The technology behind Augmented Reality or AR is not new but it gets better when something as mundane as an AR web browser gets visual search abilities. The Amsterdam – based Layar has added the feature to its augmented reality browser allowing users to point the phone’s camera at a real-world object and a suitable online activity happens on your gadget.
Point your cellphone camera at a historic monument and a video clips about it plays. Point it to a toy and you get a buy page from an online store that has one. Point it to a magazine article and a social media button pops up to ask you if you want to share a digital copy with your friends.
The Layar AR browser is globally pre-installed in millions of iPhones and Android phones today and the visual search app is expected to be available in the relevant app stores by the end of the third quarter. In addition, Layar also has a media player that software developers can embed on Android and iPhone apps that will have visual search abilities. This upgrade will be available by the end of the year.
Augmented reality apps currently in use are limited to scanning QR codes – those spotted black and white squares affixed or printed on real world objects that trigger video clips streaming online to your handset when prompted. The Layar upgrades on its player and browser need no such recognition codes on real objects, making it so much more practical and inexpensive as no coded tagging is needed, not to mention that it keeps the world free from those ugly tags.
Visual search uses image recognition technology where a remote server can recognize object images you snap from your camera phone and sent online. Shoot a CD, Blu-ray or book cover and you can have the Amazon price with links to the page. You just have to snap the pics and send them online.
But with AR, just point the camera without snapping. Coupled with visual search requiring no coded tags, the result you want is immediate, overlaying the remote server information on your phone camera field of view framing the real world object almost in real time. In short, AR plus visual search makes the promise of digitally enhancing reality that much closer.
