Harpoen, an Indonesia-based startup with an augmented reality app that lets users create ‘digital graffiti’, has been selected as one of 40 winners at the World Summit Award Mobile, a biannual competition that selects the world’s most useful apps. It competed in the mobile tourism and culture category.
The startup will go on to the final event in Abu Dhabi in February 2013, where a winner in each category will be picked. Twenty-one of the top 40 come from Europe, but that’s due to the large number of nominating countries. Asia is the next largest group with 8.
In addition, Harpoen told DailySocial that it is working on partnerships to bring content to its app, such as letting users browse old photographs or related literature of a location while they are on-site.
Available for now on iOS, Harpoen will be coming to Android in a few weeks’ time. A Windows Phone version is being considered for next year.
It seems like everyone is making speculative concept videos these days. While opinion is split on the vanity of the companies involved in making them, the videos do give us a glimpse of what the future could be like and how technology might change the way we live. If you only have time for one video though, we’d suggest you check out “Sight”, which is at the bottom. It gives a humorous portrayal of how our reliance on technology could become… excessive. Read more
Startups like Harpoen are the sort shunned by many Asian investors — they won’t make money for many years. That’s because they’re so forward-thinking that the market may not be ready for them yet. But the huge risks they bear could have immense payoffs, precisely because they are far ahead of the curve.
So what exactly is it about Harpoen that makes it so dangerously enticing? Well, essentially, it is an augmented reality (AR) mobile app that lets users leave digital graffiti on real world objects and locations, and allows other users to view them.
The company was founded in Indonesia by J.P Ellis and John Patrick, who are Americans based in Jakarta. The app was launched for the iPhone in March and has since amassed tens of thousands of user-created “harps” in the capital city and Bandung. These harps could serve as virtual noticeboards, historical notes, or even clues for a scavenger hunt. Read more
The tech world is changing faster than you can say ‘Zuckerberg’. Lingo like ‘software’ and ‘IT industry’ have gone out of fashion, and you’re considered a dinosaur for uttering such arcane language.
This means that predicting trends in the tech world is incredibly hard (but not impossible). For app developers though, knowing what’s up and coming is important as betting on the right technologies could mean the difference between sinking and swimming.
So, after hearing from some smart sages at Apps World Asia 2011 on where the, erm, apps world is heading, we present you with five predictions about how the landscape will look like in one to two years. Read more
Filed under Featured, Innovation & Technology, Media, Mobile, Technology, WebTags: app store, Apps World Asia, Augmented Reality, BuUuk, byod, consumerization, enterprise app, HTML5, ShowNearby, weatherlah
Samsung presents Digital Life Development Android Challenge, a contest that challenges participants to develop tablet app and games using the Android-based platform. It is an open competition and he/she can enter the competition as an individual or team. Each person or team can submit one entry for each category. There are 4 categories: Best Location Based Service App, Best Augmented Reality App, Best Gaming App, and Most Innovative App. To find out more about rules, prizes, acitvities and details of category you can visit their website. Read more
buUuk is a mobile-web application developed to be the indispensable guide to food and drinks using a location based framework. Currently in both iPhone and Google Android, the app has been making headway with their latest augmented reality feature that can help a consumer to locate their restaurant or bar in the vicinity which they are in. Who’s behind this? Jon Petersen, also known for his work in SinGeo, a digital site dedicated on visualizing Singapore on maps, started BuUuk with the intention to help consumers to find food and drinks nearby. So, we make an appointment with Jon Petersen and interviewed him on the story behind buUuk, the interesting features that make the app tick, their latest feature on augmented reality in the app and finally, tips on which app store you should go for. Read more
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