Our colleagues at Red have been working with Samsung for a few months now, and one of the exciting things they’re releasing shortly will be the Galaxy, the company’s first phone built for the Google Android platform. For tecchie types, Android phones are much anticipated, not just because of the inherent challenge to the iPhone, but also because of the opportunity to build more apps.
One of the coolest apps I’ve seen demoed is the Layar Reality Browser which “displays digital information layered on top of reality in the camera screen of the mobile phone”. Not a clear enough explanation?… well think how James Cameron depicts a Terminator view of the world, only instead of identifying human targets while looking through the phone’s camera lens, a user can see houses for sale, popular bars and shops, tourist information of the area. On top of this, global content from Flickr, Wikipedia, Yelp, Google local search, Qype, Brightkite, Yellowpages can also be added into the equation.
So Layar will turn you into a walking information bank, able to tell your friends what band is playing at a bar that evening simply by looking at it with your phone. Not only that, but think about what this means for social networking (now you’ll know who your nearest Twitter followers are geographically) and for advertising. Combine a layer of inventory and sales data with a profile of each user, and retailers will be able to let people know what they’ve got in stock in the right size and style. So when Layar announced global availability this week, the geek in me did a little skip. This is certainly one I can’t wait to get my hands on.
