For those of you who are fascinated with augmented reality, you’ll be thrilled to know there’s a growing list of AR apps for iPhone and Android devices. Augmented reality refers to laying digital imagery over a real-life picture you’re looking at through a camera lens, like a Heads Up Display. Those yellow first-down markers and strike zone boxes are examples of augmented reality.
CanPages Inc., based in Burnaby, is the fastest growing local search company in Canada. They’re doing some groundbreaking work for the Canadian tech-scene; with the launch of their Street View service on Canpages.ca (similar to Google), the acquisition of GigPark, and the release of Canada’s first voice-recognition search applications for the iPhone and Blackberry. And now they’ve moved into augmented reality.
Canada Eye also shows search results in map view.
Their latest app; Canada Eye lets iPhone 3GS users to locate local business with a built-in digital compass, the camera and GPS. The app works by asking you to select a category from the business directory, such as coffee shops.
To be transported into the AR world just tilt the iPhone into landscape mode and point the iPhones camera in one direction. The app recognizes where you (by the GPS), and adds a digital overlay across your screen directing you to the nearest coffee shop. It’ll show you direction, address and relative distance.
Optionally, you can view the results in a ‘contact list’ format by selecting “lists” or by tilting the iPhone out of landscape mode. The results will be displayed beginning with the business nearest to you. Also included is a map view option.
Canpages completes the search experience by allow a user to interact with the AR overlay. Select a business; you’re able to call them, add to contacts or get directions by using the iPhone’s native app, Google maps.
Though Canada Eye has done an excellent job so far in the augmented reality search realm it could however benefit from adding social features like restaurant recommendations or business reviews to enrich the experience.
Canada Eye doesn’t have all of the augmented reality goodies that reality browser apps such as Wikitude and Layar, but if you’re looking for a solid search app and simplicity, Canada Eye is a good place to start.
Head to Head – Photo permission forms
Photography has undergone major changes in the past decade, including the way in which pros and amateurs can get written permission to publish pics. Here are a couple convenient apps that bring release and permission forms into the digital age.
Easy Release creates professional release forms that can be modified, signed and e-mailed from your device. The app’s wizard asks for name, age or witness info and uses a data-validation function, so if you leave anything out the app will prompt you before moving on. The information is then converted into a legal contract ready for a model or property owner to review. Once everything’s in order, the subject signs the documents by scribbling on the screen with their finger or with the stylist pen available from Easy Release. The final product includes the photographer’s logo, the legal text, the digital signature along with a picture of the model or property, which can be shot from the iPhone’s camera or added from the photo library.
Photographers Contract Maker allows users to streamline release contracts by using one of four pre-loaded templates, including Model Release and Copyright Release. Upon selecting a contract type, users can add or import client info from their device’s contacts and add the time and date of the shoot. Client information is automatically inserted into the text of the contract, which then can be e-mailed to the photographer and the client as a PDF document.
An Easy Release contract on the left, and a Photographers Contract Maker form on the right.
Contract Maker is a light weight compared to Easy Release. Users must create profiles in their devcie’s contact list before being able to import the information. Easy Release handles the complexities of legal contracts better and wins points for producing a more professional-looking form. If you want to share your photography with the world, EasyRelease is a nice thing to have on hand.
