Is this how the baby-boomers felt at the dawn of the technology revolution? As adverts gather and blow around the city-dweller's feet like fallen leaves, I feel sick, excited and nervous. This latest interpretation of the future of augmented reality (AR) by Keiichi Matsuda is an astounding glimpse into an intense and claustrophobic future. This video blows Nat Geo's image predictions out of the water and makes these early PacMan attempts look archaic in comparison. 

Matsuda takes us through a day in the not to distant future where data-enriched mobile experiences will merge with traditional venues such as libraries, restaurants and train stations, broadcasting personal information about our mood or belief system. Each augmentation, from guidebook-style information devices, to controlling the facade of a nearby building, is controlled at the touch of a virtual button.

"The architecture of the contemporary city is no longer simply about the physical space of buildings and landscape, more and more it is about the synthetic spaces created by the digital information that we collect, consume and organise; an immersive interface may become as much part of the world we inhabit as the buildings around us", he says.

"AR is an emerging technology defined by its ability to overlay physical space with information. It is part of a paradigm shift that succeeds Virtual Reality; instead of disembodied occupation of virtual worlds, the physical and virtual are seen together as a contiguous, layered and dynamic whole. It may lead to a world where media is indistinguishable from 'reality'. The spatial organisation of data has important implications for architecture, as we re-evaluate the city as an immersive human-computer interface."

  

AR 'the new drug':

Matsuda's first video - making a cup of tea amongst floating interchangeable realities: