Android Apps Released: Wikitude Tourism

According to the developer's blog, Google just awarded its Android App Winners $1.25 Million to help develop applications for their new mobile operating system.

Fifty finalists will receive $25,000, ten will receive $100,000 and ten will receive $275,0000. The complete list of finalists with links is located here.

WIKITUDE
I once got fired from a popular sub-par restaurant for not having the right "Earlitude"- a phrase I can only assume referred to my lack of enthusiasm. I'm beginning to think they were right for firing me.

Do you ever sit back and watch others execute the ideas you had months ago? Wikitude was my idea of a mobile tour guide. Let's face it, if you want to see a town, you don't need to do it in an amphibious vehicle, on a segway or in a tiny little talking bullet with a sidecar. You don't need to look like a moron to get decent information.

I live in Japantown. Every afternoon I watch a busload of tourists wait on the sidewalk for the haunted walking tour. Sometimes they are so busy buying snacks at the corner store across the street that they miss the historical marker telling them that they are standing in front of the home of the "mother of civil rights in California" - Mary Ellen Pleasant.

LOCAL HISTORY
Pleasant was born a Virginia slave in 1817, but had come to pass as a White woman and run a series of eating establishments in San Francisco. She was very successful, married well, and managed to amass a $30 million dollar fortune all the while working as an abolitionist on the Underground Railroad. After the war, she publicly changed her racial designation in the City Directory from "White" to "Black" causing a huge scandal.

After reading the historical marker and wondering who Pleasant was, I headed to Wikipedia.

SUSTAINING HISTORY
I love the idea of Wikitude because it not only gives locals a chance to incorporate a running record of their history, but it also opens the dialogue up for new histories. This is the best model for a tour company ever. Members just install the app on their phones. From there the service is tethered to Wikipedia's geo-coordinate tagging for an ever-evolving and up-to-date source of information. The crowds do the rest.

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Android Apps Released: Wikitude Tourism

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