Musings

Augmented Reality Apps May Provide New Motivation for Publishing Linked Data

Recently there have been several articles on location/Augmented-Reality based applications such as those referenced below:

The Wall Has Fallen: 3 Augmented Reality Apps Now Live in iPhone App Store

Mobile phones get cyborg vision

Mobilizy Previews Augmented Reality GPS Navigation App

RobotVision: A Bing-powered iPhone Augmented Reality Browser

Apple Developing Location-Based Home Screen for the iPhone?

and others like:

Augmented reality: iPhone 3G S killer app?

wherein one finds the following enticing quote from CNET author Scott Stein, about real-time scanning for data:

“If augmented-reality navigation apps can progress at the same feverish development pace as the rest of the App Store, the new iPhone could soon be capable of location-based feats that approach tricorder capabilities, scanning the environment in real-time for data“

Though popular location-based apps have already been demonstrating the potential of data on the web, reference to the “tricorder”, of course, invokes sci-fi style visions.  Perhaps this bit of  futuristic fantasy materializing so rapidly before us will help to make clearer the  transformative potential of Linked-Data/Web-of-Data/Data-Web.