Dresner pulled his jacket back and showed an example of the real thing hung on his belt. “I’d like to introduce you to Merge. The next—and maybe final—generation of personal computing devices.”

“Oh, God,” Janine groaned, actually slapping her forehead. “He’s invented the cell phone. And he’s carrying it in a holster.”

“How many of you out there use augmented reality systems?” Dresner continued, blissfully unaware of Janine’s sarcasm. “You know—astronomy apps, something that tells you how good the restaurant you’re standing in front of is…anything.”

More than half the audience raised their hands and Smith joined them. Janine just folded her arms across her chest and scowled.

“And how many of you really find them practical?”

His hand dropped along with everyone else’s. As much as he loved his $2.99 constellation finder, holding a phone at arm’s length and looking past it at the sky wasn’t exactly a seamless experience.

“GPS has definitely moved that technology forward, but we’re still stuck with an interface that isn’t all that much different from the one we had when the first personal computers came out more than thirty years ago. It’s that, and not the software, holding the technology back. It’s not particularly hard to imagine augmented reality’s potential, but almost no one is pursuing it because of the lack of a workable hardware platform. I’m hoping to change that.”

He walked back to the lectern. “Let me switch you over to what I see.”

The screen behind him faded into a video of the crowd as he scanned across it. Along the left side was a series of semitransparent icons glowing various shades of red and green. Across the top was some general data—that he was connected to the Las Vegas Convention Center wireless network, the temperature inside and outside, as well as a number of abbreviations and numbers that Smith couldn’t decipher.

Janine leaned into him again. “That actually looks pretty good. I tried the Google Glasses prototype and they just have a cheesy head-up display at the top of one of the lenses.”

Smith nodded. “I tested a prototype from a British company that projects onto your retina, so it can work with your entire field of vision and create that transparent effect. Great idea but the images were blurry and every time the glasses moved on your face, the image would break up. Maybe Dresner’s nailed it.”

“I’ll admit it’s a little cool,” she said with a shrug. “But hell if I’m spending the rest of my life walking around in glasses that make me look like I’m using a chain saw.”

Dresner looked down from the stage and focused on a man in the second row, his surprised face suddenly filling the screen. “Let’s make a phone call. Bob, why don’t you stand up?”

He did, looking self-consciously at the crowd behind him. Either he was a damn fine actor, or this wasn’t a setup.

“Now, I know that Bob is a good citizen and turned his cell off before he came in. But could I bother you to turn it back on?”