麻豆传媒

Read more: 鈥�Seven technologies to disrupt the next decade鈥�

Our cities could soon be painted with secrets we cannot see with the naked eye. The streets, buildings and sometimes even the citizens themselves would teem with virtual information. With the help of augmented reality (AR) you could see the occupancy level of a hotel emblazoned on its walls and read a restaurant鈥檚 reviews as you walk past. The people you meet might even reveal their names and job titles before you say a word.

AR is about to create a new layer over the cityscape by adding graphical information from apps and the internet onto objects in your field-of-view as you peer around. The cameras and enhanced glasses needed for AR are getting smaller, smarter and better designed, and may soon transform how we experience the space and objects around us. 鈥淚nformation would be seamlessly attached to aid our decision-making,鈥� says , a London-based designer and AR artist.

The augmented city will be built from a myriad of sources, from advertisers to our social networks. Take shopping. , an AR researcher at the MIT Media Lab in Cambridge, Massachusetts, describes how 鈥渉overing鈥� ads in the grocery store might school like tropical fish, leading you to the day鈥檚 best deals. Items on the shelves might be virtually tagged with price, crowdsourced reviews and information about their origins. Is that broccoli sustainably farmed? Just ask it. 鈥淭he information actually becomes part of the object itself,鈥� Mistry says.

This inevitably means that more of our decisions will be outsourced to our devices and the internet. This could lead us to depend too heavily on technology. 鈥淥nce this device is taken away, the user is at a disadvantage, having effectively lost a part of his or her brain,鈥� says Alliban.

AR may disrupt more than just our encounters with inert objects, says , a London-based architect and AR designer. Information about people compiled from social network profiles and other internet sources could be displayed when you meet them. There might be little need for small-talk. 鈥淗aving information readily available at any time would have quite a transformative effect on our social interaction,鈥� he says.

Clearly, such personal displays would exacerbate privacy fears. If your device could one day connect a random person on the street to their Facebook profile, it would be hard to stay anonymous.

Still, overall AR is likely to allow us to navigate through a richer, more vibrant world. And few would complain if they had the opportunity to dial up a bit of sunshine to overlay a grey sky.