Some of the most promising set of mobile apps being built today use a cell phone’s camera and GPS to overlay data onto the real world. In other words, instead of looking at a browser, you look through the camera lens at the real world around you and information is layered on top of the view projected on the small screen. (It’s not just a viewfinder, you know). Last year at TechCrunch 50, the Sekai Camera demo from Japan that does this blew away the audience. More recently, Layar showed us similar augmented reality apps for the Android phone. Now IBM has its own augmented reality mobile app for Wimbledon called Seer Android (see demo in the video above).
In order for these apps to be worthwhile, people first have to do the hard work of tagging the world, otherwise the apps have no data to pull down and display. Since it is the technology provider of the tennis tournament, IBM decide to tag Wimbledon. Using the Android G1’s compass, camera, and GPS, IBM’s app shows pop-up windows whenever it recognizes whatever you are pointing at: tennis courts (along with who is playing), bathrooms, buses, and so on. It can tell the user how far away a court or food concession stand is, and can stream in live data such as scores.
As you look through the camera, Seer Android essentially reads the environment and pumps that data into the app. It is very cyborg. But the app only works at Wimbledon. It is location-specific, which brings us back to the challenge of tagging the world. For IBM, Seer Android is a cool way to demonstrate how much data they are collecting at Wimbledon. But as more of the world gets tagged with geo-coded data, this sort of mobile app will become more practical to use everywhere.
Hi Erick,
Sounds and looks really cool too. It seems like the mobile phone is getting pretty competitive now. That’s definitely a Good news for the consumers.
Thanks for the great post and video.
Mani Raj
Havoc Marketing
All we need to do is integrate this with the iPhoto facial integration and within a few years you would “Know” everyone you saw on the street…scary stuff
I was impressed by the integration of the viewfinder with the e-mail application (essentially the viewfinder as the background wallpaper for an application) so that you can see where you’re going while you punch out e-mail. This takes that camera lens/application integration to a whole new place.
It is important to note that IBM and Ogilvy developed IBM Seer for Wimbledon together with Mobilizy, an Austrian-based company specializing in location-based service solutions and augmented reality.
Reference here: http://www.mobi...n-2009-mobilizy
I moved with this technology.
All we need to do is give a social and humanity aspect to it. Let it be a working tool and not a luxery.
So cool… so we’re going to have those Dragonball Z style things to look through to read people’s power levels
No sign of this app in the Android Market in the U.S. Anyone got a link?
I am meeting with the developers on Monday (29 June), I can ask them how we could get a version for us to try out even through we are not at Wimbledon.
I just talked with the developers and learned that IBM Seer is a localized event/location specific application for Wimbledom 2009.
I can imagine similar localized based event/location specific augmented reality guides will emerge. Imagine a similar guide used for the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Vancouver or the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in London. This would be AMAZING!
Damn good software there
The video is too small for me, what kind of info was it coming back with?