The REAL Importance of the Compass: Augmented Reality

[Donz0r]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64_16K2e08
Augmented Reality to find houses for sale/rent or bars

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EA8xlicmT8
Augmented Reality travel guide.

Basically using the camera on the iPhone and the GPS and Compass, information can be overlaid over the image that the camera sees for a sort of HUD type of display.

Example, point your phone at some buildings and have overlays that pop up w/ names and info about the buildings, landmarks, etc.

The G1 has a compass and does this, these apps will come to the iPhone 3G S shortly.

 

[G4R2]

I completely agree. The integrated compass is one step further along the path to location rich information. GPS and the compass apps are only a few of the rudimentary applications that can come from the new hardware.

In addition to map applications where you essentially point the camera at an object and have information pop up over it, one really cool potential application is a real time shooter overlaid on the video image, like laser tag but with explosions and weaponry appearing superimposed on the real time video image.

In such an application the GPS and compass would report your position and stats to a server- You would hit a target using the phone as a gun sight and pattern recognition would recognize a hit on your target. The target would have their weapon, I mean phone, deactivated. Powerups and other familiar aspects of FPS games could also be integrated into the environment, like a real life game of Quake.

It will be cool to see what clever applications developers can come up with now that this kind of hardware is becoming more common.