By Hassan M. Kamal : The Project Glass by Google has once again given a glimpse of how short the distance between the real and the virtual world is. The Augmented Reality (AR) based glasses released on Wednesday can take photos, give voice commands and receive information like directions, weather etc., all in real time, by sensing the real environment. All this is too futuristic to be available any time soon, but surprising as it is, Indians are already using several such AR-based applications. AR browsers like Layar, Guino and Wikitude are already popular among smartphone users in India. From finding restaurants, new offers and sales, driving directions, weather updates, to latest tweets about a restaurant’s food, the smartphone users are already making the most of the augmented real world to search information. The information is not just limited to text, users can also watch videos, pictures almost everything that is there on the Web, all that by just pointing the camera towards it. “Augmented reality is a technology that combines the real and virtual world together. The Western countries have been using it for quite some time, but Indians are not behind either,” says Gaurav of Gamooz, an augmented reality developing company in India. Gamooz has developed several AR worlds like one for New Delhi Metro Rail, which helps one find train timings etc., Eventbrite Finder, which tells one of nearby events and My Property Finder for Layar that gives details about rents, flats on sell among others. A Hyderabad-based company developed a system that enables shoppers to try apparels virtually on a fixed screen.A mobilephone version of this is expected soon. “Just select the dress and you could see an image of you on a screen wearing the apparel. But that’s not it, if you are still confused about the dress, you can share a picture on Twitter or Facebook and ask your friends for suggestion,” says Hemnath Satyanarayana, who developed the system. The system that comes for anything around Rs 5 lakh, would be available in by the end of 2012. While geo-location based services like these are becoming popular the technology has several other uses. For example if you lost your car in the parking lot, Car Finder will help you get it back. All you got to do is point your phone’s camera towards the parking lot. Even in gaming, with Kinect for XBox, the distance between virtual and real has blurred even further. The camera recognises the hand movements and instructs the animated character on the screen to move accordingly. “The player himself becomes the controller,” says Aditya Sen, a gaming expert. Aditya adds that Playstation Vita, which is expected to be launched soon also has a lot of augmented reality-based applications. Source: Deccan Chronicle
