2012年五大科技突破

    智能手机的现实增强技术

    普华永道会计师事务所（PwC）咨询业务负责人、首席科技师克莱斯•卡伦说，不管你信不信，我们还没有充分发掘iPhone的所有用途。“这些智能手机有很高的宽带网络连接，有GPS、指南针、加速计，有高分辨率相机显示屏、摄相机、扬声器和话筒。”

    有些公司正在致力于解决这个问题，它们尝试着把智能手机和平板电脑的功能联系起来，为真实需求提供帮助。比如2009年，点评网站Yelp就推出了一款应用，可以在手机的相机视图上叠加一张所推荐餐厅的地图。

    去年，现实增强领域取得了一些新的进展。例如，第13实验室（13th Lab）针对Minecraft游戏推出了一款现实增强应用。该游戏让玩家对一个虚拟数码世界进行改造，借助这一应用，玩家可以通过手机摄相头，把它们建造的虚拟物品“放”在真实世界里。

    卡伦表示，同样在今年，许多公司开始意识到，现实增强功能除了用于游戏之外，还可以做很多其它的事。卡伦表示，他已经与一些医疗保健公司进行了交流，探讨如何利用人们的智能手机数据来预知疾病的传播情况。

    A new iPhone reality

    Believe it or not, our iPhones are underused, says Chris Curran, principal and chief technologist in PwC's advisory practice. "These smartphones have high bandwidth connections. They've got GPS, a compass, and an accelerometer. High definition camera displays, a video camera, a speaker, and a microphone."

    Some companies are starting to address this problem by linking the capabilities of smartphones and tablets to augment the actual world. Yelp was one of the first to unveil an application, back in 2009, that uses GPS to layer a map of recommended restaurants on top of the phone's camera view.

    This past year has heralded new augmented reality advances. For example, developer 13th Lab released an augmented reality application for Minecraft, a game that lets users alter a digital world. The app lets users place the virtual objects that they build, via a phone camera, into the real world.

    Also this year, says Curran, companies have started to realize that augmented reality could be helpful for more than just games. Curran says he has spoken with health care companies to figure out how to use data from people's smartphones to predict how diseases spread.