Today, our app of the day is more of a look at the future, but is still useful today. The app is Digimarc Discover, and it has such great potential to change the way we interact with content. QR codes are popping up more and more, but only around 6% of Americans actually ever scan them, and the technology already seems to be losing out. The next stage is the ability to simply hold your smartphone camera up to any image, and get results right then and there. Digimarc lets you point your iPhone at a newspaper or magazine, and it can scan in digital watermarks.
The digital watermarks are invisible to the human eye, so you don’t have to see those annoying QR codes. The only problem is that it’s not always clear what can be scanned in. At this early stage, not many publications support digital watermarks, but this is the true leading edge. In the future you will be able to point your iPhone at the sports section, and see stats and watch video highlights of the game you’re looking at. Another example is looking at the weather map, and then getting digital readouts of everything. You could also see a how-to article in a magazine, and see an interactive walkthrough after simply pointing your iPhone at the article. You could even see President Obama on the cover of the newspaper, and then watch his full speech with your phone.
All these examples are the future, but it would connect our technological devices to the physical world like never before. QR codes seem to be an intermediary stage, with full on image recognition as the next stage. At the moment, Digimarc Discover (Free, iPhone) still works with QR codes, can identify music like Shazam, and spot the few digital watermarks that are out there at the moment. It’s a great glimpse of the future, and still has practicality for today making it our app of the day.
Enjoy this TED Talk below, showing the future of interactive image recognition.
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