Some might say that the path to success for each prospering startup has been different, but author Bill Murphy Jr. believes there is a science to it all. In his book, The Intelligent Entrepreneur: How Three Harvard Business School Graduates Learned the 10 Rules of Successful Entrepreneurship, Murphy provides an entrepreneurial roadmap that could increase the odds of success for any startup.

Murphy introduces us to Marla Malcolm, Chris Michel and Marc Cendella - all members of the 1998 HBS graduating class, and all successful entrepreneurs with thriving companies. Through in depth interviews with these entrepreneurs - and several people close to them - Murphy has deduced 10 rules that he feels helped them rise above the competition. The #1 rule? Commitment.

"During my early conversations with Marla, Chris and Marc I was struck over and over by a simple truth: these three very different people had all made an unequivocal, pedal-to-the-metal choice to throw everything they had into realize their dreams of building successful companies," says Murphy.

"As I began thinking about what else they had in common [...] I had no trouble indentifying the first step that any intelligent entrepreneur must take: you've got to make the commitment," he adds.

Some of the other important rules Murphy discovered include "find a problem, then solve it," "manage risk" and "think big, think new, think again." These aren't radical observations, to say the least - any startup knows that ideas solve problems and risks need to be managed - but the stories from which they emerge offer an interesting read for aspiring entrepreneurs.

Every odd numbered chapter follows the stories of Marla, Chris and Marc, and each even numbered chapter provides the lesson and rule from this part of the story. The book set up to read very much like a scientific case study; there's even an index in the back for finding references and key discussion topics.

For those looking to take a glimpse into the stories of three successful entrepreneurs, Murphy's The Intelligent Entrepreneur could be a great place to start.

Over the next several weeks, we will be showcasing many of the other ways the Web is untangling logistical nightmares for companies large and small. Here's a look at what to expect as we explore the rapidly evolving global choreography of goods and information.

Internet of Things

We are no strangers to the Internet of Things (IoT) here at ReadWriteWeb, and this growing field of tech plays a large role in the logistics world today. Many fun consumer IoT implementations have already begun to change the way customers interact with businesses, and a lot of that is due to the growth of smartphone penetration.

Hotels have already begun to let visitors unlock their room doors with smartphones, and RFID chips are looking to help schools keep tabs on the whereabouts of students, faculty and equipment. In the coming weeks, we'll look at how the Internet of Things is revolutionizing logistics and supply chains and is helping businesses get more done.

Mobile

Another key trend we have covered extensively is the growth of mobility, particularly how it helps businesses achieve higher efficiency out of the office. In no surprise that business large and small are investing in mobile enterprise solutions with the big boost it provides to accessibility, as well as the new data that can be captured and analyzed to tighten the loose pieces of the well-oiled business machine.

The benefits of mobility go far beyond communications. With the spread of smartphones, mobile solutions are not just a way to keep business operations in line, but also to reach customers in personal ways right from their pockets. Later on in this series, we will look at how mobile technologies are helping supply chain efficiency with the help of things like sensors and always-on Web-connectivity.

Sustainability

And finally, one of the other areas of the new logistics we will delve into is how these new methods can increase business sustainability. Technology is at the front lines of the fight to make businesses and the world a more eco-friendly place, and a recent collaboration between Columbia University and IBM is one example of that.

For businesses, jumping onboard with the "new logistics" can mean increasing not only environmental sustainability, but business and financial sustainability as well. With the Web and the other technologies mentioned above, business operations are becoming increasingly more efficient, and sustainability challenges are continually being met.

Look for these topics and more as we explore the changing logistics landscape for businesses worldwide in the coming weeks. Have ideas on how technology is helping to shape new logistics? Leave us a comment below and look out for our "new logistics" continues.

These days, services like Quora, Facebook Questions and even more specifically, StackOverflow, are almost a dime a dozen. Many exist, but only a handful have actually garnered a loyal and significant user base. But how is this possible when Q&A has been around for so long? Why now is it so much more popular?

