The Augmented Reality Blog

At Where 2.0 Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman talks about the company’s launch of Monocle, an augmented-reality application for the iPhone that enables users to combine Yelp reviews (on restaurants, clubs, shops, …) with the physical world. He talks about how they put Monocle in their mobile app as an easter egg, not expecting much of it. The surprising results was a sustained 40-50% increase in mobile traffic.

Brightkite announces to add location-based adds to their layer in Layar (via readwriteweb). It seems to be quite rudimentary right now, but if they can be selective and make the ads relevant to the things you’re looking for, it may even have some advantages. Wouldn’t that be something that the publishers of Layar would want to do themselves ?

Patti Maes from MIT showcases her ongoing research, veeeery promising indeed:

The Dutch website ‘Beste Product’ (a website that reviews products to help consumers pick the best ones), has published a funny video. While reviewing the new Samsung Galaxy phone, they showcase what you can do with Layar. One of the applications on Layar is spotting the homes of famous Dutch people. And that is what they do. They go on the streets of Amsterdam and find homes of famous people. Apparently they stumble upon the house of Brad Pitt and guess what, Brad Pitt is home ;-). Of course it is not Brad, but a look-a-like. And Brad, as far as I know, is not Dutch. But anyway. The video is in Dutch, scroll to 2:40 for the excitement :-)

That’s maybe fun, but it poses a huge ethical question of course. Can we do that? And do we want this to happen? But before we start to blame AR for this, Layar is just overlaying reality with a database of addresses of famous people. The question really is, who is offering such databases? And can they do that?

Now this is a good idea.

There used to be a time  you knew where the nearest mailbox was. Now that sending a real letter is something rare, you have no clue anymore (well, I don’t).

TNT created an AR app on Layar to solve that problem. Wave with your android phone and it will show you where the nearest mailbox is.

A lot of people are listing up their top AR applications. Here is a cool top 6 of 20fourlabs. We are showing number 1-3. The others you can watch here.

1. TwittARound

Point your phone in a direction and it will show you the tweets

2. Layar

Enough said about this one. They are all over the place.

3. Nearest Tube

If you live in London, this is your app. It shows you the nearest tube station.

The first one is an article from the Independent. It gives you a good overview of what value Mobile AR can bring.

The Economist also talks about Mobile AR. The article gives an overview of how it works and what you need.

The first Wiki on Augmented Reality is also a fact. You can browse applications, business, list of blogs, events, … . Most of the applications we all talk about are listed here. Cool initiative!

Yesterday Nokia published a movie on how the future of AR will look in their opinion. It’s a good video, focussing on what AR experiences eyewear can give you. At the same time it also shows you the limits (try to reply on a tweet when you only have your glasses as AR device).

It remembers me of the Microsoft Home video, released a few years ago. It’s great to have them in your presentations ;-)