Monday, June 09, 2014

The dawn of my aspirations as a guide


I have friends visiting me this week. I have been excited about that for the last weeks, proud to show them the city and to finally be able to be their guide - as it always works the other way round!! We started our sightseeing on Sunday with a beautiful view of Manhattan from the Brooklyn Bridge. I was about to illustrate them the skyscrapers in front of them, but… Wait!!! What are they doing?!?! What’s the app running on their mobile? Suddenly, I got to understand that I was useless to them this time too :( They were using an augmented reality browsers, Wikitude, as a “third eye” of sorts. While using your smartphone’s camera in a given area, this virtual browser offers any geographically-relevant information about the area that can be valuable while travelling. You can learn about the history of a building, get directions to the nearest ATM location, find accommodations through TripAdvisor, and the like, get mobile deals and coupons for local stores in the vicinity. Sounds cool, doesn’t it? So cool that I am not anymore!



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