sensors, and layers of information. It's transformational. NYC phantom city tour, don't miss that. Heads up display like Vinge's Rainbows End. For architecture and cities, the implications are huge."

Urban Futures, Language of #Architecture: How will you change 21st c #cities?

Artist and mobile technologist Julian Bleecker riffs on Vinge's talk five years ago at the Austin Game Conference.

Bleecker imagines a truly meaningful augmentation of reality...

Ways of revealing the linkages between 1st Life actions and consequences can be made sensible in ways that have been previously impossible.

New forms of networked interaction, participation & engagement that are not just about lightweight atoms & bits, RSS, and WoW raids, but about heavyweight action, the consequences of supra-atomic activities such as driving cars that are too big.

If I could have a heads up display akin to what WoW heavyweights have, but indicative of the relationships amongst a whole matrix of parameters that relate to my 1st Life actions..now that would be really significant."

In other words, Bleecker imagines the Cloud Glasses not displaying imaginary visions - but making things that have always been real, visible.

It's hard to imagine a more valiant calling for Augmented Reality than that.

No doubt most people will use their Google Cloud Glasses to play Angry Birds in an empty room (better that than Farmville!), or will wear them while wearing nothing else, but that's not the reason why any of these technologies are built and they don't represent any kind of limit to what's possible.

You may not want to visit StopHumanTraffic.com with your Cloud Glasses and your location turned on, but there are a whole lot of things good and bad that go on in the very same streets we all walk down every day that we don't see.

We may see the price of speed and altitude-displaying Heads Up Ski Goggles drop over time and it's not hard to imagine tourists wearing glasses given to them by visitors bureaus in major cities around the world.

But a SOPA'd future could also prohibit looking at copyrighted materials through your Cloud Glasses. There might have to be a splintered web that Cloud Glasses tie into in order to view things outside official channels. What would be on each side of that line? It's provocative to consider. Here comes the future, ready or not.

These questions have to be answered before we even get to choosing what to buy. They all make shopping easier, though, whether through giving us more information before we buy or by speeding up the process. Here are three kinds of Web-powered innovations that will contribute to the future of shopping.

These weird-looking Web links are everywhere, showing up on signs, ads and products. Anyone with a smartphone can scan them and be taken straight to a website. They're still mostly used for traditional advertising, but their use by consumers is on the rise. 5% of U.S. adults use QR codes, up from 1% just last year.

More importantly, business are starting to use them in more innovative ways. Some retailers have even built applications that use QR codes directly for purchasing, and many at least let shoppers get additional information about a product in the store. There are some drawbacks, though.

There has been at least one instance of malicious code in QR codes. Plus, some consumers just find them downright ugly and unappealing. It's a new technology, so there's bound to be differences in opinion. With the right strategy, though, some retailers are using QR codes to help willing shoppers.

Augmented Reality

Amazon, always on the front lines of Web-powered retail, launched an iPhone app called Flow this month that exemplifies the sci-fi dream of augmented Reality. Using the phone's camera, it instantly recognizes products for sale and takes shoppers straight to more info about it from Amazon.com.

That includes reviews from other consumers, as well as Amazon's price. Of course, it also gives shoppers the option to buy from Amazon instead of the store, if the price is right, which it is likely to be.

This rubs some business owners the wrong way, because it gives Amazon a last-minute chance to swipe the sale. But it does empower consumers with more information. Not all items are available on Amazon, of course, but many common items are. In the future of shopping, AR shopping apps will definitely be part of the mix.

Mobile Payments & NFC

Near-field communications technology will be the other half of shopping from your smartphone. Using built-in components, NFC allows handsets to securely communicate payments with terminals at the register, so you don't even need to carry a wallet.

It's early yet, but Google is pushing the field forward with its launch of Google Wallet in a few select Android phones. However, more phones are on the way, and major payment processors like PayPal are getting in on the technology. Not to be outdone, the next iPhone is expected to have NFC capability as well.

On the other side of the mobile payments sphere is Square, which provides a little white dongle for processing peer-to-peer credit card payments, as well as an interesting point of sale for retailers. What could a future-facing retailer like Walmart do with technology like that?

Make sure to follow Dan Rowinski's series, What's In Your Mobile Wallet?, to stay on top of the latest mobile payment trends.

Flow can show shoppers Amazon's reviews and ratings as they're holding a product in their hands. It also has Facebook and Twitter sharing options. Of course, users can also opt to buy the product from Amazon, even though they're holding it in their hands. The free app is available on the iTunes Store.