"Google assumed that you had to pay people for high quality answers to domain-specific questions, but it turns out people will willingly give away copious cognitive surplus in exchange for social credibility amongst their peers (points, badges, leaderboards, etc)," says Parker. "In short, paying someone with fungible reputation has proven to be more motivating than paying someone cash, in the Q&A sector."

We now live in an era - ushered in by the likes of Foursquare and Farmville - where we cherish not monetary reward, but geek street cred. Badges, stickers, points, etc. People provide their knowledge on Quora partly to boost their own repuation in an area, and users battle to be "gurus" of various topics on GetGlue.

All of this and no monetary compensation. While these startups have leveraged this trend, Parker points out it's not as simple as "if you build it, they will come."

"The successful Q&A sites have proven that users can be better motivated without financial incentive, but constructing the incentive mechanics is the (relatively) easy part of the equation... the difficult part is building a community that actually cares about you," he says.

The first M Suster suggests is "momentum," which is almost synonymous with "traction." Investors want to see early growth - either in terms of users, deals or any number of metrics - that will likely continue or accelerate after an investment. This is why developing an early relationship with an investor is key, so they can see your growth over time, and not be forced to make a decision based on a snapshot in time.

Second comes "management," which Suster says accounts for 70% of his decision to invest (just 30% goes to the actual product or idea). He suggests that entrepreneurs place their biographical information early in their pitch so that investors may be "leaning forward for the rest of the presentation."

The third M? Market size.

"Whether you're talking with micro VCs, seed stage investors or series A,B investors they all want to believe that your company CAN be big one day," he says. "Almost all VCs care about investing in big markets with ambitious teams. So NEVER talk about early exits, quick flips, tuck-in acquisitions, previous interest shown by acquirers, etc., during your meeting."

And finally, the last M that Suster believes is critical to attracting investors is "money," which he says is "often misunderstood." In the end, money is the most important thing to investors. Most, he says, want to own a significant chunk of your company, but may be willing to go smaller with other investors. It's best, he adds, to be open and honest about how much ownership an investor is looking to achieve.

Are any other M's missing from Suster's summation? Or are other things more important that don't start with M? Let us know how you feel about attracting investors and what they look for in startups by leaving a comment below!

CrowdFlower is one way startups can save some dough by leveraging labor-on-demand services for things like data entry and content moderation. As of Monday, startups using the platform can not only save cash, but can now also apply to receive as much as $10,000 of investment from Dave McClure's 500 Startups seed fund.

According to Fast Company's Ariel Schwartz, some startups may also be eligible for larger invesments up to $50,000. In total, McClure has pledged a $250,000 fund to help "kickstart the business community to build more great startups on CrowdFlower."

CrowdFlower lets startups outsource specific tasks to the service's global community of over 500,000 workers. Pay-as-you-go pricing and around-the-clock availability make it a powerful platform for completing odd jobs, especially those which computers and scripts might have trouble with.

The service is one of many leveraging crowdsourcing to bring the human element to the cloud. Boulder-based search marketing startup Trada has used a similar model to help companies large and small run more efficient PPC ad campaigns. With this partnership between CrowdFlower and 500 Startups, companies can be rewarded with investment merely for leveraging the power of the crowd, which sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me.

Whether you subscribe to this practice or not, the reality is that startups fail all the time, and luckily many entrepreneurs share their experiences "post-mortem" with the community. We've covered a handful of these posts from startups, but now ChubbyBrain has put together a hefty collection of these essays for your education.

Late last week we shared the story of Marc Hedlund, co-founder of Wesabe, a personal finance startup that lost out to Mint despite being first to market. Marc concluded that it wasn't any of the smaller trivial things (like domain names, or who launched first) that helped Mint win; it was the company's commitment to quickly pleasing its users that helped it succeed.

