Augmented reality is here.  Right now, today.  We are about to see some creative developers make some incredibly powerful applications, applications that will change our lives on a daily basis.  So what is augmented reality?
 
"In case the concept of augmented reality is still new to you, basically it’s the placement of a digital layer of information on top of a real-life view of the world around you, as seen through e.g. a mobile phone’s camera lens. Using augmented reality, you could be using your smartphone to glance around the main square of a city you’re visiting and get up-to-date information about nearby restaurants, ATMs, real estate offers, and more on-screen, bolted on top of what you’d be seeing if you weren’t looking through the lens."
 
When I first started this blog about 4-5 months ago, I understood the power of virtual environments, but I focused too heavily on three dimensional spaces.  I believe three dimensional virtual spaces, that are Metaverse-like, are still important but I am beginning to take a step back from them.  Based on where we are today with mobile computing, social networks, location-based media,and real time information, it is hard not to get excited about the oncoming explosion of AR systems. 
 
Instead of providing a third dimension of internet context, augmented reality has an intelligent virtual layer that interfaces with the real world.  Currently, the information residing on this virtual layer is primarily solitary and cached.  Soon, users will be interacting with, and collaborating over this virtual layer in real time.  The output users embed into the virtual layer from their mobile devices, whether it be text, pictures, audio content, etc. will have core metadata components bound to it.  These core metadata components will answer questions associated with mobile output for things like who, what, where, and when.  This metadata permeating throughout the AR system makes the system more intelligent.  However, it will leave behind a digital trail unique to target individuals.
 
Scraping these AR systems, and mining this user output metadata, willl become a powerful intelligence gathering tool.  Relationships between individuals, their locations, their interests, etc will all be easily ascertained.  This information will no doubt provide value to malicious attackers but it will also promote intelligent risk management applications.  Organizations and nation states will use aggregated metadata from mobile devices to model scenarios and perform dynamic threat vector analysis.
 
AR systems will be powerful and provide great value, but individuals must be careful with how they interact with the virtual grid and what they're willing to embed within it.