For the past month, I've been looking at a sleek, exotic object: SpaceNavigator. The work of 3DConnexion (a subsidiary of Logitech), the SpaceNavigator could be considered a three-dimensional mouse. Think of Google Earth, which many of us navigate through using a conventional mouse and keyboard. Building on the controllers used with computer-aided design programs, the SpaceNavigator lets you intuitively move a round control device to pan across a mapped landscape, zooming in at will, rotating and changing direction.

Couple the $60 SpaceNavigator (www.3dconnexion.com) with 3D-enhanced scenes in Google Earth and the experience becomes more like flying than computing. By setting the device up on the opposite side of the keyboard from my mouse, I gained flexibility in movement and maneuvered through virtual places such as Google's New York without taking my eyes off the screen. Using the sturdy device, built on a solid, round, metal base, becomes second nature after a few minutes.

But as significant as Google Earth's huge audience is (the program has been downloaded a quarter of a billion times), SpaceNavigator already works with more than a hundred other programs.

The broader picture emerging has to do with how we interact with computer data, because what's happening on Google Earth is that raw data is infused with add-on information and rendered into a visual format, becoming a landscape through which we can move.

Such landscapes are becoming more common. Gamers have long operated in immersive environments using joysticks and controllers, but the trend emerging in virtual worlds such as Second Life (secondlife.com) is toward a melding of fictional environments and real-time data from the broader Internet. IBM, Sony Ericsson, Coldwell Banker and other companies have bought virtual land and are experimenting with storefronts in a world that is populated by computer avatars but capable of doing business in real dollars.

As these environments proliferate, people will increasingly run into limitations in their hardware. We have already surmounted some of these in terms of fast video cards and processors, but immersive spaces also demand more intuitive movement. This is why touch-screen technologies such as Microsoft Surface are so intriguing -- letting data be manipulated by hand motions on wall-mounted displays -- and why tools such as SpaceNavigator -- which don't replace but complements the existing mouse -- will become increasingly commonplace.

Business ignores these trends at its peril, for we are also moving into the era of "augmented reality." Unlike "virtual reality" (think goggles and wrap-around computer displays), augmented reality enhances real objects with a veneer of digital information. Cell phone giant Nokia has been working on the idea for some time, hoping to create devices that would let you capture images of your location which, tying in to global positioning systems, would be automatically enhanced with place names and hyperlinks to real-time data feeds. You could check not just your location, but the menu of the restaurant across the street and the CD rates offered by the bank next to it, updated as they change. Such futuristic devices will help us merge a digital world accessible over the Web with objects we can see and touch. That's an interesting merger but only the beginning.

Go further with the idea and you'll see that the immersive spaces of virtual worlds such as Second Life can begin to spill over into the geographically mapped spaces of a service such as Google Earth.

Insiders are speculating about what happens when we keep feeding databases with up-to-date information and begin to move through them in 3-D fashion. Google Earth and other mapping services enhance their imagery with a wealth of information about services, landmarks and personal tags.

A future emerges in which we navigate spaces that have been enhanced with real-time data, zooming down a 3-D street, for example, to see what's playing at the movie house or checking traffic flow before we leave for work. The real world is increasingly mirrored within the PC. However, when we are out and about, we will read data flowing from the real landscape into the digital spaces that our mobile devices connect to, augmenting sight and sound with the capabilities of the vast information flow that some are calling the metaverse.

If you think that the 3-D Web and the augmented reality that it supports sound science fictional, take a look at the Accelerating Studies Foundation (accelerating.org). The site contains a metaverse road map looking out over the next 20 years. Neal Stephenson's 1992 novel "Snow Crash" coined the term "metaverse" and pictured it as an alternate cyberworld that reflected our own. But what is emerging looks to be far more flexible, laden with new business options and accessible through personal computer, hand-held device or phone.