I’ve always felt that augmented reality was the future of personal portable devices (smartphone/UMPC/tablets). The idea is basically that you take the device and point it out at the real world,and it can detect what it is looking at,and show you releveant information about it. In the most ideal case,it would detect the actual objects seemlessly,and be smart enough that if you point/click on a movie theater it shows you movie show times,but if you click on a monument,it would show you the history about it,construction details and even pictures/video relevant to it. That’s the ideal situation. What we have above,while less than ideal,is still a giant leap forward given that it is available today and not in some distant future. Dutch company SPRXmobile has launched a program/world browser called Layar for the Android system that uses GPS and compass to determine what you are looking at through the camera,and overlays a layer of information. Currently it has feeds with a realty agency,a bank,and a social networking site,allowing you to find avaialble houses for sale/rent,nearby ATMs and local clubs/bars. It’s going to be availble in Netherlands this month,while there are plans for a roll-out in the US,UK and Germany on possibly both the Android and iPhone system (now that the 3G S has a compass built-in) sometime later this year. (Found on Engadget)