November 27, 2006
Hyperlinking Reality via Phones
Nokia researchers are working on a system that allows physical objects to be identified and connected to the Internet through mobile-phone screens. Technology Review reports via Smart Mobs.
"A Nokia research project could one day make it easier to navigate the real world by superimposing virtual information on an image of your surroundings. The new software, called Mobile Augmented Reality Applications (MARA), is designed to identify objects viewed on the screen of a camera phone."
How it works:
If the absolute location and orientation of a camera is known, along with the properties of the lens, it is possible to determine exactly what parts of the scene are viewed by the camera.
The MARA prototype application uses accelerometers in all three axes to determine orientation, a tilt compensated compass for heading, and GPS for positioning.
Since these sensors give the (approximate) location and orientation, it is possible to annotate the viewfinder screen with information about real world objects, once the device is focusing on those objects.
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