Interactive map of the universeas seen from the users perspective. This augmented reality application is a mash up of severl data sources and it shows you the geography around you, the stars, moon, and sun in the sky. You can even look directly downward past your feet to the antipodes, and see Australia from the under-side. You can also use the gadget as a clock and calendar by noting the position of astronomical bodies - a kind of modern Stonehenge. Unsurprisingly it was demoed at Burning in 2004.

http://nixweb.com/you-are-here/

You are Here - A Tour of the Sky from Nix on Vimeo.

Here'sa terrific video demonstration of the power of augmented reality to alter the way we extract information from the world around us. SEE VIDEO

BodyViz software creates three-dimensional images from two-dimensional plates created by body scanning technology, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or computed axial tomography (CAT scan).

"This is disruptive technology that will revolutionize the way medicine is practiced," said Curt Carlson, chief executive of the Ames company created to market the body visualization software. READ MORE

The twin towers rise again over the skyline of Manhattan thanks to Augmented Reality. It's the realization of a vison that William Gibson shared woith the world in his 2006 novel titled spook country. The Telegraph UK explains in detail...READ MORE

Virtual Reality System Could Be Used to Train Soldiers to Deal With IEDs

"Raytheon gathered big crowds at its stand during the AUSA show with the debut of its training system to prepare soldiers to deal with improvised explosive devices." READ MORE

KDDI has launched a new application in the app store which allows you to layer Twitter comments on the worke around you. Say for example you are on a beach in Mexico and you are wondering what sort of food you might find at any of the local restaurants. Point your phone at the scene ahead and voila, if anyone had been there ahead of you and left some tweets about thier experience they will be layered over the scene for you to see. Useful or lame? It will really depend on the twitter sources.

Personally I think the information will be more or less useless.

John Mayer's augmented reality video offers fans an immersive experience "At Adobe Max 2009, Grammy award-winning musician, John Mayer unveiled an augmented reality video that puts fans in the picture. Built using Adobe Flash technology, the video is from Mayer's upcoming album, Battle Studies.READ MORE and SEE VIDEO

Newsweek contributor covers the augmented reality applications wave and has his "mind blown".

"The only force equal to the pace of innovation is our ability to become blasĂŠ about it. The first time a little box on my rental car's dashboard talked to a geosynchronous satellite and then told me where to turn left, I was amazed. Now the GPS lady mostly annoys me... READ MORE"

Instead of viewing yourself in a real mirror to verify the apperance of apparels, highly sophisticated 3D image processing techniques are used to visualize the look of new products without the need to actually put them on. A camera captures the real world and outputs the mirrorerd image onto a large display which replaces the real mirror. The 3D movements of the person are tracked in real-time and computer graphics models of the consumer articles are augmented into the video such that the person seams to wear the virtual objetcs.

The concept of a mirror realizes augmentation without the customer needing to wear glasses. No additional equipment has to be used as you can just step into the application and move freely like in front of a real mirror. This significantly enhances acceptability and immsersiveness while also reducing the effort needed for supervising such an application.READ MORE AND SEE ...

Wikitude, augmented reality Wikipedia, is in the AppStore

Wikitude is an augmented reality application which uses Wikipedias content to add a layer of information to the world around you. Using the camera on your smart phone, or in this case an iPhone you can point your phone atsomething and wikitude will serve up any wikipedia infor that is available.

Also interesting is that Wikitude - in addition to using the content from Wikipedia - gets local reviews from London-based Qype, and crowd sourced information from its Wikitude.me website. As are result, you can write your own notes and eventually share them with other users...

Enough said. If you own the iPhone 3GS, this is one of those must have apps.