Streetview’s Prototype Of Augmented Reality For Businesses
It might be because Streetview needs a little positive advocacy these days, but the Google Maps team released a note on their blog about a new feature that leverages Streeview to display the image of a business on a map:
We use the position of the business on the map to approximately display it as a 3D marker in Street View. We are continuously working on improving the quality of the underlying map, and this will result in more and more businesses being positioned with high accuracy in Street View over time.
In other words, it’s not very precise. But it sounds pretty fun! Just have a look at the quick demo below to see how it works:
This looks pretty good, and it could be really useful on my cell phone. Unfortunately, I tried it on my Android and the same feature wasn’t there. Too bad, I could use this business-spotter when I find myself in unknown neighborhoods.
It is interesting to be a spectator of how Google pioneers augmented reality solutions for businesses. As mentioned above, the technology is somewhat clunky for the time being, but it clearly exemplifies Google Maps’ goal to own the virtual reality space, and sell it back to local businesses. I wonder if a business with no marketing budget for Google Maps will end up dying, given that our phones will become the best way for us to know where to go.
Tags: augmented reality, business, google, streetview
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