Reflections of first Blog Post

I dont think we're very far off from augmented reality.  There are already many apps available for smart phones that simulate this through their cameras.  Google Maps overlays all sorts of information over their streetview web application.  The next step will probably be glasses that you can wear that will overlay information over your field of vision...and after that it could lead to contact lenses that do the same thing.  Cars already have displays that show in their windshields.

I also think that the line between brick and mortar and online stores are being blurred.  Best Buy and Target both let you search their in-store inventories as well as their online store.  Amazon is about to open it's first local store in the US that will feature a subset of it's products online. 

At the rate technology and ideas are happening, I doubt I won't see these two technologies fully formed in my lifetime.  Most of it exists in one form or another right now.

Homework 1 - Possibilities of Mobile Web

I believe one of the most important developments is augmented reality.  This allows you to view the world through the camera on your phone and have an 'overlay' of information on top of the live image.  For example, you could walk through your city, raise your phone up and see text in front of buildings.  This text could tell you the name of the restaurant you are looking at and then let you touch that text to bring up reviews or contact information about that restaurant.  Imagine driving past a movie theater, raising your camera and seeing a listing of movies at the movie theater your camera is staring at.  In this way, we are one step from the cyberspace reality in science fiction novels such as Neuromancer by William Gibson.

I think mobile web will have a major impact on the competition between brick and mortar stores and on-line stores.  We already saw a bit of this during the 2009 Christmas season.  There was a price war going on between Wal-Mart and Amazon.com.  Any time Amazon.com lowered a price on an item that Wal-Mart carried, Wal-Mart would lower its price to match Amazon.  This is because many people go into brick-and-mortar stores, find items the are interested in and then compare prices to the on-line stores using their phones.  People even use bar-code scanner applications to scan in the barcodes of items on the shelves of stores like Best Buy and then end up just purchasing them online.  Wal-Mart took the first step to combat this and I believe that other retailers will have to do the same sort of thing in order to stay successful.

Homework 1 - Team Website

URL Here