The free app is right on time for the holiday season. But how likely are users to buy a product on Amazon when they're holding it in their hands? That probably depends on Amazon's price.

Earlier Rumors

Some sites speculated earlier that Amazon Flow was a media syncing service to compete with Apple's iCloud. This was based on a report from Fusible extrapolating from Amazon's trademark application for Amazon Flow.

That would make a great headline, but it's incorrect. Apple and Amazon have bumped heads often over delivery of media to devices, first with the Kindle app for iOS and recently with Amazon's Cloud Drive music locker. But Amazon Flow turns out to be an AR shopping app, well within Amazon's wheelhouse.

Do you use any augmented reality apps on your phone? What do you use them for?

Using the computer's webcam and Zugara's AR e-commerce software dubbed "Webcam Social Shopper," shoppers can immediately see what clothes look like on them and can ask friends for an opinion via Facebook and Twitter.

Using the computer's webcam, visitors to Banana Flame's website can instantly try on any of the clothing items it sells. To start the process, you have to step a few feet back from the computer, making sure the camera can see your face. The garment will then automatically position itself on top of what you're currently wearing. Using Kinect-like motions, you can then touch virtual buttons to make minor adjustments to the garment's position on your body. In fact, the technology seems similar to a Kinect hack that does basically the same thing.

You can also swipe your arm to navigate between the controls provided in the software. These controls let you change the garment's color, move it around or take a photo of you "wearing" the item. You can then immediately share that photo with friends via Facebook and Twitter using the software or download it to your computer.

In theory, the system sounds great, but in practice, it still needs some work. For example, it was completely frozen when we tried to use it on our Mac (in both Safari and Chrome), but worked well on our Windows PC (in IE). This appears to be related to the software's use of Adobe Flash - the Mac webcam is not set by default to work with Flash. There's a workaround for this, but an average user wouldn't know to try it. And the website doesn't offer instructions.

Also, we have to admit, using AR in this way is not anything like actually trying on clothes.

But it's a start. And not just a start at using AR for virtual shopping purposes, but a start for AR to be used for anything that's not some gimmicky marketing push, like AR-enabled posters or sports tickets. For that, we're grateful.

But with the technology Google has licensed from SRI, image stabilization will no longer be a concern ... at least on Android. Google is implementing the SRI tech in its Google Talk application, to deliver better video on Android 3.0+ devices. And that may be only the beginning of Google's computer vision plans.

Image stabilization technology is over 20 years old, with initial applications built for defense use by DARPA. The technology was crucial to autonomous or semi-autonomous vehicles and robotics. Someone driving a tank, for example, would get nauseous in 2 minutes if it weren't for stabilization technologies, Winarsky says.

But these days, the tech has made its way into more benign, consumer-facing efforts, like Google Talk, apparently. Here, the video chatting application captures the video from a device's front-facing camera and compresses the data before transmission. In the compression algorithms, the amount of bandwidth used increases with the amount of motion in a scene.

By stabilizing the video, SRI's software allows the compression to take up fewer bits. Simply put, it's more efficient. It takes less work and fewer resources.

What Could Google Do, Post-Video Stabilization?

Although SRI can't talk for Google or about its future plans in this area, saying only that it "fully hopes to work beyond this app with Google," Winarsky was happy to talk in more general terms about where computer vision technologies are headed.

Once you have the stabilization down, he says, you can then work on things like tracking objects that appear in the frame, tracking the motion of objects and recognizing those objects. Head tracking, for example, was demonstrated at this year's Google I/O where the stabilization technology was used in conjunction with a face-tracking API (application programming interface) that will arrive in a future version of Google's mobile operating system Android.

Put it all together - stabilization, image tracking and image recognition - and you have "augmented reality" (AR), a term that describes technology that lets your device "see" the world in front of its camera lens and then act on that data in some way.

Google, of course, is already experimenting with AR to some extent through its "Google Goggles" application which lets you use pictures to search the Web. Google Goggles can currently identify things like landmarks, books, art, wine and logos, but has recently started recognizing text, too, in order to perform on-the-fly translations between languages.

Facial Recognition in Video?

There are other things that stabilization can help to enable, says Winarsky. For example, facial recognition. Until an image is stabilized, such a thing would not be possible on video. After stabilization though, the same type of algorithms that currently work on still images could be applied to moving video.

