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Augmented reality brings new perspectives and interpretations about the spaces and places that we live in. Once assigned to the distant future, augmented reality is available today. While many applications related to virtual worlds and fictional places, virtual reality applications are finding useful and valuable applications in every day applications.

The spaces that we live in are coming more widely known, shared and available for many of us to explore. We no longer need to travel to distant locations to actually experience them, instead, they are brought into our awareness through the use and application of new technologies.

Blaise Agüera y Arcas is architect for Bing Maps at Microsoft. He is also also co-creator of Photosynth for the same company. Much of his work has surrounded the development of technologies that consider, explore and chart spaces that we use every day. Through Bing Maps users can bring different slices of time into one central map environment, and share it with others.

The Routledge book 'The Spatial Turn - interdisciplinary perspectives' suggests that geography is playing more of a role today in society than it was previously. Culture, experience and daily living is reflected through slices in space. Economics exists in space, and at any given time snapshots appear, informing us about the current state of economic geography. Several authors in the book explore the unique and fascinating perspective of 'spatial turns'.

Geographic information systems (GIS) enable the real to mix with the virtual. They also enable us to analyze these relationships, not just see them. We can use these technologies to look back through history, match it with the current conditions, and or add new vistas and ideas before drawing valuable conclusions.

Clearly virtual reality is changing and contributing to our perceptions about maps. They can now be dynamic, constantly changing and move our perceptions (and reality) through time. In some ways they may even allow us to study and understand phenomenon in ways we could not quite understand or realise previously.

ASM Newsletter is distributed by e-mail every week. It reports on events in the spatial industry in Asia and events outside the region which will impact on Asia.