Augmented reality covers the many ways of adding digital information to the real world around you, using a smartphone’s camera.
It’s clever and very futuristic, but you can still try it out now easily with the Layar and Junaio apps. A relaxed late evening stroll along the esplanade in my seaside hometown may not seem like the ideal opportunity to test out what may be the cutting edge of mobile app technology, but it was this week.
On the walk I’d noticed an enormously large cargo ship, with giant cranes on its deck, floating in the sunset haze a few miles out at sea, and I was curious what the ship was named and where she was from. Fortunately there was an app for that. An augmented reality app.
Apps That Present Highlights of the World in Front of You
Left, the Layar app can display photos, sourced from an app like Panoramio, of nearby sites of interest superimposed on the camera’s field of view. Right, Layar using data from Vesseltracker.com to identify ships in a harbor.
Layar – Innovative AR and Interactive Print Solutions
Print comes to life with Layar, Scan magazines, newspapers, posters and other print materials enhanced with Layar and then watch as extra digital content appears. Layar allows you to interact with print in a whole new way!
Layar – mobile Augmented Reality browser app
Augmented reality covers the many ways of adding digital information to the real world around you, usually by adding on-screen flags to the video feed from a smartphone’s camera. It’s clever and very futuristic, but you can still try it out now easily.
To identify the ship, for example, I used a free app, Layar, which can pull in many different sources of augmented information. In my case it was data from Vesseltracker.com, which has up-to-date location information about ships in its database.
The Layar app knew where I was standing and which way my phone was pointing, so all I had to do was direct it at the ship. It showed a handy flag above the ship’s image on-screen and said I was looking at the Sagitta, a 450-foot vessel. It was satisfying if pointless information for me, though you can imagine sailors may find such data useful.
Layar doesn’t just have ship information, though; it also offers many augmented reality “layers,” which are basically mini-apps. Each has different types of information available when you look around with the phone’s camera. You can identify aircraft flying overhead, find beaches, tourist locations or nearby Foursquare locales, and even see apartments listed for rent in local real estate offices.
The usefulness of these varies, but one for finding A.T.M.’s demonstrates the power of Layar. The A.T.M.-finder I often use, set for local banks, shows you the bank’s name and how far away it is, which is handy when I need cash in the city and need to work out where to go. I just swing the camera around to see which A.T.M. is nearest and use the app to help me get there on foot.
To help find the most useful layers for a user, Layar sorts a list of them by ones that are nearby, frequently chosen or new, or which fit into a long list of categories, like interesting architecture and open-access Wi-Fi hot spots. You can test each one out, and then save it in your favorites list for easy access at a later date, or return to the lists to find one that’s more useful or relevant.
Layar’s recently been experimenting with object recognition so that if you point its camera at an item it can recognize, it will give you certain information — like the price and availability of a book. And if you find a magazine or printed ad that’s compatible, it will show you the augmented content, which could be a Web link or a video that moves around as you jiggle the camera. It feels science-fictionesque.
Layar isn’t the simplest app to use, and it does sometimes get a bit slow and occasionally confused about what you’re pointing at. Also, most of the time, people use augmented reality apps outdoors, and are unable to tap into a Wi-Fi network, so a 3G connection will be necessary to get all that juicy data. Layar runs in similar ways on the iPhone and on phones using the Android operating system, and most layers are free.
Junaio, from Metaio, is also free on both the iPhone and Android phones, and does broadly similar things, though its interface is in some ways a little simpler to navigate because of its on-screen icons. It’s not quite as good at presenting available layers to you, but in practice it’s very similar to Layar, with the advantage of a built-in bar code scanner and QR code reader for acquiring augmented information when you’re standing in a bookstore. (more)
By Kit Eaton
