My brain crashed yesterday. I was sitting in the BBC, waiting to blab about gadgets, and I was next to a distinguished-looking chap who looked incredibly familiar.
"I know him," I thought. "I know that face." But my brain wasn't playing, and it was only when I asked somebody later on that I discovered I'd been sitting next to one of the greatest novelists in the entire universe.
Where things will get really interesting is when people start to mash up disparate sources of information and deliver them to AR applications. Knowing where to find restaurants is amazing enough, but what if your phone also showed your friends' photos and comments about each place, or the environmental reports that discovered the kitchen is populated by enormous rats?
Facebook profiles and recent tweets when you point your phone at someone? Neighbours' outstanding planning applications and ASBOs when you're viewing a house you're thinking of buying?
How about an app that tells you whether that cute girl or boy at the bar is a bunny boiler, wanted in seventeen countries or seven million pounds in debt - or one that turns a wet high street into a football game?
How about all of the information on the entire internet, filtered and displayed on whatever you happen to be looking at?
Naturally some of the data will be wrong, with hilarious, horrifying or possibly even catastrophic consequences.
Of course, the privacy implications make Google's current data hoard look like a Post-It note. Yes, The Man will no doubt use the technology to oppress us. And sure, it has the potential to make us so reliant on machines that our brains will turn to jelly and when the aliens finally invade, we'll be too stupid to notice. But who cares about that? It's cool!
