Mobile snaps reveal invisible art

bbc.co.uk | Thursday, 9 August 2007, 09:26 GMT 10:26 UK
Mobile snaps reveal invisible art
By Mark Ward, Technology correspondent, BBC News website, San Diego



Scottish researchers are turning to camera phones to help bridge the virtual and real worlds.

Using image-matching algorithms the researchers have found a way to adorn the real world with digital content.

The technology has already been used to create a guide of Edinburgh that allows people to find virtual artworks placed around the city using their mobile.

Another related project uses the technology to automatically update a person's blog with their location.

"It's about using a camera phone as a magic wand," said Dr Mark Wright of the Division of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh who came up with the idea.

At the heart of Spellbinder, as the project is known, is a database of all the places that participants have added data to. People query it by taking a snap of a location with their phone then using multimedia text messages to send it to Spellbinder.