Monday, August 31, 2009

Wikitude Drive Android Nav App Takes Augmented Reality to Your Car's Dashboard [Android Apps]


Mobilizy's Wikitude, an augmented reality app that overlays Wikipedia links onto your camera's viewfinder, is still one of the most amazing apps in the Android Market. Wikitude Drive, which does the same with turn-by-turn directions, does it one better.
As you can see in the video, Mobilzy's take on the turn-by-turn video overlay isn't the most refined—a nod to Blaupunkt on that one—and it seems a little distracting to use, as is. But that's not to say that the concept isn't fantastic, for one simple reason: Your eyes never really leave the road. Normal nav apps just show you a static, mapped representation of what's coming, which does fine on the directions-giving front, but utterly fails on the helping-you-not-run-over-children-on-bikes front.
Aside from the AR feature, the app is a little bare, it requiring a data connection at all times, supporting voice commands only via a separate voice engine, lacking most of Wikitude's other over features, though informational overlays probably aren't too wise on a turn-by-turn HUD. Mobilzy says it's coming 'soon,' hopefully alongside a partnership with one of the big map data suppliers, so we can actually use this thing. [Mobilzy]

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