Bionic Eye Gives iPhone Users A New Way To Search

Posted on 25 September 2009, at 1:45 pm, by Jason Reese

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One of the recent mobile application trends for the iPhone and Android devices — and perhaps the most exciting — is the use of augmented reality to overlay digital data on a real-world view right on your smartphone’s screen. In June, Wayne first showed us such an application made specifically for the Paris subway. It wasn’t long after that Dan discovered the feature in the Yelp! application.

Since then, other applications making use of these features have begun to trickle in. Augmented reality applications make full use of the compass, video, GPS, and accelerometer capabilities of the iPhone 3GS — and integrate them together in a way that that gives developers an exciting new method of displaying data within their applications. You get a real-time, real world view of whatever is around you — via your device’s camera — with data you define is relevant based on your physical location.

Bionic Eye will visualize Points of Interest (POI) based on your actual location. The app will display POIs less than 1km (0,621miles) on the iPhone 3GS screen.

Want to know what restaurants are around you without searching Google, Urban Spoon, or another dedicated app that fulfills only that purpse (e.g., a “restaurant finder”)? Simply use Bionic Eye. You can view the street you are on through the iPhone and it will show you the restaurants as you walk down the street. Need to know where an available (and free) WiFi hotspot is? Fire up Bionic Eye to “see” them. Traveling and need to find the closest subway stop or closest hotel? That’s right, just use Bionic Eye.

Features:

- Vertical position: 360-degree view of all POI nearby your location, updated in real time as you walk in the streets.

- Horizontal position: List of all nearest POI. When a POI is selected, a blue arrow (compass) is displayed to show the direction and the distance to that POI.

- Don’t have an iPhone 3GS? iPod Touch and iPhone 3G users can still use Bionic Eye (without augmented reality). The application is fully compatible with Google Maps. It is possible to locate the nearest POI from your position on Google Map within the application.

Look for many more developers to begin introducing augmented reality into their applications (social networking, GPS, etc); possibly creating a brand new category of consumer apps that can give you real-time information on anything you want based on where you are.

Bionic Eye is currently available for the US, UK, France, and Tokyo. (versions of the app for additional countries will be added).

Bionic Eye is available in the App Store for $0.99.

*Note: currently only the New York Subway, Washington Metro, and Chicago L Rapid Transit systems are supported on the US version.

[via Mashable, TheNextWeb, and Bionic-Eye ]