Filed by KOSU News in US News.
October 31, 2009

Want to know where those stimulus dollars were spent? Consider turning your smart phone into a government watchdog — then all you’ll have to do is take it for a walk.

New applications for the iPhone and other devices are starting to track just where those U.S. tax dollars are being spent. Through “augmented reality,” users can instantly access government records just by pointing their phone at an object.

Augmented reality is the term for merging real-time digital information with a person’s real-world environment. The Sunlight Foundation’s Layar application, for example, taps into stimulus data released by Recovery.gov. Aim a Layar-enabled phone at a building, and soon a spread of blue dots will tell you how much stimulus money went to the organization inside.

“This is just the tip of the iceberg,” says Clay Johnson, head of technology at the D.C.-based organization. He imagines a future where someone could point a phone at anything — from a school to a fire hydrant — and find out how much it cost.

“All of a sudden, people can relate to paying their taxes in an entirely different way,” he says. Copyright 2009 National Public Radio