Remember in case you needed to “walk” to a “store” to buy things? Our grandkids are gonna weep uncontrollably when we explain queuing up at Our Price to buy VHS tapes . We’ll recall the date the final nail was driven into brick and mortar’s coffin: November 2nd, 2011 — the day Amazon’s A9 released Flow free on the App store . With Flow, you just walked into a shop, scan the barcode of a book, DVD or jar of Nutella and it came back with Amazon’s price, reviews and “multimedia content”. It wasn’t the primary app to do the job, but we just couldn’t help ourselves indulging in another. It wasn’t long before the shop detectives cottoned directly to each of the barcode snapping and began issuing automatic take-down tackles in the event that they saw you holding a phone. After that, obviously, war was inevitable. (But hey, it was worth it.)
New augmented reality app uses both barcode and image recognition to continuously recognize thousands and thousands of goods in a live camera view
PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–A9.com, Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced a brand new iPhone app: Flow Powered by Amazon. Flow is a brand new augmented reality app that makes it easy to explore and discover millions of goods in an actual world setting – from books and DVDs to packaged electronics and toys – and gives shoppers interactive product information regarding the items around them.
With Flow, customers simply point their iPhone toward a book, online game, CD, DVD or millions of different products with UPC barcodes. Upon visual recognition of the product, the app displays Amazon.com product information, including the choice to play multimedia content and skim customer reviews.
“Here’s our first step towards integrating product search technology with augmented reality,” said Bill Stasior, president of A9.com. “The mixing of a live camera display, graphical overlays, and visible recognition technology creates a unbroken experience for a customer seeking to discover information regarding objects of their physical surroundings.”
Flow uses continuous scan technology developed by A9.com’s visual search team to spot products and supply related information found on Amazon.com. The app displays Amazon’s popular shopping features which includes product details, customer reviews and ratings, in addition to sharing options via Twitter, Facebook, or email.
Flow Powered by Amazon is on the market as a free download from the Apple App Store at www.itunes.com/appstore. To benefit more, visit flow.a9.com.
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