So, it is 2070 now and every runner group uses AR.
We all know what the drawbacks are, but what are the advantages?

Lets see:

- communication by thought (everyone can carry a transducer)
- live video feed from every teammember (should wear at least a sensor tag, if not an eye camera)
- live life signs from every team member (biomonitor should be installed = you can see their damage tracks)
- live ammunition data from every teammember (weapons are smart 2070)
- live ballistic data from your teammembers (you know who is shooting at whom, better coordination)
- live sensor data from the fly spy (every team, if not every teammember should have one. can provide ultrasound data, too)
- overlay maps
- live tactical map with special flags (enemy, friendly . . ., see SR4 story)
- live data from sensors (every teammember should carry some to distribute on site while they approach target)

What else can you get ?

Using the already existing program WALLSPACE you can create 3D maps and textures so that you can find your way within your home even when the power is out – you can even map the entire Seattle with your own textures so that can post your own graffiti, tags and notes on important locations.

Sensor tags: Connect a sensor tag with a camera on your back sending live feed to your imagelink – instant rear view mirror.

Home Office: Long distance to your work, no problem. Combine the VR experience with OfficeSpace II (OS2) which let you work from anywhere in the world and interact with your real life colleagues through a combination of VR and AR.

window shopping from home. Stroll down the isles in your underwear without those pesky indicent exposure charges. Delivery in 30 minutes or less Guarenteed*!

*Delivery not available in Z-zones

Party all night long, never have to drive home. Show up at the latest shindig and get your self good and plastered in RL or Virtual! No need to drive home, you're already there! No ackward moments of trying to find your pants after a "quiet" tryst, just log off!

discreet communication with nano-trode paint and text messaging!

Happy neighbor overlay! For days when just changing the weather isn't enough! Neighbor or coworker not so up on their hygene or need ashave and ahaircut? No problem! A little healthy editing can have that bad breath wielding non comformist hippie looking and smelling 10 times better! Like your coworker better as an Asian? Easy and quick and completely private for your eyes only! Significant other not up to snuff? Programmable celebrity options available! Key your Favorites list to activate your filter when their commlink is in range! Turn Plain Jane or John to Jenna Jameson or Long John Silver!

Virtual sycophant 2.0 ! Not a "real" rock star or Corporate VP yet? No problem! Your own personal yes man is just download away!

Play cool multiplayer games during waiting periods.

Bye
Thanee

a rousing game of pong while the hacker works the system? excellent

Playing a deathmatch of Quake 10 against your own Agents, and for those that wants a challenge, arming them with Black IC

Depending on how AR works I thought it may be a way to give a blind person sight (limited of course like a mage "seeing" with astral perception).

-Using a select sound filter and an anylasis program to 'flag' any passerby who use given words, like your street name, your real name, or your target's name.

You know, I was thinking about this when I first read about AR ubiquity, and it occurred to me that an unwired team is a perfect in-game justification for the sort of table talk and meta-gaming that happens in most role-playing games during combat. No more "well, you're around the corner, so you didn't see your friend go down" or the like.

My hat's off to whomever thought it up.

Well cybereyes cant fix a char. who takes blindness as a flaw. It would be too easy to get some points for free. Think of it as if there is something wrong with your brain or nerves for the reason for blindness, not a railroad spike.

If you notice blindness has been removed from the SR4.0 rules. As a GM if I wanted to introduce it I would give the following stats:
Blind:
legally blind (ie bad eye sight) => +5 BP
Bad eye (ie missing, damaged, etc) => +10 BP
Bad optic nerves (ie cybereyes won't work, but AR and simsence will) => +15 BP
Brain damage (ie no visual ability at all) => +20 BP
[Mystic] Adept => -5 BP (can learn astral perception to see)
Magician => -10 BP (can use astral perception to see)
Hacker/TM => -5 BP (can use AR/Simsence/Sensors to see)

One of my players wanted to have a holographic projector to show his AR pet spider in both the real and AR world. I suppose that could act as an distraction for AR users which seems to most everyone.

decorate your shop in AR. heck, stock your store in AR. obviously, this would be aimed at either technogeeks or the rich and constantly connected, rather than being used in Stuffer Shacks.

I just realized how much College teaching would have to change given the many ways to get data and display it. Wifi inhibiting wallpaper, cyberware scanners, you name it.

Probably easier to get on an airplane than take the 2070 SAT test, lol.

Side note:

AR won't work for blind people; AR is basically HUD projections and overlays on glasses, contacts, cybereyes. Blind can't see a HUD any more than they can see a movie screen.

You'd need to go full VR so that visual data is sent directly to your brain. I imagine anyone who's optic nerves were destroyed could get a VR-linked set of cybereyes but they would suffer from some of the "acting in VR' penalties due to the way the data is being fed into the brain.

Way better than blindness but not as good as getting cybereyes or clonal replacements.

It depends on the source of the blindness. If the blindness is due to a defect in the eye, then grab some cybereyes and a grapefruit spoon and you should be good to go. If the blindness is due to a defect in the visual part of the brain, then you're SOL. Any character who wants blindness should specify which kind they have.

Any character who can't see due to an eye defect (that is, cybereyes fix it) gets cybereyes, as far as I'm concerned. I'm not going to hand a player a chunk of build points for something he's going to have worked around at character creation anyway.

Someone mentioned earlier the possibility of using queues in other senses to replace sight... tones in your ears saying it's okay to cross the street, that kind of thing. This would be one of those cases where, when you're trying to "see" something (like if it's safe to cross the street) you'd make a perception test. -6 dice for being blind, +1 to +3 AR bonus from your AR "handicaps" trying to compensate.

A sim module replaces goggles, gloves, earplugs and whatever in AR.

You can use a simmodule to get all 5 senses AR. You do not need anything else. A simmodule is not only for VR.

unless the blindness comes from brain damage, i would expect most "blind" people to either use cybereyes (most likely thats the reason the tech was first invented) or a simsense based AR feed that feed a cameras view to the brains visual cortex (or whatver its called)...

Man, I really hate the augmented-evangelists, but the sword fights can't be beat. The new AR gloves really make them feel real; hellz, you practically fall over picking up the broadsword. I hear they've gone all out for the recreation this year, even rolling out the digital fog and upgrading the soundscape to include the arrow thawps. Can't wait.
- Jimmy Pitaski on Renaissance Fair 2070

God, I miss shadowtalk

I don't, but anything that gives me the opportunity to correct people is a good thing.