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This article dates to 2002.  It explains what computer interfaces will look like “in the next 10 years”.  Now, it’s 2007 and we’re almost halfway there.  Or are we?  Remember - Da Vinci invented the helicopter 500 years ago.  Whatever we see emerge from augmented reality will likely look as different from what’s in the lab now, as Da Vinci’s model helicopters look compared to today’s real ones.  This is an interesting article with lots of historical information.

Read the article: Augmented Reality: A New Way of Seeing 

Now this is what I’m talking about. Developers Daniel Wagner, Thomas Pintaric, Florian Ledermann, and Dieter Schmalstieg of Vienna University of Technology created this project in which a 3D train is displayed on an HP Ipaq. The track exists in “real life” (aka. RL) and the train is augmented. The site contains lots of movies and a PDF explaining the approach.

PDF: http://studierstube.icg.tu-graz.ac.at/invisible_train/documents/wagner05_pervasive.pdf

Site: http://studierstube.icg.tu-graz.ac.at/invisible_train/

Photo credit: Vienna University of Technology