***Warning*** To fully appreciate the futuristic coolness of this post, you ARE required to wear a Tron suit.

First of all, what’s all this Augmented Reality business about? Wikipedia says it’s basically a mix of real-world images and computer generated graphics, brought together in real time. Think of the old Playstation iToy and you’re on the right track.

The reason Augmented Reality is causing a stir right now is because the technology involved in creating this kind of experience is gradually becoming available on mobile platforms, like cell phones and Nintendo’s new DSi handheld. This means instead of users being tied to their bulky Playstation and television in the living room, they can go out and explore the big wide world, consequently making AR much more interesting.

There’s more detailed info here, but let’s get to the fun stuff! It’s still early days, but here are a few examples of Augmented Reality games in action.

Going back to the iPhone again, The Hidden Park offers a fairy-hunting, riddle-solving family day in the outdoors. With the help of magical guide, Trutton, kids follow map directions and clues to different landmarks, taking photo’s along the way. At the end of the outing, young adventurers are left with a photo album of their journey, with lots of creatures appearing on screen, where that hadn’t in real life.

As an aside, for those interested in social media, take a look at the comments left on the Boston Globe article written about this game. There’s more than a hint of trolling involved, but beneath the flaming, the argument between one person’s disinterest in new technology and another person’s assumption that they’re just too old to get it, caught my eye.

Seek N’ Spell is a new game designed to run kids ragged and get them to learn something at the same time. It’s not all good news though – they have to be holding your shiny new iPhone at the same time, so you might want to get that insurance plan AT&T tried to sell you after all. Anyway, if I explain that the game scatters virtual letters of the alphabet on a football field-sized area, and that your kids have to run and collect them to form words, you can skip the first two minutes of the video and get to the cool part.

It’s behind you! For the more braver gamers amongst us, take a look at this creepy trailer for Ghostwire on the DSi. I’m on the fence whether this is suitable for little ones; the music in the trailer is pretty creepy, however the game itself looks like a fun puzzler/collect-’em-up. I believe there’s a phone-based version of this coming out too.

There are lots more examples of this growing technology out there, however these were the best ones I could find that were suitable for children. If you’re interested in some of the wider possibilities Augmented Reality might be capable of, take a look at these other demos or check out this specific one for the iPhone. Exciting stuff!