Michael Lebowitz

That's some amazing stuff right there. Seems like something from a Ted conference. Good find sir.

Until I saw these 2 examples, I blew off AR ( like you mentioned ) as just 'pretty' or 'shiny'.

Something else, here's an AR game for mobil devices. What makes it actually interesting is that you need to physically move around the plying board, and you place physical objects onto the playing board that effect how the game works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNu4CluFOcw

This is rather similar to this application, which was previewed by Gizmodo on 9/11/08.
http://gizmodo.com/5048302/sekai-camera-turns-on-worlds-balloon-help

<shameless
It might not be quite as lofty or epochal as these other examples, but if 'augmented reality' is indeed the mot de jour, yesterday's launch of We Are Autobots (http://www.weareautobots.com) is certainly timely, and makes some fairly tidy use of face tracking to give you the head of everybody's favourite leader of the Autobots.

Youtube preview available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzB4mIPdm9k
</shameless>

The MIT media lab has been experimenting with this technology since the late 90s. I remember demoing their wearable computing device while looking at a restaurant from the street and seeing the menu and at a bus to see the schedule and route. It had a big impact on me, I remember thinking this is really the future of the internet. Forget the big box I had to wear on my belt, the mobile phone is really becoming the wearable computer, now all we need are the eyeglasses display. You look at someone walking by in the street and image recognition software immediately provides their facebook and twitter profile, who their friends are , if you have any in common, all while scanning the sex offender registry and their eHarmony compatibility score. It's not far off.

I am really fascinated by AR. Did some short films to see the potential... http://vimeo.com/album/103285

This may just be the coolest thing I've come across in the past 6 months.... The possibilities are endless...

^ absolutely agree!

Hi Michael, I noticed my email's auto response is showing up in your comments. This is the problem with using Posterous.