New technologies that incorporate real-time data are presenting countless new and unprecedented opportunities for marketers.

The definition of virtual worlds continues to expand as more real use cases emerge -- whether it is a medical procedure that has an overlay of prerecorded anatomical knowledge projected on to a real patient during surgery or a virtual reality tennis court showing real time play of the ball through data visualization -- recent interest has continued to develop around the concept of augmented reality, or the 'Paraverse', and what practical uses may be found for this flavor of virtual world technology.
 
Movies like the most recent blockbuster "Iron Man", are an example of the fantastic imaginings of what the Paraverse will look like, and how it can be used. "Iron Man's" gold-titanium alloy suit has an imaginary next-generation computing system, and his helmet with its heads-up sisplay (HUD), provides an array of referential real time data, (including topography, weather, the flight path of nearby commercial aircraft, etc.), enabling the character to make real-time decisions and augmenting the world around him. So the question is: how much of this is science fiction and how much of this is real today?

There are two primary ways in which the Paraverse exists today: (1) as a real-world situation augmented with real-time data or (2) as a virtual world that is modified by real-world data for visualization and modeling.

Real world
Let's go back to Tony Stark's "Iron Man" suit and his augmented HUD helmet. A heads-up display, or HUD, is any semi-transparent display that presents data without significantly obstructing the user's view. These have been used in the real world to create an augmented reality for real tasks and have evolved into some fascinating applications.

In 1990, two Boeing engineers, David Mizell and Tom Caudell, created the Wire Bundle Assembly Project. One of the challenges of building modern aircraft involves is the layers and layers of materials and systems required for construction. It is sometimes said that a Boeing 747 is not really an airplane, but five million parts flying in close formation. Some processes in constructing an aircraft are quite tedious and do not lend themselves to automation. One of the more laborious tasks involves using a manual formboard to assemble bundles of cables following an exact schematic. Mizell and Caudell solved this problem by projecting a computer image onto a half-silvered mirror via a HUD, which the user then looks through.

In 1997, MIT did some development on a project they called the Remembrance Agent. This was a wearable just-in-time information system that continually reminded the wearer of relevant information based on the wearer's current surroundings. MIT had 6 requirements for the Remembrance Agent. It had to be portable while operational, hands-free, include sensors (communications, GPS, etc.), it had to be "proactive" (delivering information to the wearer even when not actively sought), always on and always running in the background. One could argue the evolutionary path of modern smart phones -- like Apple's iPhone, or Google's Android phone operating system -- are moving into this space.

Recently, nearly 1,800 developers responded to Google's request to help build applications for the next generation OS, Android. At this year's Google I/O conference, Google introduced Street View on Android with a built-in compass providing an augmented reality that lets you pan around the location-based image in real time. In fact, any of the top 50 winning applications leveraged the GPS support of the Android to create solutions around geospatial data relevant to your immediate surroundings. There were several other interesting Paraverse applications introduced at the conference; Commandro will be able to locate your friends in real time and let you know what are they're doing at any moment, while Beetaun was introduced as a social network built around geographical content created by people from your neighborhood, from your city, from your country and from all over the world.

Closer to "Iron Man's" helmet is the commercially available Veypor motorcycle racing helmet. The helmet uses a HUD that identifies speed, RPM, gear information, shift points, lap times, lap performance data, and data points like distance, in real time -- right in the ergonomic field of view of the rider.

Another branch of the Paraverse is synthetic vision (SV) systems. SV systems provide situational awareness to the operators by using terrain, obstacle, geo-political, demographic, hydrological, and other such databases. Churchill Navigation with their Earthscape ARS platform, utilises synthetic vision systems to enable police helicopters with a real time overlay of geospatial data for use during poor weather or night flying. Now pilots can identify landmarks and streets (and any additional meta data provided by the local municipality) as this data is mapped directly to the real world environment.

Virtual world
The other side of the Paraverse is using a virtual world environment to show real-world information in a compelling and information-rich way. Examples of sports visualization have been done for tennis, baseball, and world class sailing. Even weather information has been used.

Last Year, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) introduced a system to provide a virtual weather map in 3D. The system works by using dozens of reporting stations dotted all over a map of the United States. These stations receive real data from NOAA every eight minutes which they then decode and render into models of the appropriate weather phenomenon for the area. You can see clouds, rain, and even special weather conditions such as thunderstorms or tornadoes with temperature represented by color.

Later this year Singapore will host Formula One's first night race with the Singapore Grand Prix in the Marina Bay district with the help of new technology from Earth@Sg. Using Google Earth, Earth@Sg developed an amazing F1 race visualization including 3D models of the major buildings in the downtown area, the grandstand, the race course, trees, and the new landmark Singapore Flyer ferris wheel. They also give you instructions to set up your own touring options in Google Earth so you can experience Formula One first hand.

One of the world's best-known futurists, Ray Kurzweil, has a demanding conference schedule in Asia and Europe. His solution? Teleportation. Kurzweil uses Teleportec, which is comprised of a frosted piece of glass attached to a podium. A 3D image is projected onto the glass and Kurzweil's image arrives at the conference. He has installed a similar experience at his office, except a 3D image of the audience is projected on to his glass, providing a sense of natural communication.

The Paraverse promises to enrich our real-world experience with contextual data in helpful ways we can only begin to imagine; and the same concept can be used to help us abstract and explore the real world from our desks. This concept, previously best known only in elite computer science circles, presents countless new and unprecedented opportunities for marketers.

Ted Tagami is the VP of business development for Millions of Us.