Smartphones Get "Reality Overlay" App

Michael_Curator writes to tell us that mobile phones now have a "reality overlay" app that combines a smartphone's camera, GPS, and compass to augment a user's view of a particular location with metadata. "It works as follows: Starting up the Layar application automatically activates the camera. The embedded GPS automatically knows the location of the phone and the compass determines in which direction the phone is facing. Each [commercial] partner provides a set of location coordinates with relevant information which forms a digital layer. By tapping the side of the screen the user easily switches between layers."

Re:Guided world tour

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

"Each [commercial] partner provides a set of location coordinates with relevant information which forms a digital layer."

We weren't content with just the billboards that reality already has...

Re:Guided world tour

[PeanutButterBreath]

Except that the world isn't a museum, and I don't need a guided tour of every chain convenience store within walking distance at any given time.

Re:Guided world tour

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I think it's fair to say that every technology has good and bad uses. If we're only worried about the bad uses of a new idea/tool/etc. then even agriculture wouldn't work.

Sex Offenders Registry Overlay

[leadfoot]

How long will it take for the National Sex Offender Registry overlay to be created? Then you can be sure your kids are safer, when your phone alerts you to a nearby sex offender. http://www.familywatchdog.us/ [familywatchdog.us]

Re:Cool but Useless

[John Hasler]

Of course, due to local magnetic anomalies his compass is three degrees off and it's the wrong door...

Re:Not original, not a "Killer App"

[Fallen Seraph]

First off, you're thinking of Wikitude, and I agree, it's not original, the idea's been around for a while, it just hasn't been entirely feasible till now.

But it's far from useless. Just because YOU don't have a use for it doesn't mean others don't. I, for instance, am a huge astronomy buff, and think that Google Sky Map is very cool. Instead of spending an hour orienting and aligning my telescope to Polaris, and constantly tweaking it, I can point my phone at the sky and it's tell me what I'm looking at and where to find other objects. Very handy for me, not so handy for someone who doesn't go outside.

Last year I spent a week in Europe, including Prague, and would've loved to have Wikitude point out building data and points of interest. It's a brilliant tool for tourists.

The technology is VERY useful, but it's only in it's infancy right now. Once upon a time people thought GPS was useless when it was first introduced to the commercial sector. Now many people can barely drive without it. Whether you like it or not, semantically associating data online with reality is the future, and makes that data infinitely more useful.


PS - Maybe you'd find a use for it if you ever went outside ;)