From the London Eye to London Fashion Week, the latest technology to hit the mainstream is reconstructing reality itself. So-called “augmented reality” (AR), which uses a smartphone or a tablet to layer extra information over an onscreen image of the real world, is set to be all around us in the near future. At the avant garde end of the spectrum, Google is said to be developing eye glasses that integrate the technology into a RoboCop-style vision of the future. Although Google itself refused to confirm the rumours, the New York Times reports that the glasses will use the same operating system as Google’s mobile phone, and cost about the same as a top smartphone. Scrolling will be achieved via slight inclinations of the head and neck. Apparently, once learnt, such movements are “almost indistinguishable to outside users”. Some applications, however, are already far beyond Google’s experimental stage. In fact, it is the simple assembling of technologies that are already commonplace for mobile phones. A digital camera and internet connectivity are combined with location data – so if you point your phone at Big Ben, it’s comparatively simple to add information to the image on screen. And while the obvious use is, say, historical information, there’s space for advertisers and social services to tell you where to meet up with friends for a drink, for example. This may sound somewhat futuristic, but it’s certainly not the distant future. Visitors to the London Eye will, from next month, be able use a new app for tablets and phones based on Google’s Android operating system, and subsequently for Apple’s iPhones and iPads.
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