Remember virtual reality? No, I don’t either, as it has not quite lived up to the hype that surrounded it almost 15 years ago. But the idea has evolved.

My print issue of Scientific American arrived yesterday, and as I was eating my bagel this morning, I read an article about something called “augmented reality,” which is nearing what some feel is its commercial breakthrough. That of course remains to be seen, but the idea is very cool. To wit:

Rich Jenkins opens a child’s picture book and aims a camera phone at a page depicting a cartoon panda bear that is gesturing toward a set of Chinese characters. As Jenkins and I view the page through the cell phone screen, the printed panda suddenly erupts into a 3-D video version that points at the first symbol, pronounces it in Mandarin and then defines it in English.

Jenkins, who leads Media Power, a New York City–based firm that develops mobile communications applications, smiles at my rather startled reaction. “A software application that we’ve downloaded into this phone reads cues that the book designers have embedded into the graphics,” he explains. “It then calls up the video segment appropriate for that page from the network server. The result is like a pop-up book on steroids.” Jenkins notes that this new kind of animated content could help kids learn and that these “magic books” could become available by the end of this year. The company will also be introducing cell phone–enabled museum exhibit tours based on the same technology, as well as the means by which consumers can trigger delivery of targeted advertising by directing camera phones at brand logos.

It does seem to be a unique twist on “multichannel publishing/marketing,” cross media, integration, yadda yadda yadda. It's kind if like hyper-hyperlinking. Think of it: elements of print media can function as actual hyperlinks that can trigger a jump to additional content using a different medium/device. But it's not just printed hyperlinks; the idea behind augmented reality (AR) is “the timely overlay of useful virtual information onto the real world.” That is, everything in physical reality can become a hyperlink to an alternate reality. Pretty freaky, huh?

If you watch televised football, you’ve already seen a very primitiuve version of the technology:

When explaining AR technology, Blair MacIntyre, who directs the Augmented Environments Laboratory at the Georgia Institute of Technology, often invokes the virtual first-down marker seen as a yellow stripe in televised football games. “The technical challenge of AR is to do something similar but more complex with the live video feed from a cell phone camera and without the 10-second delay required to generate the virtual marker.”

There are also games for the Sony PlayStation that use something like augmented reality technology.

The limiting factors of progress in AR are: “advances in display technologies (‘virtual’ eyeglasses, for example), tracking systems, cameras, and processors and graphics chips for mobile devices, as well as the means to deliver AR services wirelessly where and when users need them.”

My suspicion is that if a special headset or eyewear is going to be required (like the original virtual reality concept—or, going back even further, 3D movies with those dorky cardboard glasses), then this will be a niche technology. But if it can be incorporated with technology and devices we already own—like a smart mobile phone—then the sky’s the limit.

The article ends with this potential application:

Widespread use of AR, though, will probably depend on integrating AR with social networking, [Mark Billinghurst, director of the Human Interface Technology Laboratory at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand] states. Such a mix, he says, would, for example, “allow users to leave annotation notes—advice or opinions—for their friends on the network at sites such as restaurants or scenic spots all over the world.” Reality would take on a whole new meaning.

Think of what graffiti artists could do with this technology.