Five Latest Augmented Reality Apps for the Holidays

      Five Latest Augmented Reality Apps for the Holidays

For those who want their Smartphone or tablet to link them to their surroundings rather than distract or isolate them, Augmented Reality (AR) has become the new wow factor. With most devices sporting cameras good enough to scan the world, processors fast enough to analyze those images, and large, high resolution screens to clearly display helpful data, the long-awaited augmented reality revolution may be at hand. In fact, Blue Whale has made creating your own app much easier.  Ranging from playful to educational and instructional, here are five augmented reality apps to try out for free this holiday season.

Visualize Furniture in Your Home
Perhaps the most immediately useful of these apps is found in IKEA’s catalog. Using your phone or tablet, you can virtually place 3D models of furniture in your home to see how they would actually look. It’s great for apartments where space is at a premium or just for picky purchasers who want to know exactly how products will fit in their life

The only drawback is that the app expects users to scan parts of the print catalog, rather than just picking items and arranging them on the screen’s view of the room. Clearly IKEA wants to keep those thick, glossy catalogs relevant in a paperless, augmented world.
Examine a Virtual Human Body
There are several high quality apps available online that cater to the advantage of interacting with anatomical models via touchscreen. If you’re not headed to med school but still want to learn about the human body, Anatomy 4D uses augmented reality to place a virtual human body on any surface via a printable image. Move through layers of the body, switch between male and female models, and view from any angle by rotating your device.
Most of the complaints seem to be from users who haven’t printed the target page, so make sure it is printed on a regular 8.5”x11” page. If that seems too small, use your printer’s software to print it over several pages and arrange them to create what you need.
Make Coloring Books Come to Life
Do you have kids or are you just a kid at heart? ColAR puts the AR in coloring with their augmented reality app for Android and iOS phones and tablets. Like Anatomy 4D, you simply print out a downloadable target page to get started. When you’re done coloring it, load up the app and point your device’s camera at the page to watch your image come to life from any angle.
Explore Your City Through Your App
If you’re feeling left out by these iOS and Android-only apps, don’t despair, as Nokia has you covered with their City Lens app for Windows Phones. After a successful beta trial, the app is now available to Nokia Lumia users in its full form. The app offers enhanced versions of the familiar “getting around town” AR functions we’ve come to expect, but stands out with a feature designed to de-clutter the display and limit results to what you see in your field of vision.
With the market for AR apps expected to reach $659.98 million by 2018, we’re only beginning to scratch the surface of their functionality. Some AR apps may be silly diversions, like a Häagen-Dazs app that has a virtual violinist play a small concerto long enough for your ice cream to reach perfect eating consistency. One would expect the tipping point in augmented reality apps to come in a heads up display that puts critical information on your car’s windshield or your glasses, but never underestimate the value of a perfectly soft, not-too-cold bite of ice cream.
source-best technology