In September, we mentioned the 7,000-word essay penned by Paul Biggar, co-founder of NewsTilt. Biggar's startup was hailed as a potential saving grace for disgruntled journalists who were looking to leverage their personal brands online. In the end, he credited his company's actual disinterest and unfamiliarity with journalism as a key catalyst for the company's failure.

And finally, back in April we mentioned Ben Brinckerhoff's post about the closure of Devver, a TechStars 2008 graduate that hoped to create tools and resources for developers. "You can teach a hacker business, but you can't make him or her get excited about it, which means it may not get the time or attention it deserves," he said.

These three examples and many more are included in ChubbyBrain's collection of 25 of the "best" startup post-mortem essays. While it can be disheartening to hear these tales of failure, they provide a valuable resource to the first-time entrepreneur looking to avoid an epic failure of their own.

Friday morning, Wesabe co-founder Marc Hedlund posted a blog titled "Why Wesabe Lost to Mint" in which he explains his opinions on just that. From his perspective (which he admits is anything but un-biased), Mint won because they hustled to make users happy - not one of the other "utter crap" reasons he disagrees with.

Interestingly enough, Hedlund doesn't believe either startup has truly "won" because customers still need a better Web-based personal finance solution. Mint may have been acquired and Wesabe may have folded, but Hedlund says needs are still not being met.

"No one, in my view, solved the financial problems of consumers. No one even got close," he says. "Because our products existed during a deep financial crisis, consumers everywhere cut back, saved more, and tried to reduce their debt. Neither product had any significant impact beyond what the overall economy led people to do anyways."

"There is no Google nor Amazon of personal finance," he adds, encouraging entrepreneurs to continue attacking the personal finance space.

What are some of the other ways company A beats company B? Hedlund says Mint's hustle was Wesabe's downfall. Leave us a comment below with other ways startups can win the day over worthy competition.

Another device that could soon be swallowed by the smartphone is the dedicated GPS receiver. Friday, Google announced some updates to its Android app, Car Home, which provides big-button access to car-friendly apps for your windshield-mounted Android smartphone. Are the days of the dedicated GPS numbered?

The new version of Car Home features a slew of customization features, including app shortcuts, icon colors and background wallpapers. Users can quickly add app shortcuts to their Car Home screen, and the app can be automatically launched when placed in a special dock.

Do you always use your Bluetooth headset when you drive? Or perhaps you have one of those newfangled Bluetooth enabled cars? With a few settings you can also have the Car Home app launch automatically when your phone is paired with these devices.

Device Convergence?

Google has also made it easier for developers to make their apps car-friendly, which could be a catalyst to the convergence of smartphones and GPS units. The powerful developer communities that exist for smartphones will be a huge advantage for smartphone-based in-car navigation.

The other leg-up the phones have is the ability to pull data down from the cloud. Some GPS units can include things like live traffic, but the advantage of smartphones is they are already tied to a cellular network which the user already pays for. There's only so much a dedicated GPS unit can do via satellite.

But this convergence will take some time. The major thing holding it back is the power (or lack thereof) of GPS chips within smartphones. Until they are capable of the accuracy found in dedicated units, these units will still remain valuable to wayward motorists. Eventually, however, that is going to change and manufacturers like Garmin, TomTom and Magellan will suffer. That is unless they start making their own phones, like the Garmin nüvifone.

Many notable techies are on the service, making it a great place to get have a quick Q&A with important and informed luminaries. For the last few days, a batch of angel investors has been answering questions on the service, and today is the last chance for curious entrepreneurs to get in on the action.

Travis Kalanick, Josh Felser of Freestyle Capital and David Lee of SV Angel have already held their official Formspring office hours over the last two days. Today, at noon PST, Mike Maples of Floodgate will answer your questions, followed by Steve Anderson of Baseline at 3pm PST. This is a great opportunity to get some candid responses from some high-profile angel investors, so don't miss this chance to ask some pointed questions.

