Mobilizy reveals AR nav system

Sharon

Sharon Gill

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1st September 2009

Wikitude Drive was developed by the Mobilizy R&D group to determine the feasibility of combining real-time navigation with mobile augmented reality.

The result is Wikitude Drive -a fully functional, lightweight nav system that overlays point-to-point directions on a camera view, without the need for maps.

Wikitude Drive features mobile AR navigation, similar to a heads up display (HUD), POI-2-POI navigation, integrated voice commands (additional text-to-speech engine required), access to worldwide navigational data in real-time (mobile Internet connection required when user is in motion), P2P nav functions (social nav features will be implemented in future releases), and interfaces with existing navigational APIs (e.g. for NavTeq, Map24, TeleAtlas).

According to Mobilizy CEO Philipp Breuss-Schneeweis, the system has huge potential for location based advertising, but the company believes that the number one use case for Wikitude Drive is simply navigation.

"Wikitude Drive is part of a natural evolution in mobile augmented reality," said Breuss-Schneeweis."I believe there is much more to AR than simply planting coloured POIs on acam-view; people want to know how to get to these POIs."

Mobilizy is also investigating integration capabilities with mobile social-networks.