While discussing McLuhan's classic phrase "The medium is the message," Neuman writes that "Because of our increasing reliance on particular technologies of public communications, especially electronic and video technologies, those technologies are increasingly interacting with changing cultural and political beliefs" (p. 97). Right now, QR codes and other augmented reality technologies are stuck in a place between amusing and practical, but could potentially change the ways we think about interacting with our surroundings. A QR code is just a quicker way to access a website than manually entering the web address. GPS is practical, but the user-created augmentation of Foursquare is part discovery system and part game. Visual overlay reveals some of the future that we can look forward to with augmented reality, but right now it is mostly a gimmick. However, these technologies and others are beginning to paint a picture of a world where the phones we hold in our hands give us access to a variety of different worlds. NFC, or near field communication is a short-range wireless connectivity technology that has seen mass application in MasterCard's PayPass system (NFC-Forum; MasterCard). The PayPass uses an NFC transmitter in a credit card, sticker, or in a smartphone that one can just wave over a pay terminal in order to complete a transaction. Due to the number of smartphones in the wild and analysts projecting up to 25% of the phone market containing NFC technology by next year, I can see NFC as a legitimate replacement for the credit cards we use every day. Companies like Google have already begun to develop an NFC payment platform (Patel). However, Patel points out in his article on using Google Wallet that in his experience, he "...did feel like a bit of a smartphone rock star." The technology is still novel, but it is getting to a point where we have too many smartphones to ignore the processing power in our pockets and the future of augmented reality.