It seems that the only thing showing up on my Facebook feed today is about Pokémon GO. The app has already has more installs than Tinder, more daily users than Twitter and users spend more time in the app than Facebook. This has in turn added $10b to Nintendo’s market value. The new app has no doubt been so successful due to the nostalgia it brings to those who were caught up in it’s raging success since the 90’s, but I think there is something  more interesting than the ability to “Catch ’em all”.

The game sits part way between the virtual world and the “real”, where your GPS location and interaction with your environment is critical to the game play – augmented reality. The reason this excites me so much has nothing to do with my enjoyment of the game itself, it’s how the game is profiling augmented reality, and I believe breaking ground in our interaction with the virtual world.

Up until recently, the lines between technology and the physical world have been quite distinct. You sit at a computer or you look at your phone and then you look away and cross the line back into the physical. Our behaviour of continuously checking our phones blur the lines a little, but there is still quite a divide in where our attention and perception resides.

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