We have had a few people from Hyperlocal sites contacting us here at Talk About Local to ask about Hyperlocal sites and proposed Press Regulation and how might it affect them.
Well in short, right now, we don’t know, but it looks like some sites may fall within the proposed new regulations if this screen grab is anything to go by. Read more
The internet search giant Google has announced that it is to retire Google Reader on July 1 this year. Google announced in September 2011 that they would be having a ‘Fall Spring Clean‘ and shutting down some of their products.
Yesterdays announcement that Google Reader along with 7 other products were to be closed sees a continuation of the review of the Google Product estate. Since 2011 Google have closed 70 products, which is more products than some businesses ever have. Read more
I recently moved from Stoke-on-Trent to Scotland, so you will forgive me for writing a post that has a distinctly Scottish theme to it.
In Scotland there is a scheme called Common Good. The Common Good scheme or fund is where all the assets from the old town councils and burghs are held after they were disbanded in 70′s. The scheme is unique, as far as I am aware, in the UK. Read more
On Tuesday & Wednesday this week I went along to the Augmented Planet conference in London.
I have to say I wasn’t too sure what I was expecting but the event wasn’t anywhere as big as I had expected it to be. As it turned out it was a relatively small event with maybe 150 people attending each day.
The conference was split over the two days with Tuesday being the developers day with presentations from developers and the opportunity to work with a developer to create an Augmented Reality app if you wished. Read more
Over the past few months I’ve been working on the Nesta & Nominet Trust funded project HypARlocal (we really should get around to changing the name, suggestions?), where we are focussing on taking geolocated news content from hyperlocal blogs and publishing it for smart devices to find based on their location.
I’ve been quite wrapped up in the geolocation of content and pushing it out to Layar & Wikitude that I had stopped looking at what other AR things were out there.
I’ve been revisiting the app store and playing about with some of the new and some of the old apps to see whats new or how they have changed.
String, install the app print off some targets, point your phone at them and watch what they do. Along the same lines as Blippar & Aurasma where image recognition is used to trigger actions.
Aurasma, we have played with this quite a bit recently and have come up with some interesting public service uses for Aurasma and other image recognition apps. I’ll be writing a bit more on that soon but if you were at the Nesta event a few weeks ago you will have seen Will and I demonstrating one of our ideas.
One of my favourite apps that sort of falls in to the Augmented Reality group is Star Chart for the iPhone, for £1.99 I think it is worth the money. Fire it up point it at the sky roughly where you are looking and the stars and planets are shown relative to your location so you can work out what you are looking at.
because it doesn’t use the camera it just uses your location and the direction the phone is pointing, it also works during the day.
If you often lie on your back in a park watching planes fly over head and wonder where they are going then the Plane Finder app is the one for you. Again it is a paid for app but based on your location it finds planes and then overlays them on to the camera view of the sky. There is a free (ad supported) version and a paid for version.
I’ve nicked a screen shot from the app page here because it is raining in Stoke and there are actually no planes around to see.
I’m sure you have all seen the ads on TV for the Halifax home finder app? An obvious and interesting use of geolocation and AR, worth a look even if you aren’t looking for a new house.
And finally if you want to see Zombies climbing out of your tiled floor then Zombie Hunt is the app for you.
What are your favourite Augmented Reality apps? Share them in the comments below.