Wikitude Drive is the world’s first Augmented Reality (AR) navigation system and it is now available for download from AndroidPIT Germany

AndroidPIT

Wikitude Drive is the world’s first AR navigation system with coverage in Germany, Austria and Switzerland (and further to come soon). Navigate the streets without taking your eyes off the road as the AR view shows you exactly what is taking place in front of you whilst directing you to your location of choice.

AndroidPIT (link) are offering Wikitude Drive for download in their App Center at the special price of €7,99. AndroidPIT is a Web 2.0 network and an Android blog where Android experts, enthusiasts, developers and users all get together. This fast-moving and ever expanding blog has several thousands of readers and we at Wikitude are delighted that they are offering Wikitude Drive.

Wikitude Drive DE

Download Wikitude Drive from AndroidPit for a special price of €7.99 and discover the world of Augmented Reality Navigation for yourself!

1. Download “AndroidPIT App Center” at
   http://www.androidpit.de/de/android/market/app-center
2. Search for “Wikitude Drive” or click the Promo-Banner at androidpit.de

Cheers,
The Wikitude Team

Download here!

How does it work?

Navigation takes place in realtime in the live-camera image of your smartphone. Next to a conventional 3D map view, Wikitude Drive has a spectacular Augmented Reality camera view, where driving directions are directly drawn into the real road you are driving on.

The advantages:

The system works by attaching your mobile phone on top of your dashboard with the camera facing the road. The application then overlays video captured through the camera with driving instructions. This allows users to literally drive through their phone, watching the road even while they are looking at directions.

Never take the eyes off the road! Wikitude Drive solves a key problem that all other navigation systems have. These systems require the driver to take his eyes off the road in order to look at the abstract navigation map. Just by looking at the map screen for one second when driving at 100 km/h (62 mph), the driver is actually “blind” for 28 meters (92 ft). Think about how much can happen in those precious meters. Since Wikitude Drive provides you with driving directions on top of the live video stream, you still see what is happening in front of you when looking at the display of your mobile AR navigation system.

Supported Smartphones:

Due to the enormous hardware requirements, Wikitude Drive supportes only a limited number of high-quality Android phones with exceptionally good GPS sensors:

Samsung Galaxy Tab, Google Nexus S, HTC Nexus One, HTC Desire, Sony Ericsson X8, Sony Ericsson X10i. See Post “Supported Smartphones”.

If your Android smartphone is not on this list and you absolutely want to try Wikitude Drive, please proceed as follows: Download Wikitude Drive, launch it, enter any destination address, and then, if the route has been loaded, select “ Menu -> demo ride, and you will see an animated demo ride. If the demo looks good, then your phone seems to meet most of Wikitude Drive hardware requirements. If not, you can cancel your purchase within 15 minutes. Note: Some Android devices have GPS sensors that don’t meet the accuracy standards of Wikitude Drive: This is the case if you’re experiencing multiple multiple re-routes while driving with Wikitude Drive. If this happens with your device while driving with Wikitude Drive, you can send an email to drive[at]wikitude.org drive and we will cancel your purchase.

Where do I get Wikitude Drive?

Wikitude Drive is available in the Android Market in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, and UK.

Which car holder do you recommend?

A car holder is an absolute necessity for Wikitude Drive, unless you are using it for pedestrian navigation. Make sure the camera has a free view. Sometimes it is necessary to drill a whole for the camera.

Wikitude Drive Success Story

Below you find a quick summary of the Wikitude Drive success story. Happy reading! Cheers.

August 2009: We posted a movie of our first prototype and trigger unintentionally a huge PR wave: The video appeared in major blogs and was viewed 150.000 times that first weekend.

September 2009: At the 2nd Google Android Developer Challenge Wikitude Drive was a top 20 finalist. Unfortunately the routing server crashed within the final jury testing round. However the version from that time was miles away from what you see today.

February 2010: Wikitude Drive wins the Grand Prize at Navteq Challenge 2010 EMEA at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona and a check valued 500.000€ in license fees and cash as “most innovative navigation solution in Europe, Middle East and Africa”. The news of Wikitude Drive winning the award was displayed on the Reuters Newswire on Time Square in New York as well as on the Clear Channel Sign in Las Vegas. More on “Wikitude wins the Navteq Challenge 2010!“.  The Insider Story can be read at “Winning the Navteq Challenge 2010 Grand Prize with Wikitude Drive – The Inside Story“.

