The quality of tomorrow's Harringay may be digitally created

I grazed over the following this morning:

 

Once augmented reality is widespread, the difference between a great and a mediocre city won’t just be its built environment. To some extent, it will also be the degree to which that environment is a suitable tapestry for the creatives who will paint it with their augmented reality brush. Digital artists who learn to re-appropriate the city with the most innovative augmented reality add-ons won’t just bring themselves fame and fortune — they’ll also be attracting others to the places they love.

 

It sounded intrguing, but then I read on and realised the potential to create a grotesque Bladrunneresque world of product placements that are hard to escape:

 

In the near future, as you stroll down the street, billboards and street signs will change to suit your interests. Ghostly arrows will float in the air, pointing you toward your destination.

Some day soon, when our cell phones are connected to display systems compact enough to project images on the inside of eyeglasses, the boundaries between the digital and the real world will simply dissolve.

 

Impressive but scary. Imagine what the estate agents could do to Green Lanes with that! Setting the commercialisation potential of the technology aside, I wonder what would be the things that people would do to enhance their neighbourhoods, what we would do to digitally enhance Harringay.

 

Oh, and by the way, here's the video: