TED Presentation on Augmented Reality Maps

As part of my job I tend to keep up on what Microsoft, Google and the other big Internet companies announce at TED. I never expected however for Microsoft to unveil something this impressive. Check out this video that demo’s the new functionality of their advanced augmented-reality maps. It’s extremely epic.

If you weren’t impressed by that you should probably stop reading now.

Augmented reality (AR from here on in) is an up and coming field that everyone here at Guardian Force is  a big fan of, this latest endeavour by Microsoft is not only technologically impressive but also so promising for the future development of the field.

Firstly the improved operation of the overall mapping functionality is fantastic, no more glitchy jumping, no more load times when I scroll, seamless, quick and attractive.

Secondly the new perspective (sim city as he called it) is also amazing, the Google Maps part 3D view is good but this is a serious improvement, now we can see things in size comparison and even gauge how far apart they are etc. I really liked just this mode with AR features and he made the passing reference to blog post being linked to locations etc, I am sure tweets will follow.

Then we get down to the really cool stuff, the link between 3D and street view is amazing and their improved more dynamic version of street view is also impressive.

Everything from this point in is just fantastic, the live video is great (think of all the camera it could stream from, concerts etc!) and all the interlink information and meta data has seemingly unlimited potential development, think of all the gaming developments alone this could bring.

Lastly, if anyone thinks there is going to be a privacy problem from this your a twat and please fuck off back to facebook and your abacus.

for everyone else, what do you think impressive or am I over-egging it?  What was your favourite feature?