Augmented Reality – A reality for Buuuk
I have been reading on augmented reality for a while now (guess Hichame has more experience in that). To date, most of the application have been in the US or Europe. I have yet to see any of the augmented reality apps that is specific to APAC…until today and I checked my iPhone App store for interesting application. Buuuk.com has just added augmented reality to their iPhone App…cool.
Buuuk.com is a Singapore company that provides location based restaurant information to the consumers on Andriod and iPhone. Once fire up the Buuuk application will be able to search for restaurants where they are located (using their GPS location aware feature), check out the offers available for Buuuk users (or credit card offers), check top rated restaurants and pubs, submit reviews, etc. In addition, you can also see the restaurants on the map, get direction to the restaurants, calculate distance as well as time it takes if you take a car, train or bus to the restaurant.
In the latest update to the application, Buuuk added in augmented reality to the application. In the list of restaurants displayed in your location, simply rotate your iPhone to landscape mode and the iPhone camera will turn on (I guess this is the same for Android – as I don’t own Android phone). You can then follow the direction shown on your screen and walk to the restaurant – neat feature. Guess I will be spending the next few days walking with my iPhone camera on to test out the app. Check out the video below:
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I suppose that it will take a bit of time to get used to the concept of augmented reality. Can already start to imagine the applications of augmented reality for marketing purposes and retailers making their offers available to companies like Buuuk to be included in their database (for an advertising fees of course). When you walk into a shopping mall with plenty of choices for restaurants, with a flick of the iPhone, you can see what offers is available and where. You can even fire up to see the menu and pricing before making your decision to walk into the restaurants…..just letting my imagination runs wild for now. I am sure retailers out there will have more creative uses for augmented reality.
