I catch myself saying terms that people sometimes do not understand. Not big words, just new words. The latest word is Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality is a fancy way of saying using computer driven technology on top of real world elements. Got that?

Urbanspoon recently updated their iPhone app to include a "scope" feature. You click on the "Scope" and your iPhone's camera turns on (note, this only works with the 3GS). The point is, you are to go outside, open up the app, turn on the scope feature and look at the world in front of you with the camera. Then, Urbanspoon overlays their restaurant data on top of what you see through the camera.

Here are two pictures:

UrbanSpoon Augmented Reality UrbanSpoon Augmented Reality

The device knows where I am and using the compass, it knows which direction I am pointing. So Urbanspoon is able to overlay their restaurant data to show me nearby places to eat, how much people like those places (based on their reviews) and how far the place is to my exact location.

People have asked me if we will add this to our iPhone Kosher Restaurant database. It would be cool, but I am not sure how many people would appreciate it.

So if you see someone walking down the street, looking through their iPhone or other mobile device - they are not crazy, they are using Augmented Reality. Walk over to the person and yell, "AR!!!"