Sunday, May 09, 2010

Why Mobile Augmented Reality doesn't work

I came back yesterday from Sweden. There, I was in an international conference where I had a work to present.

Being a Nexus One owner, I was very excited before the trip. Applications like Layar and Wikitude would be helping me a lot there, in Stockholm. I didn't know anything about the city, so this Augmented Reality (AR) apps could have been helpful, but it didn't.

Why ?

Are not those AR applications useful ? Yes, they are. But in order to use them, as well as Google Maps, Navigator and Googles, you need internet connection. And here it is when my problems arise.

Enjoying here, Spain, a 3G data connection, I asked about prices in Sweden. They're cheap as far as you have a swedish telephone company, but coming from abroad the things are really different. How much different ? 10 euros / 1 Mb. Yes, it's not a joke.

And that's not something between Spain and Sweden, it seems it is a common problem when traveling in Europe. Fantastic.

So Google and others are providing fantastic solutions and we cannot use them when we're in the perfect situation to use them: when we're abroad.

Thanks we're in a European Community !!! Just enjoy the following picture you can see at Layar website. See the world ! ... if you don't mind to pay a lot for it ;)

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