Mobile Augmented Reality

There are some great mobile applications on the horizon using face recognition and augmented reality to connect with social networks. The potential uses go from creepy to extremely useful.  Ever want to do just a quick check on that person you sort of know before talking to her at a party? Scan her face and—*presto*—know what she's tweeted about today. Interested in a presentation?  Watch the speaker through your phone's viewfinder and link to his contact info, website, and publications.

I wrote months ago about the social future of augmented reality, but at the time it seemed like a distant possibility. Now, The Astonishing Tribe promises to make social augmented reality... real.  Recognizr, TAT's mobile app, will initially only identify other registered users of the application, but I imagine the transition to recognizing any social network user wouldn't be difficult. The huge library of Facebook information could build an actual facebook, mapped onto our friends in real life, without needing to take new photos or register information.

With the backlash that came with Facebook's newest round of (anti)privacy settings, I'm not sure we're ready for full-on social augmented reality, but we become more accepting of public lives with each Facebook development.  We'll continue to blur the line between reality and augmented reality, and—if the pace of these mobile applications' growth is any indication—it won't be long until we've done away with the line altogether.