Your Augmented Reality Life: Coming Soon in 2020

Just a decade ago, our unsophisticated brains couldn't even conceive of items like the iPhone--never mind the iPad. Starting with the premise that the unimaginable can quickly become ubiquitous, a group of designers, futurists, and journalists recently sat down in San Francisco to try and imagine our lives in 2020. They focused on how technology will impact social interactions, travel, commerce, healthcare, and the media. The ideas came thick and fast. One idea for the future is a "Thingbook" that would take augmented reality to the next step. Designers imagined that the Thingbook would catalog and index every visible thing. So if you see someone on the street wearing a cool jacket that you'd like to buy, all you have to do is look at it and your mobile handset or AR-equipped eyeglasses will identify the object and look up the best price and retailer, writes design mind. Other ideas ...