So, I found out that the new Playstation Vita has a handful of games that are using Augmented Reality. When I saw this, the first thing that came to mind was Shadowrun.

It's not too intricate, but a nice little advancement in gaming technology. Basically a set of cards you set on a table, and through the game's camera you transform that space into your game's setting. The videos I have seen so far show little tanks maneuvering around coffee mugs, a miniature racetrack, and a tiny soccer field.

I guess when I am trying to explain AR to a player who doesn't know the concept, I'll just pull up the demonstration videos.

It's sort of not what (SR4) AR is, though; sort of the opposite. It's more like gaming augmented by reality, while AR is usually understood to be reality augmented by additional information (Terminator-vision, Google Goggles, and so on).

That's not to say it's not good/interesting/etc., or that it's 'not AR', but it might not be the best example for explaining SR4 AR.

Halfway interesting: http://kotaku.com/augmented-reality/

Well if you think about it xbox's kinect is a form of ar as well just not as indepth yet

You've got a point. Still, the reason I think of Shadowrun from this is the fact that you still have that real background, whether it happens to be the streets of Seattle or your coffee table. Plus, there's a few sections in the books that describe things like AR pets, video games played in reality, and even using a combination of simsense and reality to make the weather whatever you want it to be.

This example says AR to me more than the Kinect, because you're able to change your angle around the surface and view it differently. It takes real world positioning of those cards to generate what you are seeing.

Yeah
but the tech is still relatively new

Yeah, iamZebulun, all those SR4 examples are something being added to your 'ambient' reality: AR pets seem to really exist as you go about your day, AR games make real life *look* like a game, etc. Reality (+game/info), not Game (+reality). I agree that it's a fine line that disappears as the tech gets better. But I just think there are better examples if you specific goal is to say, 'this is what SR4 AR is like'.