Augmented Reality

There have been a lot of apps in the App Store for helping you find where you parked your car, but now there's one that shows you where it is with the awesomeness of augmented reality. Car Finder [App Store, $0.99] lets you look around you through your iPhone and spot your vehicle as clear as day, regardless of seeing conditions.

The App Store recently saw yet another augmented reality app get released for the iPhone 3GS. As you can probably guess from the name, Wikitude [App Store, Free] brings Wikipedia into the digitally-enhanced world that is augmented reality. Using it, you can view Wikipedia information about real-world locations while looking at the real world through your iPhone.

Layar [App Store, Free], the highly anticipated augmented reality application for the iPhone 3GS, was recently released in the App Store. The Layar browser lets you view things like "houses for sale, popular bars and shops, touristic information of the area, play a live game, etcetera," presented in a layer over live video taken through the camera in real time.

Urbanspoon [App Store, Free] has been updated to add an awesome shiny new augmented reality mode called "Scope." When viewing it on your device normally, it shows your location as a blue pin in Google Maps, and nearby restaurants in red pins. Aiming the camera at the horizon, however, causes it to switch over to a live camera feed with nearby restaurant locations layered over it.

Yelp is a free service for finding information and customer reviews on local businesses like bars and restaurants by searching or using location services. Today Yelp version 3.0.0 was released that not only ads some cool new features, but an easter egg in the form of an augmented reality interface.

Video after the break! (Scroll down a little...)

According to the LA Times, Apple will finally be allowing applications like Layar and TwittaRound that use the 3GS's combination of digital compass, live video and internet connection to superimpose a layer of content over the real world, thereby "augmenting" our reality (hence the term). Sources allegedly indicate that Apple will be releasing iPhone OS 3.1 in September, which will add the ability to make apps like these possible.

Augmented reality apps are quickly becoming the next big thing, even if none currently exist yet for the iPhone. The latest concept is TwittaRound, which combines your world with that of the Twitterverse, showing nearby recent tweets overlaid on top of the horizon using GPS, the compass and accelerometers, and access to Twitter. Video after the break.

A new augmented reality application called Layar is getting attention today with a new video demonstrating some of the things that are possible with Augmented Reality. Described as the world's first augmented reality browser, it combines information from the GPS, camera, and digital compass to add a layer of virtual reality on top of the real-life reality, hence the term "augmented reality". Video after the break.

Our friends at TouchArcade recently got a sneak peek at an Augmented Reality app, one of the possibilities that could become a reality with the addition of video recording and the use of magnetometers rumored to be finding their way into the next iPhone. Blair MacIntyre, an Associate Professor at the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Tech, demoed the app at GDC 2009.

Shortly after denying Mazo access to its API, Amazon has released an iPhone application which directly ties into the Amazon.com store. Amazon Mobile provides an interface to quickly search Amazon, read reviews, compare prices, and even purchase items. Members can access their wish lists, carts, and a myriad of other incredibly useful items right from the app.

The most exciting feature is "Amazon Remembers". The feature allows you to take a photo of a product and save it to your personal Amazon.com account. Additionally, Amazon will attempt to match up the photo to products in their database. If a match is found, you're notified by email and the app is updated with a link to the product.