Kalanick answered just under 40 questions yesterday, including general questions like how startups can gain traction to more specific ones, like why angels are seemingly scared of the K12 education industry. His frank response to the latter was simply, "because unions and politics suck."

Felser and Lee have similarly answered several dozen questions during their official appointed times, but have also continued answering more since then. If you're an entrepreneur in need of some fast and quick advice, consider sending Maples and Anderson your questions today on Formspring.

Whether you agree with this nomenclature or prefer to call them "micro VCs," as an entrepreneur or young startup, it's important to understand these key players in the investment market. ChubbyBrain, a group of "data geeks" focused on helping entrepreneurs, has put together a handy list breaking down everything you need to know about the super angels.

In case you're confused about what exactly a super angel or micro VC is, it's basically any angel investor who has become so popular and skilled at their craft as to warrant raising an outside fund themselves. They sit between traditional angels who invest their own cash and full-blown VC firms that employ partners and invest copious amounts of other people's money.

So who are the super angels? That's where ChubbyBrain's directory comes in handy. Thursday, the self-proclaimed data geeks compiled a list of 14 super angel funds, complete with loads of information for each. Curious about the average size of Dave McClure's 500 Startups investments? That's in the directory. Want to know about the types of companies Howard Lindzon's Social Leverage funds? That's there too.

Other valuable information include the size of each fund, the geography of the investments made and the number of investments made by each super angel. For startups, approaching investors is all about developing a personal relationship and getting to know their habits and needs. As I've mentioned before, it's a lot like dating, and in that case, ChubbyBrain's directory is the startup investment personals section.

The app is very similar to the Blank Label homepage. Users are presented with a blank canvas shirt to which they can add and customize fabrics, cuffs, collars, buttons, sizes and more. Thanks to the iPad's hand-on interface, shirt designers can use pinch-to-zoom to get a closeup view of their creations, and eventually users will be able to share their designs with friends on various social networks.

Blank Label and other like-minded startups are catching the wave of co-creation and mass customization which has begun to make its way to America after growing popular in Europe. Company evangelist Danny Wong says they envision people using the new app to instantly create and re-create their own unique styles wherever and whenever.

Maybe one day, he says, a smartphone app with image recognition could recreate shirts instantly by snapping a photo of one. That technology is far off, especially for a small, bootstrapped, distributed startup like Blank Label. In the meantime, the company is looking to launch new initiatives to push its business forward.

Since the cost of a custom shirt on Blank Label is rather high (especially when compared to a company like Spreadshirt that allows for dirt cheap custom t-shirts), the company is planning to launch a line of shirts aimed at the businessperson. Wong says the company may also one day expand into other lines of apparel for users to co-create, but for now, those interested in designing their own shirt from their iPad can pick up the free "Dress Shirt Designer" app in the App Store.

With the improvements made to the camera in the iPhone 4, WordPress' Chris Boyd says the demand from users for video functionality has hit a fever pitch. After all, a smartphone with a camera is a far more common find in a blogger's pocket than a stand-alone video camera. Now iPhone users can record, upload and post videos to their blogs from directly within the WordPress app.

Boyd says the WordPress team has completely rewritten the way in which the app handles local drafts, using Apple's Core Data functionality to ensure drafts aren't lost. But that's not all, says Boyd. When a draft is published, the app verifies with the server that the post has in fact been published, all "in the background, within a second or two." Only then is the draft deleted locally from the device.

One of WordPress' best online features - the ability to autosave and revert between various versions of posts - has also now made it's way into version 2.6 for iOS. Now when editing a post in the app, a small WordPress logo alerts you that the post has been autosaved. Should disaster strike, simply click the logo to see a list of previous autosaves, and voilà, day saved.

A few other additions and fixes made it into 2.6 as well. The process of setting up a blog from the app has been revamped to be speedier and to make more sense, and the familiar Web-based Media Library has been ported to the app to support photos and videos. Verison 2.6, like previous verisons, is a free download and is available in the App Store now.