Google already uses facial recognition in its online photo-sharing service Picasa (soon to be rebranded as "Google Photos"), so it's not a big leap to assume that Google could introduce something like that to its video applications and services someday. Facial recognition in Google Talk? YouTube? Google Goggles? Who knows?

Case in point: earlier this year, Google denied that it has a facial recognition app in development, after CNN published a report to the contrary, including an on-record statement from a Google employee confirming its existence.  And Google recently rolled out a smart update to search that allows you to search for things using only an image. And guess what? It works for images of people, too.

So why not make people chatting with you on video, seen through your camera lens or those appearing in online videos "Googleable" objects? There's only one reason not to: it's a little creepy. But creepy/awesome is the line Google likes to toe. For the company, it's not a matter of if something is possible - it's only a matter of when is the right time to release it.

Stabilization, on its own, may seem like minor news, but it's an important first step towards a future where the world itself, and all the people in it, are things you can Google just by looking at them.

But Jay Wright, Senior Director of Business Development for Qualcomm, says criticism that AR has, so far, produced no "real world apps" are valid. He also told us he's working with two big-name retailers to put out some of the first truly useful apps leveraging the technology - instruction manuals served up as AR-enabled mobile applications. These apps will show you, as opposed to telling you, how to perform complicated tasks.

The reason why we haven't seen these sorts of more practical implementations of AR technology has to do with how relatively new the developer tools are. The version of Qualcomm's SDK that allows for the development of AR apps for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad, hasn't even been released yet, for example.

To be clear, there are many AR applications in mobile app stores today, including iTunes. But Qualcomm's implementation is technically different. It's offering "vision-based" AR, a computationally intensive type of AR (optimized for Qualcomm chipsets, of course) that turns the phone's camera into an eye that actually "sees" the world in front of it.

This is different technology than is found in most of the current AR apps, which typically use the phone's sensors, like the GPS and compass, to determine where you are and what you're seeing. Qualcomm's vision-based AR process involves scanning the camera frames, looking for objects, comparing those objects to a database, determining the position of those objects and then rendering animations or other digital content on top of them. At present, the database is stored in the app itself (the developer creates a limited database for use with their mobile app), but in the future, a "cloud" database will be available, meaning one stored outside the app, and accessed over the network.

Currently, Games and Gimmicks Dominate AR

As AR emerges, we're first seeing only gaming, play-oriented and advertising-based demonstrations and use cases for the technology. For instance, Qualcomm showcased several games that involve pointing your camera at inanimate objects to see characters appears on virtual gameboards. It also heavily promoted the Dallas Mavericks' implementation of AR which involved pointing your phone at a ticket or playbill to see a simple basketball-shooter game appear. Another demo, this one at yesterday's Uplinq 2011 keynote, showed DVD covers turned into movie trailers you could watch through your phone.

Future AR Use Cases

However, there are several still unexplored areas for AR's use. Visual search, for example, is one. Although there are companies, including Google and Microsoft, that offer visual search today, the process involves pointing your camera at a particular object which is then recognized and compared to an online database. AR-based visual search would be a smoother, more continuous experience, where the phone could move around and see several objects at once.

Another future use case would be the development of AR browsers, similar to the ones we have today, but that offer a better experience because of their improved alignment capabilities.

A third example would be using AR with print material, such as an ad in a magazine. Imagine a model wearing white pants, but the pants also came in three other colors. You could point your phone at the page, tap a colored box, and the pants change color. You could even turn the model around to see the back, or zoom in close to see the stitching. It would be like having an online experience with an offline medium.

But perhaps the most exciting future use case for AR is the most practical - and one that harkens back to AR's roots in aircraft assembly: virtual instruction manuals. You could point your phone at an object, like the buttons on a washing machine, a piece of computer equipment, an unassembled box of furniture parts, and be shown what to do.

When Will the Practical AR Apps Arrive?

Those apps are closer than you think. Wright says we'll see the first of these appearing this fall, in fact. He's currently in talks with two big-name retailers who will soon release mobile app instruction manuals, one of which will show how to put the ink in your printer - a task which, as anyone knows, is often more complicated and confusing than it should be.

Once people see more of these real-world examples of "practical" AR, users' perceptions may change. AR itself is not gimmicky, it's just that the way it's been implemented so far often has been.

Video credit: Mobile Industry Review

RWW: When was the first time you really thought you were going to go into augmented reality? Has that always been something for you?

