Augmented Reality Tool Transports EU Tourists Back in Time

© RHaworth

The European Union just wrapped up a three year project codenamed iTACITUS – Intelligent Tourism and Cultural Information through Ubiquitous Services – that investigated ways of making the Continent more accessible to tourists. They produced a ton of stuff, including an itinerary planning tool that automatically integrated places of interest, transportation, and lodging, all tweaked to individual travelers’ interests.

But their most interesting product is an Augmented Reality tool which hops on the back of mobile platforms to display historic sites as they used to exist. The technology uses visual markers fed through the camera phone to orient itself. Then it shows buildings, paintings, and landmarks that either existed more perfectly or no longer exist. Shiny!

How the displays will actually get into tourists’ smartphones is yet to be worked out. Given that behemoth tech companies like Apple and Palm are still waging wars to lock or unlock smartphone platforms, content delivery issues aren’t going to be solved any time soon.

Next step: someone needs to build a visor with a tiny camera on the front and install the program into it. You’d have to figure out some way to make sure that you still saw people and real-life barriers but can you imagine? Dude!