The Around project from Sequence Point software has just launched in beta for nokia’s n97 phone. It describes itself as augmented reality in that it adds a layer of information to whatever you are looking at through your phone. Thus in effect it means that pulling information from the cloud onto the city in real time is now here, albeit in a relatively buggy user unfriendly version at the moment. It’s another step for the ‘street as platform‘ concept that city of sound wrote about last year.
At the moment it can fetch data from only two providers, ovi maps from nokia, and geonames which if I remember correctly pulls info from many different sources including wikipedia. So for example as shown in the image above landmark buildings are shown through your phone screen and you are able to click on the buildings to get further information from wikipedia for example about the building you are looking at.
This is pretty basic for a start but think for a moment that when through rss, buildings publish their data feeds, or newsagents sell papers through your phone with rfid technology, or you are notified that a friend is walking your way, that the information of the street becomes physically viewable, and usable what the potential of this project really is. In terms of information distribution, visualisation , and interaction then it is loaded with promise and it could help engender a new form of civic life. (via)
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[...] attention to, even while looking to encourage (rightly) the growth of informational systems that augment our experience of the city, as the obvious threat here is that an informational infrastructure [...]