2012年五大科技突破

????智能手機的現實增強技術

??? 普華永道會計師事務所（PwC）咨詢業務負責人、首席科技師克萊斯?卡倫說，不管你信不信，我們還沒有充分發掘iPhone的所有用途?！斑@些智能手機有很高的寬帶網絡連接，有GPS、指南針、加速計，有高分辨率相機顯示屏、攝相機、揚聲器和話筒?！?/p>

????有些公司正在致力于解決這個問題，它們嘗試著把智能手機和平板電腦的功能聯系起來，為真實需求提供幫助。比如2009年，點評網站Yelp就推出了一款應用，可以在手機的相機視圖上疊加一張所推薦餐廳的地圖。

????去年，現實增強領域取得了一些新的進展。例如，第13實驗室（13th Lab）針對Minecraft游戲推出了一款現實增強應用。該游戲讓玩家對一個虛擬數碼世界進行改造，借助這一應用，玩家可以通過手機攝相頭，把它們建造的虛擬物品“放”在真實世界里。

????卡倫表示，同樣在今年，許多公司開始意識到，現實增強功能除了用于游戲之外，還可以做很多其它的事?？▊惐硎荆呀浥c一些醫療保健公司進行了交流，探討如何利用人們的智能手機數據來預知疾病的傳播情況。

????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.