Things I read today that I found interesting and worthy of comment August 17th:

• Layar Augmented Reality Now World Wide on Android, iPhone is Next – Hmmm, I'll have to give this type of thing more thought. At first my reaction is the reverse-engineering function of this type of application in that it builds a great database of where you are and what you're interested in. Not that such data isn't available to be aggregated into a scary situation by Google and others today, but this raises the bar even one more level. However, like most technology today, there's a trade-off of what you give up for what you get. The mention of using augmented reality in conjunction with Wikipedia, made me think of the uses I could have put such technology to use while wandering the streets of Venice or Rome. Not using Wikipedia of course as I take everything on that site with a grain of salt, but this seems like a natural progression for the tourist book folks and even some history publishers to build something very interesting.

  I'd used something like that for limited functionality, but increasingly, I'm turning off all but the most basic phone functions of my Blackberry to retain as much privacy as I can in an increasinly overly-connected-n-tracked world.