Augmented reality is charging up the Gartner hype cycle on the way to the ‘peak of inflated expectations’. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hype_cycle].
Today’s example is the new Android browser at http://layar.com – right now I have to assume it’s largely hype, but hopefully we’ll end up with an augmented reality analogy for html before too long. This would allow for an augmented reality commons [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_commons] and will be a critical step if we’re to see the potential for this technology met.
For a fictional treatment that’s only inches of time away, I enjoyed William Gibson’s Spook Country [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spook_Country].