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‘Augmented Reality’ May Be Future Of Cell Phones

Posted on: Monday, 5 October 2009, 07:15 CDT

One of the most exciting frontiers for our increasingly smarter cell phones is known as “augmented reality” — a new breed of programs that combine GPS and high-speed wireless networks with mind-boggling smart applications to let phone users view their world through a computer-enhanced lens.

According to an Associated Press report: Pioneering this brave new world are phones using Google’s Android software as well as Apple’s new iPhone 3GS, which have allowed software developers to overlay digital images on top of the images seen through the phone’s camera view.

Users of these applications can just hold up their cell phones and look through the viewfinder down any given street, and suddenly a new world of information becomes available to them.

Floating arrows appear on the screen, pointing to restaurants on either side of the street; click on one of the arrows and you can browse user reviews of the eateries as well as menus and price information.

Click on another application and your phone will give you historical information on interesting buildings in the vicinity or direct you to interesting sights.  Walk by a park and check out interesting photos that others have taken of it.

Apartment hunting?  Just let your cell phone know and it will direct you to nearby vacancies as you saunter down the street.

It can tell you where the nearest bus stop, train station, hotel or grocery store is as well — and software engineers are just in the earliest phases of developing this mind-boggling technology.

The Amsterdam-based company Layer, has been pushing the envelope in the field of augmented reality with its flashy self-titled platform for displaying all kinds of different data sets.  Layer lets the user search for information with Google, yet it delivers hits based on the user’s location as determined by GPS satellite.  Thus, whether searching for a coffee shop or furniture store, it offers results based on what’s closest.

Users can also choose to receive information passively, signing up to receive certain types of messages automatically and allowing local companies to send them messages about their stores.

According to Layer’s co-creator Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald, the goal of the program is to give the user the “serendipitous experience” of discovering new things, whether in his home city or while traveling around.

Lens-Fitzgerald says the company is also working on a 3-D function that is slated for release in November which will allow users to place their own virtual markers on buildings and sites, which can then be shared with and seen by other users.

Over the summer, after a bit of blogger community brainstorming, a tech-savvy intern at a business review website called Yelp nonchalantly developed  and introduced a program known as Monocle for the iPhone that used the GPS and wireless networks to give customers an overlay of information atop a real-time camera image of the world.

The application was originally hidden—it could only be activated by shaking the iPhone three times—but has now become a standard feature, fusing together the iPhone’s camera view with digital tags pointing to names, distances and user ratings of bars, restaurants, hotels or just about anything else.

Though the future potential for augmented reality is dizzyingly exciting, Professor Blair MacIntyre of the Augmented Environments Lab at Georgia Tech warns that the imaginations of software developers and consumers alike may have to wait a while for technological capabilities—such as wireless networks, GPS accuracy, the camera and graphic abilities, and processor power—to catch up.

MacIntyre fears that too much hype might end up leading to disappointed expectations—as happened with the virtual reality craze in the late 1990’s—as the limitations of augmented reality become clearer.

Still, software engineers and industry enthusiasts remain hopeful and are already tinkering with ideas for everything from augmented reality video games to automated city tour services.

“Things are pretty cool right now,” said Tim Sears, creator of another Apple-approved augmented reality app known as Robotvision.

“But they're definitely going to get better.”

Source: RedOrbit Staff & Wire Reports

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