输入目的地，泳裤大叔为你导航

Nexus Studios company has launched HotStepper, the world’s first AR-based wayfinding app.

It is a pedestrian navigation* app that doesn’t draw you a map.

Enter an address anywhere in the world and HotStepper will guide you there, walking the real world streets as you follow. Your guide, who views the street through your phone’s camera, is a cartoon dude dressed like Sergeant Pepper at the beach.

HotStepper combines the very latest in AR*, geolocation* and mapping technology. The interactive arts team at Nexus Studios built a bespoke* system that uses a combination of GPS* coordinates, your phone’s compass and vector in real-world space (accelerometer*) and mapping data in order to calculate your location and render HotStepper as your virtual wayfinding buddy.

Luke Ritchie, head of Nexus Studios’ Interactive Arts, notes: “HotStepper is part of a series of research projects we’re doing into storytelling using real-world data. We’re super excited to be exploring this new frontier and with HotStepper we’ve combined multiple innovations to bring to life a playful dude creating a fun way to get somewhere. The HotStepper has a complex steering algorithm* that uses different types of data to keep him on the path and walking in the right direction. It’s only as good as the GPS data though so absolutely use your common sense when perhaps it appears he hasn’t!”

In practice, the app is buggy and inflexible. The real problem, the one that downgrades this from tool to proof-of-concept, is that it’s on your phone. It isn’t safe to hold your phone up while walking. But if you could watch this guy through your spectacles, it is useful.

As Google and Apple push VR* and AR on their existing devices, users come up against physical limitations. HotStepper is just a killer app waiting for the right platform, walking one step ahead of us.(SD-Agencies)