A hot topic at the moment is Augmented Reality, the idea of blending the virtual and the real in one place, to add an extra level of rich data on top of the real world. It’s actually an old idea, but one that is seeing a resurgence as where it used to require some quite complex equipment  it’s now becoming much more mainstream, thanks to it’s support on the iPhone and Android phone. Now Nokia is also keen to get in on the act:

It’s not entirely clear how this is going to be adopted in the wider mobile market, but it’s interesting to think how we might use this kind of layering in a University context. Perhaps adding rich data to a lecture, or annotating individuals with their year and course – a great ice breaker for welcome week maybe.

Augmented reality promises much, but at the moment the requirement to actually point your phone at something in order to glean the extra data may be the biggest down side. People are of course the richest set of data of all, but the trouble is very few of us actually enjoy having cameras pointed at us.