Mai 20, 2010: We launched a major test drive during Google I/O 2010 and send 3000 test drivers out onto the road. This day marks the record high number of Website hits on the Wikitude site. After 2 hours our server broke down. More here: Wikitude Drive Google I/O Update: Test Drivers Wanted

September 20: 2010: Wikitude Drive won the global competition of the Navteq Challenge in Madrid and is crowned Navteq Global Champion 2010. As the Navteq Challenge 2010 EMEA winners, Wikitude Head of Innovation Andi Hauser, Lead Developer Sebastian Höbarth and me competed against the regional winners India, Asia, North Amerika and South Amerika. We were able to convince a top-class jury and won the global competition as well: See “Wikitude Drive Crowned 2010 NAVTEQ Global LBS Challenge® CHAMPION“.

October 18, 2010: Wikitude Drive won the European Satellite Navigation Competition and the GSA Special Topic Prize in the residence of Munich. See “Wikitude Drive gewinnt den Hauptpreis der European Satellite Navigation Competition Galileo Master 2010“.

November 24, 2010: Wikitude Drive wins Hagenberg Award.

Dezember 6, 2010: Wikitude Drive and the Wikitude World Browser won the World Summit Award in Abu Dhabi. See “Wikitude wins World Summit Award“.

Dezember 20, 2010: Wikitude Drive went live in Austria (T-Mobile), Germany and Switzerland.

May 25, 2011: Latest News – Wikitude Drive went live in UK, France, Italy, and Spain!!!

The Austrian start-up company Mobilizy, best known for its augmented reality (AR) browser Wikitude builds AR powered Compass City Guide apps for Lonely Planet.

Places of interests such as restaurants, hotels and sights can be viewed by just looking at the live camera feed of your smartphone, thanks to Wikitude’s AR technology. The applications are available for 25 popular European, Asian, and North American cities.

“The Lonely Planet Compass City Guides are a great example of how Augmented Reality can enrich our everyday lives. Lonely Planet’s commitment to innovative digital products is truly unique and we are obviously very proud of the fact that Lonely Planet appreciates our know how and leading AR technology “ says Andy Gstoll, CEO of Wikitude.

“We’re extremely excited to launch our first application for Android phones” said Lonely Planet’s Travel Editor Tom Hall. “We believe we’ve created a new way for travellers to access Lonely Planet’s unrivalled destination content, from must-see sights to the latest restaurants and bars. As the application can pinpoint your location you can easily find what’s close to you and make sure you don’t miss a thing.”

Lonely Planet’s Compass Guides and Phrasebooks are available for $4.99 USD from Android Market (available on all Android powered phones) and will work on all major Android phones back to the very first model, the G1.

Related Link: http://www.lonelyplanet.com/mobile/android/

About Wikitude
Wikitude is an early pioneer in commercial augmented reality and the creator of the Wikitude World Browser, which is one of the first practical augmented reality (AR) mobile applications available world-wide. Wikitude engages in the research and in-house development of location-based services and augmented reality experiences for smart-phones. Wikitude is one of the leading innovators in developing new methods and applications for data acquisition and exchange in the emerging market of mobile augmented reality. http://www.wikitude.org

About Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet is the leading global travel information company. It is renowned for its first-hand approach, up-to-date maps and commitment to providing the best information for travellers. Lonely Planet covers the must-see spots, but also encourages travellers to get off the beaten track and understand more of the nature, culture and environment in each destination.  Lonely Planet currently has more than 360 writers, researchers and photographers and produces around 500 trustworthy and inspiring books, innovative downloadable digital guides, an award-winning website, wireless applications and cutting-edge television programmes. Lonely Planet was founded after Tony and Maureen Wheeler left London and hit the road in search of adventure in 1972. They travelled overland across Asia and landed in Australia where, due to incessant questions from would-be travellers, they compiled their journey notes and stapled together their first travel guide, Across Asia on the Cheap. Lonelyplanet.com

Media Contact:
i5comm for Wikitude
bernhard [at] i5comm.com
Phone +43 664 439 86 09

Martin Lechner

The event started with two quick introductions from IBM and Christine Perey, the organizer of the event (thanks again Christine!), followed by the logistic questions how to structure the sessions so that everybody can attend all sessions he or she wanted to take, as we needed to have some sessions simultanously.

