Nokia City Lens brings augmented reality to Nokia Lumia

GLOBAL – My first and most vivid memory of augmented reality is a scene in Terminator 2 where Arnold Schwarzenegger walks in a biker bar to collect some clothes. Back then I didn’t know I was going to write one day about this technology…

Nokia City Lens doesn’t have anything to do with Skynet or John Connor: it is a great location based augmented reality service, which is expanding our portfolio of Nokia exclusive apps for Windows Phone. If you have a Nokia Lumia 710, Nokia Lumia 800or Nokia Lumia 900, you can download it now from Nokia Beta Labs where you can leave your feedback and contribute to improve the app while we are polishing and refining its feature set.

What I like the most in this app is that you can keep you head up when you’re using it. Instead of looking for a place on a map and look down on your smartphone, with Nokia City Lens you are actually looking at the world around you through your smartphone.

Digital maps are indeed very useful and we all use them every day. They help us finding the places we are looking for and they are giving us directions to get there. This is why we have developed Nokia Maps. But sometimes you need a new way to orientate yourself and recognize the places in your immediate vicinity. This is where Nokia City Lens is helpful.

So what exactly can you do with Nokia City Lens (beta) for your Nokia Lumia?

• You can instantly see what’s around you: landmarks, restaurants, hotels, shops and public transport stations visually right on your phone
• Select your interests in many different categories: Nokia City Lens will filter the points of interests and present your choices
• All the details at a glance: simply tap to read reviews, descriptions and destination information
• One tap to call or navigate to the location
• Share a place with friends via email and SMS or via the built-in sharing feature of Windows Phone

Grab your copy of Nokia City Lens now, from the Nokia Beta Labs. And if you haven’t installed it yet, make sure to check out the video at the top to see how you’ll benefit from this in a real-life environment.