The SekaiCamera app is all about function and bringing the user experience to life in both the real and virtual worlds.

This was prototyped at TechCrunch’s Top 50 Conference a few months back and from what was written, it was the talk of the conference. You can see the actual presentation that was done here.

Anyway, we came across this execution in our research and just thought it was so amazing.  Plus, the team here just started rattling off potential uses and ideas around this app.  Honestly the possibilities are endless!

But we see one major obstacle to overcome: Tagging.

As noted across countless blogs and by industry insiders, this will be crucial in facilitating mass adoption of these types of technologies.  If we don’t have a “Dewey Decimal” system of sorts for tagging we all will get lost in the virtual shuffle.

As we here at nostrum, inc. continue to investigate and research new and emerging technologies, we like to share some of our findings with our friends.

Augmented Reality Apps are out in full effect now and are becoming more and more mainstream (at least to us geeks). This recent addtion to the app arsenal is one of the best uses yet for it.

Check this out and let us know what you think. And if you have any other finds, please share; we love this stuff…

You know your app has hit the big time when a major “serious artist” uses it to create art.

Beloved painter David Hockney (The Road to the Studio, that one with the Joshua Trees), after investing in an iPhone, has begun using it to create new pieces. He uses painting and drawing applications to make tiny sketches, deliver illustrated art lectures, or send his friends hand-drawn flowers—before he even gets out of bed. He even has a mini easel to hold the phone while he works.

And the iPhone is not the only new medium Hockney plays with. He uses drawing tablets to turn his desktop into a canvas. Then he manipulates multiple pieces into one major, multi-layered artwork, like The Atelier March 17th 2009.

Some people may find it unusual to hear of a 71-year-old man embracing technology as gladly and adventurously as Hockney has, but the artist himself doesn’t think so. “The computer is a terrific medium,” Hockney says. “You miss some things, you miss texture for example, but you gain a lot. In a watercolor, once you put things down, that’s it. With this you can move things about, change, make them bigger and smaller.”

I remember, as a child, being completely taken with The Road to the Studio on a class field trip to LACMA. I remember being blown away as an adult by Hockney’s Polaroid art at an exhibition in London (which I got to see just by sheer dumb luck after missing it in LA). But nothing about Hockney’s work or work ethic has impressed me as much as his creativity in turning a new, “practical” technology (which frequently devolves into the silly or time-sucking) into fine art.