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iPhone developers have been busy creating whats called augmented reality or AR programs to debut on the iPhone and though it can be handy, its most useful as a sign of whats to come. Throughout the summer, YouTube featured programmers who uploaded demonstration videos depicting such unbelievable feats as recognizing a face at your high school reunion while that persons social networking page popped up or traveling back in time to view the Coliseum as it once existed.

Augmented reality is not something really new; thetechnology has been used for years in the military in projects as well as public spectacles such as museum exhibits and tradeshow booth demonstrations. So why all the buzz now about augmented reality? There have been some game changing events, some home PCs which have the AR on them and now the iPhones will also feature augmented reality.

With a webcam, a person is tethered to their computer, but with an augmented reality program located in an iPhone, a person can travel around while seeking and seeing the person at the other end of the line. AniPhone app programmer recently helped develop the iPhone operating system which now allows third party apps to superimpose graphics online video. However, Apple is still limiting just how far developers can go with AR in particular, the phones programming system prohibits apps from performing sophisticated image analysis on input from the camera.

Modern smart phones can determine their locations through GPS technology and an internal compass, they can download data through mobile broadband connections and they have powerful graphic processing capabilities all of which are the ingredients to rudimentary augmented reality.

The biggest question for augmented reality is will people take to this mode of navigating information in the same way they did social networking? Or will augmented reality suffer the fate of online virtual worlds such as Second Life, which attracted a gusher of attention but proved too cumbersome in the end. Whether or not augmented reality emerges through this hype cycle depends on both technologists and marketers to strip away the great expectations and buying something real.