Blippar’s Google Glass app makes objects interactive in real time

By AJ Dellinger February 27, 2014

blippars glass google app augmented reality screen shot 2014 02 26 at 6 15 32 pm — Image used with permission by copyright holder

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Blippar, a mobile image-recognition platform, showed up at Mobile World Congress 2014 in Barcelona with a new service designed for Google Glass. Company CEO Ambarish Mitra showed off what the company is calling the “world’s first working image recognition technology for Google Glass.” Its purpose is to bring objects to life right in front of your eyes – or to be more specific, advertisements.

A cloud-based image recognition service, Blippar aims to move augmented reality past the point of being a gimmick and creating actual engagement. On stage, Mitra showed off three ways that the new app, Blippar Glass, accomplishes this goal: A magazine ad triggering a video, a blast of paint digitally imposed on a person’s face, and a 3D dinosaur appearing from a Natural History Museum flier.

Blippar already offers a mobile app for iOS, Android, and Windows, but the company believes its service for Google Glass shows off the potential for the technology. The company states that wearable computing devices will have huge impacts on various industries “including marketing and advertising, retail, education and even medical fields.” But for now, Blippar focuses on the ads because that’s the sector that makes money.

Though the technology looks familiar, Blippar insists it is the first to make a fully functioning image recognition and tracking technology for Google Glass; everything else we’ve seen thus far is based on mock-ups and concept art.

No time table was set for the availability of the Blippar app for Google Glass.

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AJ Dellinger is a freelance reporter from Madison, Wisconsin with an affinity for all things tech. He has been published by…

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