Ever been out site-seeing and wished someone could tell you more about the place? What if you could just take a picture of the place or monument with your camera phone and have more information pop up right on your handset? Making this happen is a smart image recognition software - Snap2Tell, that can tell you what an image “means.” Developed by A*STAR’s Institute for Infocomm Research, this technology was displayed at the CommunicAsia 2009 tradeshow held at the Singapore Expo. The software can be tweaked to work with GPS-enabled mobile phones so the server can detect your location and send you the correct data.
Snap2Tell technology
Snap2Tell is an image recognition engine that recognizes scenes / objects without the need of labeling or putting barcode on the Point of Interest (POI), associating it with relevant information.
This technology to be implemented into:
- Mobile devices
- Ultra mobile computers (UMPC)
- Regular mobile phones with camera
Snap2Play
Snap2Play is an interactive mixed reality mobile application. It employs Snap2Tell’s image recognition engine as well as GPS and accelerometer sensors to enhance the mobile application.
This technology can serve the tourism industry, where tourists can simply “snap” pictures with their camera phone and get information on various places of interest.
This technology can be used for:
- Immersive mobile learning
- Interactive mobile guide
- Mixed-reality mobile gaming
- Marketing tools
How does it work?
- Activate the application
- Take a picture
- Send it on to the system’s server
- It will return with the relevant information.
In today’s world, mobile phones have become an everyday gadget for most of us. Recognizing this growing trend, even governments and industries around the world are working on integrating mobile devices into areas such as tourism, education, and entertainment, with an effort to enrich users’ experience.
Snap2Tell relies on MMS technology for now, however, A*STAR is considering options such as Wi-Fi and 3G as well. The server has only limited information at this point, but the option of opening up the platform to users is being considered so that people can contribute pictures and information to the database as well.
