The future of Augmented-Reality Maps

OK, I love TED Talks, in fact I could spend my days watching their talks. In other words, I need an avatar to take care of the mundane things of life such as going to work while I can actually do interesting things! In the meantime, fresh from the TED2010 conference: here is an amazing talk by Blaise Aguera y Arcas, an architect at Microsoft Live Labs, in which he demonstrates how Photosynth software is transforming cartography into a user experience: first by stitching static photos together to create zoomable, navigatable spaces, then with superimposed video for a swear-you-are-there experience.

Your Head Explodes: iPhone in an iPhone

We’ve seen all sorts of augmented reality applications for mobile devices, with varying degrees of usability, but this one, created for Orange Telecom, definitely takes the cake when it comes to originality and craziness.

Created by augmented reality specialists Ogmento, the application lets you launch a simulated iPhone on your iPhone screen. You can zoom your virtual iPhone or spin it around, but (here comes the crazy part), you can also run applications on it. The virtual “apps” aren’t real applications, but still, if there ever was an iPhone app that threatened to break the time-space continuum, this is it.

Source: http://mashable.com

Will Augmented Reality iPhone Apps be the driver to upgrade from 3G to 3GS?

The iPhone 3.1 update enables a new realm of “augmented reality” iPhone apps, which use the iPhone’s GPS, compass and accelerometer to impose a virtual layer of information over a view of the real world as seen from your iPhone’s camera.

Augmented reality iPhone apps will revolutionize the way we access information on the go.

The iPhone is already becoming the multimedia tool used to access the web on the go, doanload and read books, take pictures, watch tv and movies, read the news, play games, check emails, stay in touch with social networks, listen to music etc, etc and.... make calls! Now, with the new capabilities brought by the AR apps, the way we interact with the world will change forever. Information Age is taking an all new meaning!

Check out a few amazing apps available today in the App Store:

1- cAR Locator


cAR Locator is an iPhone 3GS app that shows you in the camera viewfinder where your car is located and how far away. Just press “Save Location” when you get out of your car, then point your iPhone camera in any direction and you’ll be reminded where your car is.

2- Cyclopedia


Cyclopedia shows you information about nearby landmarks and historic locations in your iPhone’s viewfinder. Point your iPhone’s camera at the Statue of Liberty, for example, and it will overlay the Wikipedia entry for that landmark. Cyclopedia relies on the 65,000 entries on Wikipedia that are geotagged.

3- Nearest Tube (UK only)



Nearest Tube is a UK app that shows you train/tube stations in the vicinity.

Source: appleiphonereview.com