“Augmented Reality”
BBC News has an online article about the development of augmented reality for use in historic sites and museums. As opposed to virtual reality, in which everything you see is computer generated, augmented reality lets you see your surroundings with computer images inserted into your view. It currently requires wearing a portable computer and transparent viewing screen, but as computers get smaller and faster it will become less intrusive.
The goal of the company profiled in the article is to create devices that can be used by tourists in places such as Pompeii. As the visitor walks around the ruins, images of the original inhabitants and their furnishings would be superimposed in the visitor’s view. Similarly, insteach of wearing audio players to hear information about exhibits in a museum, visitors can see video of an artifact in use, or flesh covering a fossil’s bones.
I suppose it will be built in to cell phones in a few years.