AR Killer App?

If you've been following this blog you'll know we've had a bit of a love affair with Augmented Reality over the last few months.

Until now, we've been intrigued but not overly impressed with the application of technology in this area. But Word Lens shows the promise of what AR apps really could deliver: install the app, point your phone camera at any text you want to translate, and in real time it appears on your phone screen. We'll say that again - IN REAL TIME!

It only works Spanish to English at the moment but the developers have plans to roll this out over the coming months.

Teh developers, Quest Visual, explain the app’s process simply, “It tries to find out what the letters are and then looks in the dictionary. Then it draws the words back on the screen in translation.” Right now the app is mostly word for word translation, useful if you’re looking to get the gist of something like a dish on a menu or what a road sign says. “The translation isn’t perfect, but it gets the point across” says Good.

The future is now.

More Augmented Reality

Yes, we know, we've become a bit obsessed by AR over the last few weeks. It's just so, well, cool. This week's entries go from the ridiculous (above) to the sublime (below).

A vision of things to come or still a bit sci-fi? Let us know what you think.

Augemented Reality for real

We've talked about Augmented Reality applications before on this blog but mostly in a "look what might happen some day" or a "look at those crazy Japanese" kind of way.

E-consultancy has just release a top 10 real life AR examples being implemented by real world Superbrands.

It's worth a look to see how science fiction is fast becoming science fact.

Augmented Reality

We're big fans of TED. This talk from Pranav Mistry at TEDIndia last November shows the potential of his "sixth sense" technology which links the physical and digital worlds. It got us on the hunt for more Augmented Reality. While perhaps not quite as impressive as Mistry's Sixth Sense, the following are available right now:

Layar: an Android app that overlays information onto your phone's screen when you point the camera at something.

We've posted about this before on this blog but Google Goggles is another Android app that pulls up data/extra info on something if you take a photo of it (an example shows review scores for a book, similar to the SixthSense demo).

Again, something we've blogged about previously but QR codes have been popular in Asia for a while but not really caught on here so much (although some magazines have used them in recent special "AR" issues). The Weather Channel in the US has started putting QR codes on-screen, so you can take a photo of it on your phone and it sends you to a page to download a weather app directly

N Building Tokyo: QR Code & Live Twitter Feed via Augmented Reality App

This building in the Tachikawa district of Tokyo has been transformed into a giant QR code which allows users to access dynamic information, such as Twitter feeds, store information, etc. live via an augmented reality app for the iPhone.

Qosmo Inc. CEO Nao Tokui who developed the application writes. "We envision a cityscape unhindered by ubiquitous signage and also an improvement to the quality and accuracy of the information itself,". "Our goal is to provide an incentive to visit the space and a virtual connection to space without necessarily being present."