iPhone Buzz » compass

Bing-powered augmented reality app for iPhone

Budi Putra — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 03:46:41 +0000

Following the Metro Paris Subway application, here is another Augmented Reality (AR) app for the iPhone 3Gs that’s welcomed into the App Store: RobotVision. The Bing-powered app has interesting features which appear on top of your iPhone’s camera viewer when you point at a restaurant or other places. It also displays Tweets and Flickr photos published nearby wherever you are.

By using Bing Local search to glean location and business review data, RobotVision gets access to some key Bing features like aggregated reviews from CitySearch, Judy’s Book and Yelp. Bing looks at the reviews of restaurants and tells you how they stack up in aggregate for a business’ food, ambience, service and more. (That’s a feature we’ve seen at BooRah, though that service doesn’t have access to Yelp reviews.)

Tim Sears, a Portland-based developer, expects to launch his AR browser next month.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWC9gax7SCA&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

[via ReadWriteWeb]

Augmented reality iPhone apps coming in September

Budi Putra — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 02:56:11 +0000

No wonder that augmented reality application is the biggest reason to upgrade to an iPhone 3GS, thanks to the addition of a compass to the iPhone 3GS. By using this app, you can easily find the nearby subways or track down your Twitter neighbors. Just wait until September, Apple says.

Holding the phone in front of you, locations are plotted on a live view of the world in relation to where you’re standing. The apps combine the phone’s key features — camera, GPS, compass and Internet connectivity — to create a sort of heads-up display reminiscent of first-person shooter video games.

The first two poised to hit the App Store — pending Apple’s approval, of course — are Nearest Tube, which plots subway stations in London, and TwittARound, which shows nearby Twitter users.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH6r2tIaRXU&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

[via LA Times Blog]

Next-gen iPhone comes up with digital compass?

Budi Putra — Sun, 10 May 2009 04:14:17 +0000

The next-gen iPhone will have an integrated magnetometer (digital compass), allowing the iPhone to recognize which direction users were facing, work in tandem with the smartphone’s GPS and turn-by-turn directions.

The screenshots show that

there’s also a “Kitchen Sink” menu, which is presumably the place for all of the other “not for public consumption” options that are required in these testing stages but not when the device is actually launched.

[BGR via SlashGear]

Voice Control, Video, Compass and Auto Focus Camera

Alison Spong — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 06:36:40 +0000

Through the release of Apple‘s iPhone 3.0 beta firmware, a fine tooth comb has been going over the configuration files looking for evidence of future capabilities. Main thing being the option to be able to do more with video.

The image (above) demonstrates the main screen for ‘video recording’ in future iPhones. The main difference for the screen is the on the toggle toward the bottom right that toggles between still camera photography and video recording. The option was only presented when the configuration files were modified telling the firmware that a Video Camera was present will this interface appear.

While going through the configuration files, other interesting capabilities found include “auto-focus camera”, “magnetometer” (digital compass) and “Voice Control”. The final version of iPhone 3.0 is expected this summer. With this, a new and updated version of the iPhone may be coming at that time as well.

[via MacRumors]