Switching to Augmented Reality

The first month of my spring/summer hiatus has been filled with various realities -- the reality of putting a home up for sale, the reality of finishing a dissertation before having a second child, etc. Tonight I'm exploring the buzz word "augmented reality" in preparation for the New Media Consortium Summer Conference. According to Wikipedia, this is "a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer. As a result, the technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality." It's a familiar concept, but it's not lingo I use in my daily life. Right now, I'm looking at incoming tweets with geophysically near to me through an Ipod app. Not sure what to do with this information :)