3 replies to this topic

[Matthew Hampton]

I just used the new Yelp! easter egg application on my iphone and the experience left me with a few questions tangentially related to cartography.

Should cartographers be attuned to this type of spatial data, virtually streaming augmented locational information? How can we easily leverage all the locational information we cartographers create, store and distribute into an augmented reality? Should we even try?

As the world becomes more "augmented" over time, what is the impact to the business of cartography? Is this a new medium that only enlarges our opportunities?

I was first really intrigued by the concept of AR from watching a TechCrunch presentation by Tonchidot, where they displayed their SekaiCamera (world camera). I am not too sure I want to look at the world through an augmented lens all the time - but I really liked their logo (below).
 Picture_13.png   107.73K   52 downloads

Here is a video showing just some possibilities.

[MapMedia]

cool indeed. though not sure it will ever take off in that fashion, due to the sheer amount of data and data updating for millions of products/events/etc. for a paid service, or ad funded service. Maybe they are merely graffing image analysis tech with data available on search engines.

I always thought it would be cool to use a hand held device like that as a landscape viewer - if I am taking pictures of a hill, the device will tell me the name of the town on the hill, and a wikipedia link to get info, etc. - this would rely on GPS tech more than image analysis.

[Adam Wilbert]

I actually expect to see a ton of this sort of thing really soon. With lat / long now being available to twitter streams, (linked to the actual post location, and not the ISP that it came through) its only a matter of time before people start developing viewports like this to display tweets overlaid on the landscape, instead of just mapping them as points on a google map. But having to use a screen & camera seems really clunky. This is just screaming for a HUD display headset!

[Matthew Hampton]

This is just screaming for a HUD display headset!

Look like a HUD is right around the corner. Check out these shades.