Augmented Reality-New Technology

Augmented Reality (AR) is a new technology that's promising to change the way we interact with the world. The technology combines elements from the physical and the virtual world to create new experiences at home, in business, on the go, and in between.
While we've heard about the exciting applications to come, few have materialized. But at this CommNexus consumer electronics SIG event, two companies actively involved in AR, Qualcomm and Wowwee.

See the video at

http://allthingsd.com/video/?video_id=52AFE333-49E8-44B6-8E5B-809F783F0A4E

Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. 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. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality. By contrast, virtual reality replaces the real world with a simulated one.

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 manipulable. Artificial information about the environment and its objects can be overlaid on the real world. The term augmented reality is believed to have been coined in 1990 by Thomas Caudell, working at Boeing.[1]