Martin Lechner, CTO Mobilizy

The first session was all about User Experience in AR applications. Very well prepared though, every group had to select one of some predefined personas and find out how AR could help this persona in everyday life – from school boys and party girls to nurses, policemen and disabled people. Some interesting ideas came up how people can benefit from AR in their personal and professional life – definitely a mind opener!

The next session was about how to make money out of AR, followed by the CTO of Kooaba talking about Image Recognition in AR apps – very interesting from a technical perspective.

Martin "in action"

Finally, the last session in the event was mine. At first I introduced ARML to the attendees and asked them to think of how ARML might be extended to support Image Recognition as well. Nice discussion, the outcome – very briefly – was that standardizing the response from an Image Recognition process is not hard and could fit well into the ARML format, however, standardizing Image Recognition itself is not really feasible, as many algorithms co-exist and deliver different results depending on the properties of the image. The discussion about ARML took longer than expected from my side, so I had to keep the discussion about the Wikitude API rather briefly. Basically, the attendees knew already about the Wikitude API (which is great!) or were very interested in developing AR applications with the API. Let’s see how many applications will make it to a release!

In the evening, we met again at the University of Zurich for a Mobile Monday and showcased (with yellow sashes :-) ) our applications to lots and lots of people on the street. Finally we went to a nice bar and did some networking. In general, a great event with great people talking about a great topic! Thanks again Christine for the expertly organized event, and looking forward to participate in upcoming events as well!

Find more pics here.

Just like in the beginning with Version 1.0, Wikitude is staying true to being user-centered. It is because of this commitment that we allow users to search for POIs across all Worlds and show the closest POIs right away at startup.  You immediately can see what’s around you, no matter who provided this information (We call this concept “Virtual Discovery”). Since Wikitude is an AR World Browser, it also provides a way to bookmark Worlds, just like you would bookmark a web page in a web browser.

Every user is different – some are traditional vintage car enthusiast, others rent cars frequently, while some don’t even have a driver’s license. This is why we allow users to ignore Worlds which don’t fit their daily lives. Information displayed in an AR app should fit your personal profile, but not spam you every time you launch the app by displaying the latest “off-topic” featured content.

The number of Wikitude-Worlds is growing daily because creating your own World does not require setting up a server or any development skills (see Create your own World). On wikitude.me you can find instructions on how to add content to our system. In the coming days, we will be announcing a dynamic way to add your content. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions on this (developers AT mobilizy.com)

If you have questions or suggestions on UI, user experience or any questions about the information above, please don’t hesitate to contact me personally. I am always happy to get valuable feedback from our community.

Cheers,
Andreas

[Gallery not found]

Developing an AR application is not the challenge we should be focused on, there are MANY AR applications, and there will be many more in the near future. What we should be focusing on is creating useful augmented experiences that will benefit users.

• When: March 1, 2010 9h00 to 16h00
• Where: the IBM Innovation Center Zurich

Vulkanstrasse 106
8048 Zürich

There is also a Swiss Augmented Reality Meetup Group to which you are invited. To find out more, and to join, go here.

You can follow the event on Twitter

9. Back to Reality…
“Oh, those boring old coupons – they get lost, forgotten, left behind or expired. Look for augmented reality to start playing a larger role in location-based advertising. Now, when you’re walking into your favorite coffee shop, the real-time mobile coupon you receive gives you instant gratification with your discounted daily grind.”

* Augmented Planet predictions for AR 2010

* Games Alfresco – 10 experts about AR

* Robert Rice already wrote a post about his visions in October

* ReadWriteWeb’s general predictions for the web-sphere

Revenue associated with Augmented Reality will grow from about $6 million in 2008 to more than $350 million in 2014. As advertisers learn to insert tags into navigation displays, mobile advertising revenue will grow slowly, representing a large portion of sectoral revenues in the 2013-2014 timeframe. Nonetheless, technology advances are still required for Augmented Reality applications to proliferate. GPS location accuracy is currently inadequate for many applications.