Perhaps Jobs needs to add some flare to his next presentation - mix things up a bit. If that's the case, then he need look no farther than SingTel's Bill Chang who used augmented reality to wow the audience at i.luminate, the company's business innovations conference.

The video embedded below shows how Chang integrated the technology into an everyday keynote address. Designed by XXX Studios, a partner of AR vendors Total Immersion, the presentation helps Chang explain the complexities of moving a business to the cloud for a more efficient infrastructure.

Why bother trying to talk your way through such information with slides with flow charts and other graphics. The presentation created with augmented reality does a far better job of explaining how a company's infrastructure can be moved to the cloud with SingTel's help. The animations and interactions are well rehearsed and timed perfectly to feel seamlessly integrated into the speaker's actions and words.

Get This in the Hands of Teachers

Augmented reality's potential in the presentation space goes far beyond pontificating corporate execs. I imagine a future where this technology is used in classrooms to help students better understand complex subjects. Thomas Carpenter at Games Alfresco hints that perhaps local news meteorologists could have fun playing with SingTel's "clouds," but why not use similar models to teach kids about climate and weather?

Or, for that matter, why not any other subject that could be bolstered by visual media? As a history buff, I would have loved to see a digital re-enactment of civil war battles played out on my desk as a student. Forget teachers speaking from notes on an overhead projector - teachers could be educating students with interactive 3D video experiences in the future. The only issue with that, of course, is time and money.

Now Zoho users who also use Gmail for email management can interact and act on Zoho tasks from directly within their email. In the video example below, when receiving an email from a customer, Zoho Invoice users can see detailed customer information placed contextually within the email.

Similarly, Zoho CRM customers can search for customer accounts, create new accounts and add notes and details directly from within their email inbox. All of this is made possible by Google's announcement of contextual gadgets API for Gmail from earlier this year. Third party app developers can embed their services directly within Gmail, healping to streamline business operations.

"Instead of hopping from browser tab to browser tab as they move through a workflow, everything needed to get the job done is presented in a single browser tab," said Zoho's Raju Vegesna. "The contextual integrations for Gmail are our first cross-vendor efforts and open the doors to similar integrations with other third-party applications."

It's wise for Zoho to attempt to reach customers on multiple platforms, especially with the popularity of Gmail and Google Apps. It's likely that many small businesses use a combination of Google, Zoho and other suites to satisfy their operations needs. Zoho says this is "just the beginning" for its Google offerings, so expect further integration in the future.

For those unfamiliar with the Startup Weekend model, the 54-hour event takes place, as its name would suggest, over the course of a weekend. On a Friday night, attendees meet up for the first time and pitch their ideas for startups, eventually breaking into groups. For the remainder of the weekend, the groups work to bring their idea to life, wrapping up with a pitch contest at the end of night on Sunday.

This has largely been the extent of the Startup Weekend experience, but with the Kauffman grant, the organization can begin to expand on what it offers to attendees. "Additional resources will allow Startup Weekend to develop relationships and programs designed to increase the resources and support available to entrepreneurs both before and after weekend events," the Kauffman foundation said Wednesday.

The grant money will also make it possible for the organization to expand more efficiently to cities across the globe. Startup Weekend has already hosted events in over 25 countries, including an inspiring collaboration in Tel Aviv between Palestinian and Israeli entrepreneurs.

"This partnership will allow us to harness the potential of our dream and passion that has become Startup Weekend," said Startup Weekend director Marc Nager. "We hope to become one of their most well-known and high-impact partnerships in the early stage startup ecosystem."

Grants such as these, especially from organizations like the Kauffman Foundation - the world's largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship - are nothing but good news for entrepreneurs. With more Startup Weekend events, the opportunity for more brilliant young minds to be exposed to entrepreneurship first-hand grows right along with it. Stop by the Startup Weekend website to see a list of upcoming events - there is likely one in a city near you soon.

