Mobile Marketing – Augmented Reality Browsers

Augmented reality is a hot new area for Research & Development in the Mobile Tech & Marketing field. Emagin defines it as “a display in which simulated imagery, graphics, or symbology is superimposed on a view of the surrounding environment”. Wikipedia defines it as “Augmented reality (AR) is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics objects are blended into real footage in real time.”

Companies like Layar are already creating a buzz in Europe (Layar is a global application, available for the T-Mobile G1, HTC Magic and other Android phones in all Android Markets. It also comes pre-installed on the Samsung Galaxy in the Netherlands. More at http://www.layar.com/ – see video demo below)

Techcrunch.com reported a couple of days ago that Daniel Wagner, a virtual reality researcher at Graz University of Technology in Austria, is proposing two ways to make AR browsing better: panoramic and bird’s-eye zooming. More details here – also, check out the video below:

Mobile tech and augmented reality interfaces are at their infancy…looking forward to the exciting developments in the years to come! The hotel and travel industry can probably benefit immensely from this technology – imagine the superb applications that can be developed with regards to sight-seeing, tourist info, concierge recommendations and even hotel & facility mapping!