location based services

Gates forgoes reality distortion for reality acquisition

During his Q&A at D with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher, Bill Gates came up with a new term–or at least one I hadn't heard before. He pulled out a Motorola Q (still not shipping officially), which runs the Windows mobile operating system, calling it a multipurpose device (like a PC) and an example of what will be a "reality aquisition device." You'll be able to see an image, for example, and get "augmented reality views of a thing on a portable device," such as going to a baseball game and seeing replays and getting extra information on the screen. I'm not sure if he made that up on the spot or it came from his reading of 100 research papers in his "think week" retreat last week. I doubt whether "reality acquisition" will make to buzzword heaven….