The iPhone has already had an app which allowed visual searches to be made for price and store details based on user photographed CD covers and books.
Now google has taken that to a whole new level. With the Google Goggles app (for Android phones only) you can take a photo, click a button and Google will analyze imagery and text in the photo for your search query.
Currently there are 1 billion images included in the index today. Here’s a demo video of this new visual search…
Yann Tiersen on 6 iPhones…
Twitter’s inventor and ex-chairman, Jack Dorsey has just created another revolutionary product called the ‘Square iPhone Payment System’!
The innovation is in a small, plastic card reader that fits in to the headphone jack of an iPhone (or iPod Touch) and transfers the credit card’s swipe data to the app. After the employee enters the amount to charge, the customer confirms by scrawling their signature with their finger and then either one enters the customer’s email address to send the receipt to.
With Square, accepting payments will be faster, convenient and paperless. It will allow anyone from a hot dog vendor to a bike messenger to process credit cards on-the-go. 😎
You can read up more about the benefits on it’s beta web site SquareUp.com.
A demo video of the product can also be seen here…
Here is a great example of tomorrows upcoming online shopping experience. The Zugara app couples the functionality of Augmented Reality and Motion Capture!
The app allows you to hold articles of clothing up in front of yourself, while it tracks your movements so that you can interact with the site’s content when standing several feet away from your computer’s controls.
Here is the new ad for Nokia nGage…it has taken 1000 people to replicate the snake game frame by frame and step by step, without any special effects.
But the real noteworthy part here is the great execution of the Get Out and Play web site. The site is exactly like the TV ad but with a very cool execution of the game – bricks.
Print might be in trouble, but Esquire magazine won’t be going gently into that good night. Here is a peak into Esquire’s December issue featuring augmented reality. The issue is now available, and readers that have it can head to Esquire’s website to check out the special augmented reality features.
The the magazine features augmented reality pages such as the above that will come alive when displayed in front of a webcam.
For those who wont be able to get their hands on the issue, can see this video for more on what all you can do with the magazine and your computer…
I don’t know if this will help print save itself, but regular use of AR in print will definetly push users to buy the print edition of a magazine, especially when the content on the other end is something unique and exclusive.
10 years back the Internet was the big upcoming thing and everyone was scrambling to make web sites…then last year thanks to the iPhone, mobile got the much needed push and this has now made it the next big thing for the coming decade. 🙂
Google, Apple, Nokia, Samsung…are going all out to build the best phones and this in turn is facilitating a rapid evolution of Augmented Reality…just the same way we saw Social Media evolve out of the Internet.
So here comes the future…
— The first mobile AR browser that premiered in the Netherlands this June 2009
— AR is also starting to be used with print…Esquire Magazine is offering some AR-enhanced ads in this December issue.
Adobe’s marketing chief Ann Lewnes said at the recent MIXX conference that Augmented Reality could become the direct mail of the 21st Century, by tying a physical mailing to a Web experience when someone holds a page up to her computer’s camera.
Here is a Swedish company called Ocean Observations leading the way with some really cutting edge concept implementations of ‘what if iPhone had…’
Out of the below three concepts Exposé has already been built and released on Cydia as ‘Orbit’…however I am still waiting to see if it will make it to the app store anytime soon. 💡
It’s really amazing to see stuff like this being thought of as it just about changes everything one could expect from a mobile. 😎
Without further a due…
Everyday we are seeing more and more brands using a mix of digital and traditional advertising to create unique marketing strategies.
Today we see Saatchi & Saatchi LA and appssavvy coming up with a unique idea for the Toyota Prius.
Together they have created a free Prius iPhone app that the users can use to draw into the environment of the Prius…and if standing in front of the Reuters digital billboard in Times Square they could even see it getting replicated live on the billboard.
The billboard was available from Oct 26th to Oct 28th
Other than drawing, the consumers can also take a tour of the Prius, interact with a print ad campaign and play a game.
Few days back I wrote about Augmented Reality (AR) and how it was being used by various brands in their campaigns.
Today I have come across some exciting examples of Augmented Reality which have little to do with mobile location awareness! These implementations give a whole new dimension to what more can be done in this field.
The Eye Pet is a virtual critter that users can interact with through a webcam and is currently expected to be released for the Sony PS3 game system soon.
Demo:
Sony PS3 Version with 3D menus:
Hand sketching is used here as a natural way for creating Augmented Reality mechanical experiments. The user can sketch experiments and watch them simulated in 3D.
AR on natural shapes uses a real time shape recognition and pose estimation system.
So get ready for a future that is going to be all about ready to browse and interact with data on top of the physical world, through webcams, mobile phones and AR glasses.
A future where such experiences are mainstream is fast approaching. 😎
