Thursday 16 July 2009

Augmented Reality can change the way we see the World

This latest app for the iPhone 3GS uses GPS and the built in camera to help you navigate around the New York Subway system. You hold up the phone and it points you in the right direction with on-screen graphics. It's developed by Acrossair who are also working on a London Underground equivalent plus the Twitter app TwittaRound which uses that same technology to help you locate Twitter users in you area.


Pretty soon the sight of tourists roaming London with their iPhones held in front of them looking for the nearest bus or tube to Piccadilly Circus will be commonplace. As a non-tourist visitor to the capital I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with the prospect of already slow moving holiday makers gormlessly whirling around, peering through a tiny screen looking for the right entrance to Bank Station, knocking over flower stalls and the hats of disgruntled commuters. However, I suppose it stops them from just asking them and risking personal injury. That's a could thing right?

The broader point is the onset of Augmented Reality and how it will teach us more about our immediate environment. Imagine the applications for history alone.To use another tourist example, say an app was developed for the London Transport Museum where the data in their audio visual terminal was adapted for an iPhone application. Everywhere you pointed your iPhone you would learn about the exhibits around you.

Think of a places of interest in London like Whitechapel and it's gruesome history. An AR app could take you through a guided tour of the area pointing out places of interest with links to archived material, images and such. If you plugged your earphones in you could listen to an audio commentary. Of course wandering round that part of London holding an expensive phone up for all to see may not be recommended for security reasons but you get the idea.

Like all innovations there are evil applications. The technology could be used by the State to recall data about a place or conceivably a person. The usual privacy issues will need to be addressed. However, Augmented Reality has the potential to be an exciting educational, entertainment and marketing tool. It could literally change the way we look at things.

Now if someone could to develop it for the the N97 I'd be laughing.

Posted via email from redduffman

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