Lens-FitzGerald: I never thought of going into augmented reality, but cyberspace, any form of digital worlds, have always been one of the things I've been thinking about since I found out about science fiction. One of the first books I read of the cyber punk genre was Bruce Sterling's "Mirror Shades." Mirror shades, meaning, of course, AR goggles. And that book came out in 1988 and ever since, this was my world.

In Verner Vinge's "Rainbow's End", he talks about somebody standing on top of a hill and he's flipping through all these versions of his ARs, or his realities, and that's literally where the name "Layar" came from - we knew that layers were the Web page metaphor for augmented reality. The other side of inspiration early came from Denno Coil. It's a Japanese anime that uses augmented reality in a great way that really is a near future scenario of what is about to come.

RWW: How do you define augmented reality? What's the simple definition?

Lens-FitzGerald: Reality enhanced with digital information, preferably immersive.

RWW: How far off from better image recognition are we are?

Lens-FitzGerald: I think this year, functionally, you'll see everyone coming out with image recognition one way or another. And then the years after that - 2012 and 2013 - you'll really get the big object recognition going. I think the key is not really the technology but what people do with content. I always say, "It's the format that's important."

The first time you guys in the U.S. ever had a TV on, it was a guy in front of a curtain doing a radio show and that was the TV show. Moving from there to American Idol, that's what it's about. It's about finding the right content. And of course you need more than one channel, you need a good remote and eventually color and stereo and HD. Technology will grow as it always does but it's more about finding the right content and format to have the people be engaged.

The good thing about a QR code is that it's sort of a call to action, although I don't have any incentive on average to point my phone at a QR code because I expect to be advertised to. One of the problems for augmented reality with a phone is, "When do I decide to point my phone at something to see if something is there?"

That's the million dollar question. That will be when your mom knows, and that will be because she [sees] some kind of benefit, fun, interestingness - and again there I'm talking content over format. Yes, it's around functionality, but there's something she has to like. That's when it crosses the chasm from a nerd thing. I think we're so much in the beginning. It's about timing and it's about pace, but we'll get there eventually. It's very early days.

RWW: At what point in the grand evolution of augmented reality are we right now? What's the next step? Is it hardware, software, both or none of the above?

Lens-FitzGerald: Suburban people - if Facebook somehow found a way to their life then we'll find a way too. We're not there yet, but that's where it'll go and right now, augmented reality, how many users would you guess it would have? Maybe a million, a million and a half? Layar has a million and a half active users in the last month and we're the biggest, so hardly anybody knows about it yet but it's getting there.

RWW: You're going to be speaking about "Lessons from building a digital layer on top of the world." What is that going to be about? What type of lessons are you talking about?

Lens-FitzGerald: We have thousands of developers - people creating cool AR content - and millions of users and I'll be going through some examples of what we see, what works, what categories we see that work, but I think most important is what we see happening right now.

That's what we call the democratization of augmented reality, meaning, it was very difficult a year and a half ago to make augmented reality. You had to be able to program. You preferably had to know how to do 3D and then you also had to be able to tell a story with that. All of that is pretty difficult. Not everybody can do that. What we see now is that more and more tools are being developed on top of our platform with which it is easier to make augmented reality, or even better it's cheaper.

I'm not a programmer myself. I recently made my own layer about the neighborhood and the water tower that disappeared in 1920. I put it back in 3D and I can do that because there are tools for that. That's a trend. If you think about TV again, TV was the domain of the big producers, the big networks in the U.S., until you started seeing video cameras. Video cameras slowly turned into YouTube.

That is, in the end, the way that augmented reality is heading. It's going from the heavy duty people who can do a lot to everybody augmenting anything they want. Imagine that. I think that's where it's heading somehow. You can create the world that you want and I can create the world that I want.

Lens-FitzGerald: I wouldn't call it information, because that makes it sound boring. It's not just ATMs. It's history, it's me being able to look back in time, it's 3D so you can see the Berlin Wall or the World Trade Center towers.

If you see that then you, in one glimpse, get how big that change was now that those things aren't here anymore. It's about that impact. They always say that if you read a book, you have an idea about how something happened or what happened; if you see the video [you] have an idea of what it looked like. But if you are on location and can look back in time using augmented reality it really hits home. You really get it, you really feel it, you get an insight instantly.

That is the unique thing for this medium. That's with history, also with art, with entertainment - you can come up with all kinds of concepts that are so deep in the experience that you can't do it in any other medium.

