Electronics, Augmented Reality | featured news

Google wants smartphones and wearable computers to be integrated instead of intrusive, allowing us to ask them to do things without ever lifting a finger... If people are discussing the migratory patterns of monarch butterflies over dinner, for instance, phones will be able to hear that and present a map, she said. Or when you meet someone, your glasses could show you the person’s LinkedIn profile and your last e-mail exchange. “It’s the integration of the digital and physical worlds so no longer are they two relatively separate spheres where you have to make the connection between them,” Ms. Maes said.

Running on smartphones and tablet computers, AR overlays digital information - text, graphics, games -- on images of the world around us. Some executives in the mobile industry think AR will be huge. While revenues from AR alone amount to no more than a few tens of millions of dollars, that number is set to double annually to reach $350 million in 2014, according to New York-based ABI Research. The impact across the broader mobile and computer industry could be much bigger, convincing consumers to use their mobile devices even more than they already do.