Blaise Aguera y Arcas and augmented reality mapping.... Wow!!!

For those who can remember the amazing TED video of Blaise Aguera y Arcas demonstrating Photosynth in 2007 where using Microsoft Livelabs projects he showed how you could render objects using photographic views of that object taken from different angles would not be surprised to find that in February 2010 the magician of the digital age is back this time to show us the power of augmented reality in mapping.

Watch and be truly amazed as we see the next stage of Photosynth as Blaise demonstrates the ability to overlay images over a 'streetview', in this case showing a scene with shots taken at different times of day.... but the truly magical experience is when we see live video overlay inside a 'streetview' scene which is itself from inside a building. This is truly the future where we will be able to render inside a map using user generated content both still and video to enhance our view of the digital world. There are obviously privacy and other issues that will have to be dealt with however the ability to view the world and places in this way is truly in the world of Web 3.0 or even Web 4.0 - I feel Web 4.0 will be our ability to actually place ourselves within this scene using whole body systems such as Pravan Mistry's Sixth Sense.... I can't wait!!!