RWW: So right now, you have the phone, you have the direction the phone is pointing and you have a video camera and that's the basic medium, that's like the clay you use to build something. Will we see any drastic changes in that? What's the vision beyond the phone?

Lens-FitzGerald: The vision is vision. I mean, the key thing is that the camera will actually be able to see. And that's what everybody's working on. In your room you can see the lines in the room. Now what if the phone sees that and it can stabilize and image on that? And it can actually hang a picture there on the wall? That's where it's headed.

RWW: Any predictions on how far off we are from things like glasses that do this or other devices?

Lens-FitzGerald: Glasses, in a way, are there but they're kind of clunky still. I think they'll definitely come and it could be next year already. I wonder though, if you want glasses. It could be the car with wings, the flying car - we always think that we want it but looking back we can see that loads of version have been developed but nobody really liked them. We just thought we did. I think this could also be the case with the AR glasses. Of course, if you're a fighter plane pilot then you really want them, but for everyday like I think the phone is perfectly suited to do whatever we want.

RWW: Looking backwards, instead of forwards, what's the biggest challenge you've faced at Layar?

Lens-FitzGerald: Growing with the company. I remember in the beginning, when we were like swooped up by this tidal wave of attention and people offering stuff or wanting stuff, staying grounded, free of distractions - that was very difficult. It's about the product. It's about the company. That's always been the challenge.

RWW: One last question - putting aside all the barriers that exist right now, what's the ultimate future of AR?

Lens-FitzGerald: That is when AR is dead, when we don't really know that it's augmented reality anymore. You use it, you can't live without it anymore - maybe by then it's in our lenses. With a flip of a finger we change from the real reality to the bubbly version or with the flip of a finger I go to see your version that you're seeing right now, like a Skype call but through your eyes.

Imagine that - we don't even know it's augmented reality. It's integrated in our everyday life, in our everyday routine. You take it for granted like today you take for granted that all the computers are connected together and you have instant access to everything. It's about the connectivity of people and objects and places and the visualization of that. AR will disappear.

RWW: What is the hardware there? Is the hardware us? Is the hardware the object?

Lens-FitzGerald: In the end, I think the hardware is the object. It could be a phone, it could be glasses, it could be lenses but I think that's beside the point. It's that it works. Of course your car is nice but it's fun that you can go to your parents at Christmas with your car. It's about that latter part, not how you get there.

Want to learn more from Maarten Lens-FitzGerald? Register for the 2WAY Summit using this link and get $200 off select ticket levels.

Interview has been condensed and edited.

Mobilizy announced today at the BlackBerry World conference that Wikitude, the augmented reality browser, would be coming preloaded on millions of BlackBerry devices.

Upon hearing the news, we immediately had two reactions. First, is this a step up for augmented reality? Does this represent a more mainstream adoption? Or is this simply a business deal and will BlackBerry users see this as bloatware on their devices?

You've likely run across AR before - in my experience it is one of the first things sought out, downloaded and boasted about by new smartphone users. Admittedly, I was one of those folks. In that same experience, AR is also one of the first things that these self-same new users abandon, as they realize that holding their phones up and looking through the camera is not only an inefficient way to find information, but it's silly looking, to say the least.

Will the inclusion of an AR browser on new BlackBerry phones change anything about the user experience? No, but it could change something about the general acceptance and impression of augmented reality on the smartphone.

What do you think - is the preloading of Wikitude a sign of things changing and the beginning of adoption? Or is it simply a business deal and something that users will still ignore, outside of bragging about how cool their new phone is to their friends?

• Toyota Kills Scion iPhone Jailbreak Theme After Apple Complains http://bit.ly/gCpkpL via @dailytech
• California's CTO: If government agencies spent 10% of their time on social media, "it would be the equivalent of hiring 10 to 15 staffers." http://bit.ly/dR8IaL via @ohmygov
• "What are we building? We are building augmented reality glasses for the masses." http://bit.ly/gWtkvV via @augmented
• Tumblr's Mark Coatney: Do Most Websites Treat Commenters As Second Class Citizens? [Video] http://bit.ly/elVLxF via @neilvidyarthi
• Examiner.com will use "peer reviews and incentive pay to increase the professionalism of its content." Content farm? Not us! http://bit.ly/fm01o1 via @davidaKaplan

What links did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

Miami University's Augmented Reality Research Group (MU ARRG! - that exclamation point, I confess, is my addition), led by Professor Bo Brinkman, has developed an Android app that could save librarians a lot of time and hassle. Using the Android's camera, the app "reads" a bookshelf, and with an AR overlay, quickly flags those books that are misplaced. It will also point to the correct place on the bookshelf so the book can easily be re-shelved correctly.

