Ordnance Survey, Britain’s national mapping agency, started 30 years ago to build a database of Britain’s landscape and society. MasterMap contains 450m topographical features, each positioned to an accuracy of centimetres. They now believes that Augmented Reality would be a logical development of the database they made, it would provide useful geo-located information on the spot and in real time: overlaying map information on the real world could, for example, equip builders with “x-ray vision” to show the underground pipes and cables. Or it could give tourists a reconstructed view of archaeological ruins.

The mapping and position-finding technology is all there, what’s still missing is a business model for supplying data to individuals – and a PDA with attributes, such as a screen that can be read in daylight.

All the details in The Guardian.
Check also Urban Tapestries.

P.S. Also found in The Guardian Online:
Bugmenot is a simple site that allows you to bypass those registration log-ins for a range of online journals. If it’s not there, you can always add your own.

From The Guardian Online.