There’s augmented reality by TAT, which does facial recognition to assign clickable metadata to a face (currently the metadata consists of different social media accounts).

Then there’s Layar, an application that can do “building recognition” (likely based on your location and the direction your phone is pointed instead of the actual picture of the building).  This is available for the Android OS, which is in use on phones such as the HTC Magic and the T-Mobile G1.  This is likely the same technology that we’re seeing in the new London Subway application (called “Nearest Tube” by acrossair) and the “stalk your children app” for the iPhone (below).

iPhone 3GS Augmented Reality from Chris Hughes on Vimeo.

And of course, the holograms on business cards that I posted a couple days ago:

Check out a full list of the new supported gestures here (I’ve verified that they all work), and find a full list of the new beta’s updates here.

Here are the pictures if you would like to join me in wasting time on nearly unnoticeable bugs.  Look for the capital S in Apple Store:

Look at the same Tweet - scrolling to a different location has fixed the error (second from top)

Font render bug on capital S from mactweets (third from bottom)

So now that the test have been run and show that the two programs aren’t competing in the performance department, how do you know which one to use?  I think it all boils down to your personal preference for the different features that are offered in each application.  That being said some of the features are identical in both applications: for example, the integration of open windows into the Mac OS dock, as well as the proper display of windows in Expose.  Let’s take a quick look at two of the features that are different.

VMware’s Unity vs Parallels’ Coherence:
One of the cool features about these two products is their Mac OS integration feature.  By running either of these modes, the virtual machine application will place your windows application right into the Mac OS look and feel.  The only large difference between the two is that VMWare has an application launcher built into the menu of the VMware Fusion Mac application, and Parallels places the start menu at the bottom of the screen, but on top of the dock.  This over the dock approach is very ugly to me and ruins the feel of my Mac OS.

Running Windows applications from VMware Fusion

Parallels Integration

Parallels’ Modality:
Parallels’ has one feature that VMware Fusion doesn’t have, and they call it Modality.  This places a mini, scalable version of the Windows desktop on your screen.  The cool thing about it is that you can be fully interactive with all the shrunken pieces.  The not so cool thing about it is that I can’t figure out a good reason to use your Windows desktop in that manner.  Why would you shrink it?  Not sure, but the option is there.

Paralells Modality

To finish off this mini review, I’ve just got word that VMware Fusion takes the Eddy Winner prize over at Macworld.

Update: The deadline for entering programs into the Eddy award contest happened before Parallels 4 was released so Parallels 4 wasn’t even considered when handing out the awards.  However, in the comments below, Rob Griffith, the writer of the article, states:

“Yes, that’s exactly why Parallels 4 wasn’t even considered — it was released after the deadline. With that said, even if Parallels 4 had been released prior to the deadline, my vote still would have gone to Fusion 2. We’ll have reviews of both programs (along with VirtualBox) online shortly, but in the hundreds of hours I’ve spent with all three of the programs in the last month or so, Fusion 2 is the better of the two programs. It’s got stronger DirectX support, uses less CPU resources, and works much better with multiple monitors (both inside the VM and outside the VM) than does Parallels. I also ran into a few troubling bugs in Parallels 4 (with SmartMount, Shared Profiles, migrating a VM, and Coherence mode) during my testing.

That’s not to say Parallels is a bad program by any stretch — it’s quite well done, and I love its new Modality mode. But head-to-head with Fusion 2, I think it comes out in second place by a small margin.”

… and I think we have our winner.

I didn’t want to hassle with trying to reinstall Windows since I just went through this exercise about two weeks ago when I set up Boot Camp.  Luckily, VMware lets you run your Windows installation right off the Boot Camp drive.  This is great for two reasons: 1) You don’t have to reinstall Windows if you’ve already set up Boot Camp, and 2) You can run Windows natively (using Boot Camp) whenever you need to.

WEI through VMware

The first thing I was interested in was the performance of Windows running on a Virtual Machine.  Once I got everything set I started by updating the Windows Experience Index (seen on the left).

WEI through Boot Camp

Okay, you’re going to have to ignore the blatant difference in the overall experience score. The Windows Experience Index determines the overall score based on the lowest sub-score, so this number isn’t everything. Looking closely we can see that the scores are only drastically different in the graphics department. Looks like you’re not going to be able to play any games through VMware – darn. Besides the graphics scores, the performance is arguably similar.  While the degradation in performance is noticeable, I still find it similar enough to justify running VMware given the fact that I don’t have to restart my machine every time I want to switch operating systems, and I don’t have to give up the great pieces of the Mac OS (basically the whole thing).  For running Visual Studio or any other non-graphical business application these numbers are fine – and you get the best of both worlds.

Unity
Another great feature about VMware Fusion is the Unity feature.  Pressing the Unity button will integrate the Windows environment into the Mac OS in a near seamless fashion.  Check out the video below.

Once in unity mode, you lose the Windows desktop and the start button, and the programs appear to run “natively” inside the Mac OS. As you can see from the video they’ve actually done a really good job integrating the different open windows into the dock. In order to run new applications from Windows all you have to do is click on VMware Fusion in the dock, and then select Applications from the menu at the top of the screen. This is your entry point to run Windows applications.

Running Windows applications from VMware Fusion

Overall my experience with VMware Fusion has been a positive one. The slight decrease in performance is justifiable for my purpose. I can run Visual Studio 2008 while still keeping myself feeling right at home in the Mac OS.