I'll admit it. My husband, Steve, has a severe case of gadgetosis. Because of this affliction, we've invested some of our savings in a company called Microvision. At first, to me, this company was nothing more than a good investment–after all, who in this industry hasn't wanted a projector so small and light you could stash it in your purse–but now I find myself excited by the prospects of what the devices they make (wearable displays, vehicle displays, and pico-projectors) could mean for me as a developer.

I was in my (herm) early childhood when I first saw the grainy projection of Princess Leia imploring "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi; you're my only hope," yet that grainy image is imprinted on my memory to this day. That technology seemed part of a far distant future, and it never occurred to me that I or someone like me could actually be involved in writing the software that Leia used to record her iconic message or that R2 used to play it back.

I was much older when the movie Minority Report came out, but the transparent interactive advertisements with personalized messages, the UI devices that freed Tom Cruise from using a keyboard and mouse in favor of something he found more comfortable and intuitive, all that felt like something that was a long way off.

Yet now we are starting to have iPhone apps that offer augmented reality, pointing out useful landmarks or friends and acquaintances that might be closer than we think. If you imagine that kind of technology freed from the need to look down at a device, instead using a wearable display to project information over the actual streets and buildings and a motion-sensitive input device, perhaps using technology similar to a wii, could keep your hands off of the tiny keypad. And that's not even thinking about devices and displays that could be integrated with your car.

We as developers are going to be rudely dumped out of the comfortable paradigm of "some sort of mouse, some sort of keyboard, and some sort of monitor" into a scarier, yet more exciting, world, where the sky isn't even the limit. I find myself trying to imagine what life will be like for us as developers where "rich" applications are ones that enable people to look through the ground and see geologic features or see if someone is likely to be lying to you based on their heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing. And Internet? I believe that, while the Internet has a long and useful future ahead, the line between our online and offline lives might become more and more blurred, as augmented reality becomes more and more universal.

I find myself excited and terrified by what's coming in the very near future. I'm not sure I'm ready for Universal Augmented Reality 1.0. Are you?

Read more from Amy Blankenship.