Reading the news about the University of Washington professor of experimental electronic contact lenses, I wondered if my dream of personal Ultimate Technology has finally moved from the horizon in mind. That’s what I want: to be able to walk into a crowded cocktail party, and know exactly who I am looking at - the name of each person, the last time we met, and other relevant information for lots of fun. I want information beamed into my field of view, the text floating above their heads, as health indicators for the bad guys from a computer game.

It will be some time, however. Contact lens only one Blinky light in it so far. But now you can get Augmented Reality applications for most modern mobile phones. New smart phones are not only the position of cameras and sensors (global positioning satellite receivers), but compasses and inclinometers, so they know what direction they indicate and how the device is in custody. With these sensors, they can run Cool Sci-Fi applications that show the data projected on top of his video cameras are increasing.

In other words, advanced services a reality show, as their basic image, video camera, it indicates that an excessive display of what you can already see with their eyes. Then, on top of that they Overlay - text or image - is telling you that the camera sees. While smartphones are smart enough to recognize people by their faces, I want to use a cocktail, this is not possible. Although it should be noted that Google and other companies have the function of face recognition in some of its services photo album, and the Swedish company “Surprisingly strong tribe has a product demo. There’s video here.

But what you can do right now with the AR-phone: 

Get on the Yelp iPhone 3GS (download). The mystery of the function (Shake the phone three times to activate it when Yelp is running) marks restaurant names and ratings of videos you watch. Thus, you can see, in theory, a review score hovering over the image of the restaurant are right outside.

Get Layar for Android Phone. R. Layar is a building block platform that can use data from many other vendors. There’s Yelp, for example (although purely iPhone App Yelp slightly better). Layar can also show you Twitter messages from users, nearby, an article in Wikipedia, based on the fact that your camera is pointing at, homes for sale on Trulia, and other information. This is incredibly cool.

Lost in a strange city? If New York or London, try AcrossAir’s underground locators that will say where the station you’re looking for there.

Unfortunately, for municipal services, I have already said, sometimes the orientation sensors are not as precise as you want, and the data that you see placed incorrectly. I think that it is difficult to obtain reliable compass readings in contemporary urban environments. In addition, RV Service can not say, but if what the camera sees is related to what they want to show. Yelp App often pop up on the review of the building which is between you and building IT-based tools to display the information it Over.

The most interesting and useful App Augmented Reality, I tried so far (but keep in mind, I Geek) is a Google Sky card for the phone Android. When you are in a field at night, away from light and magnetic interference - and if you still do the data connection - Android your phone can tell you what star or planet you are considering. Better yet, ask him where a body such as Mars, and tell you how to specify the phone while you are not looking at her. App I would like to have more data to find things like the International Space Station, but still amazing product. It makes me look like a genius to my son, and that is worth the price of entrance ticket. (This is a free application, so it is an easy calculation.)

If you want to phone capable of running AR Apps, today the choice will 3GS iPhone (but not adults 3G, this is not a compass) or Android phone as MyTouch 3G.

And here is an opinion: While we are all created with implants cocktail, if you meet me at a party, do yourself a favor and submit the old way.