Adding additional visual data to a video display is a technique known as augmented reality. Michael Cohen, principal researcher at Microsoft Research, in Redmond, WA, says that the approach could add another dimension to future smart phones. "You could be out on the street, hold the device up, and it could recognize a restaurant and deliver ratings and the menu," he says. A smart phone featuring an augmented-reality display could also overlay a bus route and an estimate of when the next bus is due on top of a particular street. "It essentially becomes your portal to information," Cohen says.
Read more of this over at http://www.technologyreview.com/computing/22218/?a=f.