New Mobile Augmented Reality browser

I stumbled upon an interesting article about the Dutch company SPRXmobile. Together with layar.eu, they have created the “Worlds first” AR-Browser for smartphones. I don’t know whether their claim about being first is really appropriate (see my earlier post http://mlearningblog.com/?p=289), but nevertheless it looks really interesting. The way it works is simple enough: open the browser and look at your surroundings with the camera lens and the smart phone display. In addition to the “real” environment, the user also sees additional information such as apartments available for sale, the location of friends or events via a social network and other locations of interest. Needless to say that this is extremely interesting for mobile learning. Check out the short video on it. Interesting stuff, but unfortunately only a demo for its use with real estate ads.

As of now, the Layar browser needs a camera, GPS and a compass. iPhone 3G s anyone? Yes, according to a recent press release the browser will become available for the new iPhone. As of now it is available for the very few Google Android phones.

Links:

http://www.sprxmobile.com/

http://layar.eu/

Disclaimer: mLearningblog.com does not endorse any products or services on request. The views in this blog are the authors personal opinion.

Sky Map Mobile Planetarium for Android

Back from my blogging hiatus/vacation I found this interesting article on the Sky Map app for Android. Sky Map is a free app, which lets users virtually browse the sky by pointing their Google phone towards the sky. The app uses the GPS functionality, the accelerometer and the compass of the GPhone to “know” in which direction you are pointing. If some of you, like me, have forgotten what exactly the “big dipper” is or simply want to show your students a more interesting way to learn about astronomy, this is certainly an interesting app.

Google Mobile Blog: http://googlemobile.blogspot.com/2009/05/sky-map-for-android-mobile-planetarium.html