Augmented reality: seeing the real world in a new way

Published by Pino Bonetti on June 12, 2012

For whatever reason, augmented reality is still treated by many as a futuristic technology that is not really for the rest of us. Blame the utopian visions of science fiction and popular entertainment for that: augmented reality seems to be synonymous with crazy visors and people coming over all robotic.

In fact, augmented reality is here and, as evidenced by the launch of Nokia City Lens beta for Nokia Lumia, you don’t even need specialist eyewear to enjoy its many advantages.

All you need for augmented reality is an app on a phone but it really is a new dimension in the way we view information. It ticks a lot of boxes in a game of buzzword bingo: it’s location-aware, context-sensitive and operates dynamically in real time. But more importantly, at least for non-techies, augmented reality offers all of us a way to get more out of the moment, discovering the name and history of buildings and objects around us and leading us to interact with our environment in a very different way. Offices, bars, galleries, museums become labelled so we know when we have reached them, or we can discover something new and interesting without being an expert on the locale.

Augmented reality will change the way we interact with the real world, providing at-a-glance views of the world around us, what’s open and what’s on offer. It will provide a new way to examine what is around the corner and it will act as a magnet for suppliers that buy into it and compete for our attention. Augmented by a new layer of information we’ll see the world in more detail and be amazed by how much is going on around us.

In a recent blog post for Fast Company, Kit Eaton is providing a very similar analysis, stressing how augmented reality true value lies in the discovery it helps enable:

Once you’ve used Nokia City Lens to take you to a post office to send a postcard home, wouldn’t you perhaps consider visiting a nearby cafe to grab a drink and a bite to eat – one you’d never otherwise have found? Or how about if you follow the app’s advice when you’re visiting Paris and instead of eating in your usual touristy haunts in the Left Bank it takes you to a place to eat in the Marais… where you discover a whole new nightlife you didn’t know about before?

Have you been discovering anything new with Nokia City Lens? Let us know in the comment section below.

Comments

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  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_WF5RDUGP22TCVJZLOWFIKFE3FQ Alin

    Till now NOKIA did not released something new, special to WP, all their apps for WP are ported from Symbian or MeeGO, so the question is why should I go with the ugly and dumb WP when I can have the same experience with much more beautyful and feature-rich Nokia Belle and MeeGo/Harmattan??? The second question why did Nokia switched to WP if it offers no big advantages???

  • Prasenjit Bist

    nokia always excites me i love them and their products but now its even more exciting the augmented reality and LBS guys in nokia must be preparing now something thats a real magical feature or tech….

  • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

    Hi @hary536:disqus, you seem very well informed ;-)
    I am actually based in Berlin with many other people in Nokia Location&Commerce business unit, so I already passed up your suggestions.
    What I can already tell you is that we are fully committed to further develop our investment in the location business. Here three reasons for you:
    1. Contrarily to some competitors, we are active in this space since years and we have built a huge know-how.
    2. Location is also one of the key elements of our partnership with Microsoft.
    3. Since we started developing for Windows Phone we have published Nokia Maps, Nokia Drive and Nokia Transport all at least at their second version. Plus, Nokia Pulse and Nokia City Lens in beta.

    • hary536

      Oh, forgot to mention couple of points.
      1. Nokia city lens is a useful app and surely, if done right, will be cool and put you one step ahead of others. 
      2. Nokia Pulse. Not sure, where that is going and if it was worth the effort. No one talks about it. You guys, I mean hardly any Nokia rep or even top guys talk about it. There is no advertisement or awareness of this service. Hardly any of your bloggers use it or talk about it. I think, if you are seriously into Nokia Pulse,(which I believe you are not), then awareness must be raised in every possible way. 

      PS: By you, I meant Nokia. 

      • http://twitter.com/haikus Pino

        Hi @hary536:disqus, nice to hear back from you. And thanks for the compliments and words of encouragement. We are confident, yes, but more than that, we are committed.

        To you points:

        Nokia Pulse: the app is in beta because we want to collect as much feedback as possible. Soon you will know what we have learned from this beta and details about future releases.

        Nokia Maps 3D: we have a contract with C3, so nothing is going to change. Actually, we are going to extend the service, as I mentioned in my previous comment. For instance, you are correctly mentioning technologies like LIDAR that are part of Nokia Maps 3D too.

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