The app can also aid with inventory, generating a report of what a library really has on its shelves.

There are a few drawbacks. Thin books, such as those found in the children's section, would be difficult to tag. Also, this prototype only uses 16 bits on the tag, but Brinkman says the group is working on a version that would allow them to put around 72 bits on a tag, allowing the system to scale up to work with any library collection.

The app was developed by undergraduate research assistant Matt Hodges, and it will be demoed next month at the Association of College and Research Libraries 2011 conference.

via Reddit; photo credits: Flickr user Stewart Butterfield

What links did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

• Touchscreen finger signatures: Valid? Legally-binding? http://bit.ly/ghCWFa @betanews
• Q&A with Al Jazeera English's online producer Bilal Randeree: http://bit.ly/dNIcQ7 via @kdmc
• Truth in advertising: When was the last time you stopped to question some of the fundamental truths in digital media? http://bit.ly/gAf1Fp via @jasondpg
• "Last week we had a cyberlaw-fiesta in the Silicon Valley, the likes of which have been rarely (if ever) seen before." http://bit.ly/eKq6ti via @ericgoldman
• Augmented reality for the totally blind: http://bit.ly/dWgIKd via @seeingwithsound

What links did we miss? Let us know in the comments.

While the majority of companies launching at DEMO are entirely Web-based, there are some exceptions. This morning, we saw a handful companies hit the stage with gadgets in-hand (or in tow) that offer interesting perspectives on the future.

What does the future look like? If DEMO is any indication, it's filled with mind-reading headbands, and augmented reality dressing rooms, and kiosks that eat your old devices and spit out cash in return.

Every year, more than 500 million devices reach consumers hands. The average smartphone lasts barely more than a year, with the average consumer swapping out at the 13 month mark. Where do these devices end up? In the landfill.

What's the solution? An automated recycling station at your local grocery store that takes your old devices and give you cash or store credit in return, automatically. It's call the ecoATM and it's currently  All you need to do is put your old device, be it a smartphone, MP3 player, game DVD, GPS unit or other device into the unit and it scans it and determines what it is. It then determines the object's condition and figures out a price. Then, right there on the spot, the machine offers you store credit or cold, hard cash.

That's how we like our eco-activism - meted out in crisp 10s and 20s.

MindWave from NeuroSky

In a world of multitasking and distraction, it can be hard to concentrate. NeuroSky makes a game of it. Their device, which you wear on your forehead, monitors electrical EEG brainwave impulses and feeds the data through an algorithm to determine your state of mind. It then uses this measurement to advance the game. For example, on app requires a certain level of concentration to push an apple across the screen. Another poses quick mathematical questions and then graphs your ability to quickly and accurately respond.

Children's games, however, seem to be just that. The company has a much larger play on its hands, with biosensors providing early diagnoses, "seizures avoided, machines operated, movies edited, games controlled, REM prolonged, bullseyes scored, and lessons learned using only the power of biosensors."

Swivel & The Webcam Social Shopper

With the 2010 release of the Microsoft Kinect, the world is quickly getting used to the idea using your entire body as a controller. The device sold like hotcakes and now people are playing video games and controlling their Netflix accounts with the swing of an arm and shake of a hip.

What if, instead, you could use this same interface to see if that shirt really goes with that pair of pants? Or how about that purse with that dress? That's the vision of Swivel from FaceCake Marketing Technologies and The Webcam Social Shopper from Zugara. Simply stand in front of an Internet-connected camera and try on your clothing before you buy it online.

Now, is it perfect? Far from it. The video was choppy and we have to wonder exactly how a system like this could tell you how something will really look on your without a full-body, 3D scan, but maybe that isn't the whole point. Maybe it's better to go from nothing to something, and right now when you're shopping online you have nothing. Will this tell you if those pants are going to be a little tight? Or that shirt a little to slim in the shoulders? No. But it will tell you how they look together.

Both companies go beyond virtually trying on clothes, however, and tackle the more broad realm of augmented reality. In reality, the virtual dressing room is just one example of a wide variety of implementations and, if the Kinect is any indication, we're going to see a lot more from where these come from.