Photo by Flickr user mastermaq.

In April of this year, Mozilla launched Fennec (or Firefox Mobile) for Android. The app lets users browse the mobile Web Firefox style with tabbed browsing and add-ons. Users can also sync bookmarks, history and passwords from desktop to mobile to increase efficiency. Firefox Home is the closest thing to Fennec for the iPhone, but it's not a fully-functioning Web browser because of Apple's restrictions.

Mozilla wants to bring the synchronization of Firefox Home to more mobile platforms, however, by expanding with BlackBerry, Symbian and possibly iPad versions of the app.

"We want to offer people access to their Firefox data no matter where they are, and these two platforms make up around 60% of the worldwide smartphone market combined," they said in a blog post Tuesday. "We've also heard interest for an iPad version of Firefox Home and will investigate this option further."

In addition, Mozilla hopes to integrate further social networking features to help users share bits of the Web with friends and followers. "Some of our more experimental features will allow you to easily share links, reviews and comments with your friends on Twitter, Facebook or other social networks directly from Firefox Home."

Mozilla also hopes to better integrate with natie iOS functionality (videos, maps, Mobile Safari, etc) as well as add password syncing to the app. With the announced shuttering of Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks), now could be a great time for Mozilla to expand it's synchronization efforts, especially in the rapidly expanding mobile market.

One of the more interesting areas Graham covers in his essay has to do with the series of dinners which take place over the course of Y Combinator. At these meetings, startups are able to mingle with industry luminaries and founders of successful companies in a relaxed, off-the-record atmosphere.

A longer and equally interesting section (chapter?) of the essay detailed how YC deals with office hours. Throughout the year, it's not just the companies in the current class that meet with the incubator's advisors. With the exception of four weeks of the year, any YC member can schedule office hours at any point.

"Eventually we may hit some kind of limit on the number of people we can advise, but we haven't hit it yet," writes Graham. "And untaken office hour slots show us that, as of now at least, we're never so overloaded that we can't satisfy the startups in the current batch."

Graham continues to outline what happens at Angel Day, Demo Day and other events, as well as the relationships with alumni, foundations and other groups. It's interesting to see the ins and outs of such a successful startup accelerator program. If you're considering applying to YC, reading Graham's essay is a good place to start to get a feel for the program.

Roku already features a wide palette of content, including professional baseball's MLB.TV, Netflix streaming, and Amazon Video On Demand. With the inclusion of Hulu, a service missing from the newfangled Apple TVs, the Roku streaming player is now a very solid competitor against Apple.

Hulu Plus requires a $10/month subscription in order access content across a wide variety of portals, including iOS devices, connected TVs, gaming consoles and now the Roku. Apple TV will let users rent TV shows for $.99 a pop, but avid TV watchers may prefer an unlimited monthly plan from Hulu.

The other area the Roku is beating the $99 Apple TV is its price. Roku's new line of boxes starts at $59 for built-in WiFi and 720p HD playback via HDMI. For $79, customers can access 1080p streaming, and at $99, a USB port for local file playback is added. The Apple TV, on the other hand, is only capable of 720p streaming. The new Roku boxes also feature a 7-second rewind feature, helping to cut down on stream buffer times when trying to quickly rewind a program.

Any little feature is certainly going to help, but the partnership with Hulu has propelled the Roku into the center of the fight for our living room entertainment. There's no word yet on the stream quality, but so far Hulu Plus has only offered 720p to other devices. Regardless of this, however, Roku's deal with Hulu is a big win for the company and makes the set-top box conversation much more interesting.

inSSIDer

If you are Windows, you may want to check out MetaGeek's free Wi-Fi app, inSSIDer. The open source app is compatible with all the modern versions of Windows, from XP and up, and will help troubleshoot any WLAN problems your network may encounter. The app shows you various signal strengths of nearby networks, as well as channel allocations. Sometimes boosting your signal is as easy as switching channels, and this app can help you find the less busy ones.

