Picture this: Â Augmented reality (or AR) may finally be getting its start turn. Nokia has become the first smartphone manufacturer to make AR a built-in feature on its flagship device, the Lumia 920, instead of a bolt-on option like an app.
Nokia unveiled the City Lens in May as a beta project, but it was only yesterday that the smartphone manufacturer announced that it was a permanent fixture on its new Lumia 920.
One tap from the home screen on the Lumia fires up City Lens, a built-in AR tool.
Much hyped since 2008 but slow to be adopted by mainstream travelers, AR lets you view the see the street you’re on through your device’s screen (viewfinder), like you do when you take a photo with your smartphone’s camera.
Small flags, arrows, and text bubbles lay over the image, pointing you to places worth visiting nearby, in the style of the heads-up display on the Terminator glasses.
See a brasserie that’s well rated by other users? Tap your screen to call it and book a reservation.
On Nokia’s Lumia, City Lens’s augmented reality is integrated into Nokia Maps, too. After you search for directions, hold your phone up and point it at the street to see arrows directing you the right way.
Yelp’s Monocle mode for its iPhone and Android apps, and Google Goggles have been add-on AR apps, along with Wikitude, Nearest Tweets, Nearest Wiki, and others.
If you don’t want to buy the new Lumia, you can still try out the City Lens app, available in the Windows Phone Marketplace for other devices.
Check out this YouTube video of City Lens on Nokia’s Lumia superphone.
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About Sean O'Neill
We’ve seen applications like this come and go in Eastern markets (Sekai Camera probably the highest profile). Yes City Lens is coming pre-installed which may promote some use but the use-case is still flawed – users would rather see local hotspots and reviews on a map rather than ‘divining’ using the camera. Once large amounts of data are available through the system – it becomes unusable as the view becomes cluttered.
Our view is that the next wave of mainstream AR adoption will come from integrating the technology into existing products and services. Imagine being able to view Amazon/Ikea products at the correct scale in your living room, automatic recognition and overlay of instructions-for-use on medical devices to remove patient error and visualising your next car, fitted out to your specification on your driveway.
Hi, Tom,
You raise a valid point that the AR view can seem cluttered.
It’s interesting, at least to me, that Google Googles is reportedly going to launch with a heads-up display that is uncluttered. The product, which is similar though not the same thing as AR, may prove a use case for how a minimum amount of overlaid information can be useful.
Would be great to visualise if a piece of furniture would fit in my home. Good luck with your work at Kudan.
–Sean