Augmented Space

The December issue of The Economist had some great articles on Augmented Space.  That’s really the ultimate goal for the Metosphere.

Real and virtual worlds – Better together
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10251972

The next step is to call up information about your surroundings using mobile devices—something that is starting to become possible. Beyond that, “augmented reality” technology blends virtual objects seamlessly into views of the real world, making it possible to compare real buildings with their virtual blueprints, or tag real-world locations with virtual messages.

All these approaches treat the internet as an overlay or an adjunct to the physical world, not a separate space. Rather than seeing the real and virtual realms as distinct and conflicting, in short, it makes sense to see them as complementary and connected. The resulting fusion is not what the Utopians or the critics foresaw, but it suits the rest of us just fine.

Reality, only better
http://www.economist.com/science/tq/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10202623

Mark Livingston, head AR researcher at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC, says his team is developing “3-D ink” writing methods that will allow soldiers to paint virtual symbols or text onto the real world, so that other soldiers who arrive at the same spot later can see them.