Compass and Video on the IPhone opens up an Augmented Reality World
Massive excitement at Made By Many as the resident Apple fan-boys stayed in the office to keep up with the WWDC keynote. We cursed our recent MacBook Pro purchases and waited for news of the new IPhone. Some great news there but let down by the news that getting the IPhone 3GS means buying out the existing contracts! (Bad news here, all employees have an business IPhone at Made By Many).
In that exciting news, the new IPhone will have a video-enabled camera and a compass. This means just one thing, with a GPS-enabled device, internet device that can now tell where it is pointing we are going to get a flood of Augmented Reality applications/games showing meta-data, social data and content onto the phone video screen. Combined with things like Google Streetview and Latitude (soon to be released on the IPhone) people will be viewing their world through the IPhone, with reviews of restaurants/bars, transport services (and bus times) projected onto their iphone-world. This could lead to an explosion of social geo-tagging for the IPhone carrying-set.
I for one welcome our new augmented overlords and will be producing a line of AR-symbol carrying baseball caps for instant identification of Twitterers on the streets.
For now the Sekai Camera iPhone application gives an early vision of this world.
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About the author
Stuart is a technologist’s technologist and one of the founding partners at Made By Many. He also is a champion of fluid, Agile business structures and new disruptive business models for a disruptive age. Follow @stueccles on Twitter
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It’s v interesting area, even Fast Company have been quick off the mark (after MxM!) to explore this: http://is.gd/ZQY6
And now that AR is approaching the realm of vague real world usefulness (ie US Priority Mail Simulator http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCcZX8qGAX0) it will be fascinating to see what comes out.
(with tongue firmly in cheek, i have suggested Durex should follow USPS’ lead and introduce AR to help users find the right, er, fit. Sorry for mental images of home webcam experiments..)
Justin
June 12, 2009
at 2:29 pm
That’s all very well, but I don’t want to be holding a device in front of me. I want a device to replace my eyes. Hands free. And in fact ‘eyes free’ too.
This talk is ace. A pretty exciting glimpse at ubiquitous web. Can’t wait.
Tim Malbon
June 12, 2009
at 6:48 pm
Like Tim, I don’t want to be holding a device in front of my face. I’m holding out high-hopes for Vuzix opening up the AR eyewear marketplace.
Chris Grayson
June 19, 2009
at 4:04 pm
i’m with tim. who needs eyes? i want it all that metadata fed directly into my soul.
Mike
June 19, 2009
at 5:13 pm
I think Tim’s talking about some sort of AR-enabled zombie. ‘Eyes-free’?!! Yeah Mike, metadata fed into the soul, that too.
Anjali Ramachandran
June 21, 2009
at 5:41 pm