Kristian Kalsing » Travel 2.0

Augmented reality browsing

Kristian Kalsing — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 00:10:44 +0000

There are constantly many new concepts emerging from the fast pace of technology innovation and development. Many ideas come and go or only have a limited impact, but sometimes you come across something you think could really have a disruptive effect on our lives. Augmented reality browsing is one of those new concepts that has an enormous potential.

Many of us are already using our mobiles to look up information on the go. Whether that be searching for the closest pizza joint on Google Maps, checking the bus times or using Wikipedia to shoot down that amazing story your mate just told at the pub. But it is a bit fiddly on a mobile and we would access information on the web much more often if there was an easier way.

That easier way could be augmented reality browsing which is made possible by a number of technology improvements. I have for quite some time had high expectations of what could come out of three converging trends:

More mobile capabilities. The mobile revolution has been going on for a while now, but we are now seeing more and more people with mobile devices that have Internet access and a good data plan to go with it.
More Location-based services. An increasing number of mobile applications are starting to leverage the fact that many devices know where they are, either through GPS or cellular triangulation.
More real-time information. With all these Internet-enabled mobile devices out there, it is easier than ever for people to submit real-time information whether that is posting to Twitter, sharing photos or uploading videos.

Augmented reality browsing is a perfect example of a concept that leverages these three converging trends. An augmented reality browser shows what is around you by displaying real-time information on top of reality through the camera of your mobile phone. The best way to get an idea of the concept is to watch the video below showing a prototype developed by Layar:

Imagine that. Rather than browsing to various websites and keying in search terms, all you need to do is hold your mobile phone in front of you like a camera and any information will only be a touch away on the screen. You could be walking along wanting to find out what year that bridge across the river was built, if the house on the right is for sale and how much it is listed for or what people are saying right now about the food at the restaurant across the street.

It is easy to imagine the potential of this for travelling. It would help you to dicsover secrets you would otherwise have missed. Just let your phone probe the surrounds, touch to retrieve the details and you have instant answers. Cool stuff, but we really need a catchier name than augmented reality browser!

Internet-enabled cameras are coming

Kristian Kalsing — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 02:00:37 +0000

Sony has released the Cyber-shot DSC-G3 as the first Internet-enabled camera. The integrated Wi-Fi capability enables you to do one-click uploads to sharing sites such as Facebook, Picasa, Flickr or YouTube. It also allows you to view any photos already online via the inbuilt Web browser.

The news and reviews on this camera seem to focus on the ease with which you can share your photos instantly online. This is definitely cool but it’s something we can already do with the ever improving cameras in our mobile phone devices. I believe the real potential is the ability to continuously have your photos backed up to a secure site, regardless of whether you share them or not. In particular those high quality images that requires an optical lens beyond what is available in mobile phones.

When travelling it’s always a worry that you may lose your pictures if your camera gets stolen or your memory cards misplace themselves. Some people are really concerned about this and will regularly burn back-up CDs at Internet cafés along the road and perhaps even put those CDs in the mail.

Wouldn’t it be much easier if every photo was automatically uploaded to a secure storage as soon as a photo was taken or even asynchronously on a regular basis. Your photos would always be safe and you could access them from anywhere as required.

Ideally we want connectivity beyond Wi-Fi and be able to utilise mobile data networks for our cameras. All this obviously depends on reliable and affordable mobile connectivity. Attractive mobile broadband plans are starting to emerge but it will still be a challenge while travelling with pricy international roaming rates and limited availability in many countries. But I sense that second and third World countries are catching up quickly skipping the legacy of fixed lines altogether.

Off to India, travelling 2.0

Kristian Kalsing — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 03:56:32 +0000

Tomorrow, we take off on a three-week holiday over Xmas and New Year’s. This time we’re bound for India, a country neither of us have ever been to before. We fly in to Mumbai, which will probably have a peculiar vibe in the aftermath of the recent terrorist attacks. From then on we don’t have many plans other than heading north and likely passing through Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Agra, Corbett, Delhi and Varanasi. But regardless of where we end up going, we will submerge ourselves in the culture and hopefully have some awesome experiences.

Other than reading about potential destinations and talking to Indian friends, I have prepared for the trip by following tweets of people currently travelling in Rajasthan. A couple of weeks ago I started searching for tweets mentioning places we have thought of visiting which has lead me to quite a few travellers currently in the area. It’s been very inspiring to follow those. With lots of photos coming through live I’ve really been getting in the mood and can’t wait to go.

For someone like me that ultimately believes that I shouldn’t own much apart from what can be stored on a remote server somewhere, packing for such a trip is an easy exercise. I basically never travel with checked luggage. And the few times I’ve done that many years ago, the airline has ususally lost it anyway. I’ll be taking an average-sized daypack and it’s actually amazing how much you can fit once you leave out all the stuff you never end up using anyway. All my travel documents are securely stored in the cloud and accessible from anywhere, just in case. Needless to say that travelling becomes much easier that way.

Along the way, I will endavour to keep family, friends and others updated via photos and notes on Facebook and I will regularly publish my current location via BrightKite. And in the interwoven mishmash of web 2.0 apps the updates will even pass through Twitter. Let that be our Christmas card for the year. Happy Xmas!

Internet-enabled cameras are coming