Chanalyzer Lite

Also from MetaGeek, Chanalyzer Lite does a lot of what inSSIDer does, but it works in tandem with USB Wi-Spy Spectrum Analyzers and Wi-Fi cards to provide richer data. It even picks up the RF signals produced by phones, microwaves and anything else that could be causing interference with a wireless network. Another added bonus? It works with both Windows and Mac.

Cisco Network Magic Pro

With a broad suite of features that allow you manage and protect your wireless network, PC Magazine is right to call Cisco Network Magic Pro the "software Swiss Army knife for your network." The app, for Windows only, provides administrators with a birds-eye view of a network, and allows for easy file and printer sharing, network troubleshooting and security alerts. Users can even control access to various devices and track activity with remote screenshots.

Connectify

This one's pretty straightforward. Need to extend your wireless network but don't want to buy another router or bridge? Connectify, which works with Windows 7 machines, turns your Wi-Fi enabled computer into it's own hotspot that can be accessed by other computers, printers, cameras and any other Wi-Fi device. The network created can still be protected under WPA2 encryption and best of all, it's free to use.

Meraki WiFi Stumbler

If you've noticed one thing about the previous tools, many are designed to work with Windows. Meraki WiFi Stumbler is a quick and free tool that is platform agnostic - it works within a Web browser. While this Web-based tool may be a little limited compared to its software brethren (data cannot be exported and it's mostly a read-only experience), it can certainly come in handy when you're looking to quickly troubleshoot a problem on whatever device you have handy at the time.

What Did We Miss?

There are a lot of tools out there for Wi-Fi network administrators, and we've merely scratched the surface on some of the best ones. If you have a suggestion for a great way to monitor, manage or secure wireless networks at the SMB level, please leave us a comment below!

Photo by Flickr user fboyd.

When Apple introduced the iPad, AR enthusiasts were disappointed to find it had no camera facing in either direction. With the growth of the mobile AR industry through applications like Layar, junaio and Wikitude, the only thing limiting the potential of the technology these days is the hardware it's run on.

The PlayBook's dual cameras could easily turn the device into AR developers' best friend. With a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, and 3-megapixel front-facing camera, many mobile and desktop augmented reality experiences could be brought to the device. Not only could the PlayBook (which is smaller than an iPad) be held up to interact with marker- and image-based mobile experiences, it could also be used with front-facing desktop webcam experiences.

One problem with AR on BlackBerry devices, however, is the lack of a compass. Without the compass, some of the more well-known vision overlay experiences will be hard to come by. If the new PlayBook also lacks a proper GPS chip (which may come in future 3G and 4G models) this would rule out some of the location-based AR experiences as well.

Some of the most compelling desktop AR examples use what is called a "virtual mirror" technology. Using a webcam, users can sample clothing, accessories, hairstyles, makeup and many other items which can be virtually placed on their face or body. More gimmicky promotions let users try on helmets and masks from sports teams and movies, like Transformers.

One of the other features of the PlayBook that will benefit AR developers is the device's support for a full Web browsing experience, including HTML5, Flash and OpenGL. While some AR vendors require users to download special plugins, others use the open source FLARToolKit to develop Flash-based augmented reality that should be usable on the PlayBook.

Breakthrough mobile AR apps of the future will likely be those that can seamlessly blend the mobile and desktop AR worlds together. Imagine playing a game where hunting virtual enemies meant scanning infront of you with one camera while also having a "rear-view mirror" of what's coming up behind you. Or being able to show the front-facing camera an icon or marker that triggers a rear-facing location-based navigation experience.

Possibilities for this type of augmented reality are extremely promising, and devices like the PlayBook could the first to implement them. Once Apple and Android devices start using dual-camera systems, however, the BlackBerry's days could be numbered. For now, though, AR developers should be keeping a keen eye on the PlayBook.