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Smartphones Get "Reality Overlay" App

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the build-me-a-bigger-battery dept.

Michael_Curator writes to tell us that mobile phones now have a "reality overlay" app that combines a smartphone's camera, GPS, and compass to augment a user's view of a particular location with metadata. "It works as follows: Starting up the Layar application automatically activates the camera. The embedded GPS automatically knows the location of the phone and the compass determines in which direction the phone is facing. Each [commercial] partner provides a set of location coordinates with relevant information which forms a digital layer. By tapping the side of the screen the user easily switches between layers."

9 of 110 comments (clear)

  1. For the conceptually challenged: by brouski · · Score: 4, Funny

    Think "Terminator Vision". Red hue optional.

    --
    Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
    1. Re:For the conceptually challenged: by exhilaration · · Score: 3, Funny
      It is sort of like "Terminator Vision", except corporations can buy ad space in it:
      John Connor identified, targeti... SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM MCDONALD'S: COME IN NOW WITH YOUR PHONE FOR $1 OFF A COMBO MEAL!!!

      Wake me up when anyone can put their stuff on it.

    2. Re:For the conceptually challenged: by LucidBeast · · Score: 2, Funny

      With current battery technology Terminator would have run out of reality overlay in about 30 minutes.

  2. Guided world tour by reginaldo · · Score: 5, Funny

    Excellent, now the entire world is like a guided museum tour.

    'And on our right here, we have the parking lot that is affectionately nicknamed 'The Hobo's Restroom'. Please watch your step.'

  3. I can see it now by SoVeryTired · · Score: 5, Funny

    I wake up in the darkness, totally lost. I fumble for my smartphone, knowing it's the only was I'll manage to reach home before dawn.
    What I see is not comforting.

    "It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue."

    --
    Slashdot: news for Apple. Stuff that Apple.
  4. finding public bathrooms in strange city by peter303 · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Here are all the trees and bushes nearby big enough to pee behind"

  5. Phht by argStyopa · · Score: 5, Funny

    /unimpressed.

    Call when they develop THIS app.

    http://www.pictureshack.net/images/9846newlayar.JPG

    (Yes, it's sloppy; it was a very quick photoshop.)

    --
    -Styopa
  6. Re:Sex Offenders Registry Overlay by jameskojiro · · Score: 2, Funny

    Put a chip in all of the offenders so that when your kid's cell phone gets close to them, like say 30ft the phone starts playing the "Danger, Danger Will Robinson" sound clip from the Lost in Space TV series.

    --
    Tsukasa: All I really want, is to be left alone...
  7. Re:Cool but Useless by Un+pobre+guey · · Score: 2, Funny

    That's where the term "intrepid explorer" comes into play.