rss feedThe guys at Layar are obviously very excited about Augmented Reality. And we have to give it to them, they are putting Mobile AR on the worldwide map.
Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald (co-founder Layar) was interviewed by CNN. It’s in this interview he made the statement that AR will be the second most used mobile application. Voice being number one.
I wish he wouldn’t make statements like that. Remember these: “the internet will kill brick and mortar shops” or “Second Life will become our first life”? Statements like these build huge expectations, create bubbles of hype that eventually burst and make industries suffer for a long time.
However, he might be right. Layar has a chance to become the Internet Explorer of mobile AR. But let’s learn for the past and avoid that our nascent industry suffers from a major setback in a year or two.
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.
