Augmented Reality on the Apple iPhone

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This video, showing the use of the new Nearest Tube app for the Apple iPhone 3GS, really brings home the point that augmented reality applications are starting to make their way into every day life.

“Augmented reality” is a term you’ll hear for technology that adds extra information into your view of an area around you. In the example above, the app uses the GPS and magnetic compass in the iPhone 3GS to determine where you’re at and what you’re looking at to lookup useful information about the London subway system, then takes the current image from the camera and adds the relevant information on top of it.

Yet again, a little bit of “science fiction” that has become “science now”.