Nokia just launched its Point & Find utility. The premise is amazing, point your phone’s camera at any object and the phone will automatically query the Internet and bring you all the information you want about the said object. In reality, this is a beta and it still needs work.
The beta supports two items – movie posters and bar codes. I have yet to try it with a barcode, but my experience with a movie poster was pretty appaling. I set my access point to WiFi and pointed the camera at my Transporter 3 poster. After about 3 minutes of a scrolling loading bar, the phone determined that the poster was of Twilight and offered to show me a trailer and some other things.
What dissapointed me was that it took so long for the software to download the information, even though it was linked to my university’s wireless network which is pretty damn fast. It is also bad that it confused the Transporter 3 poster for Twilight which look nothing alike
On a more positive note I am glad that such software exists. Given enough time and testing this could be amazing. Just imagine going to a new town/city/country and pointing your device at a building or sign and you can get any information you need. Also, the barcode feature would be amazing, if it works. I know that many people who have purchased the T-Mobile G1 have done so mainly because of their barcode reading applications, and there is no reason why a Nokia device , which has a much better camera, can not do the same. The only problem for me, is that my Nokia N82 runs only on EDGE.
You can find out more about Point & Find on Nokia’s site.
Current devices supported are: N82, N95, N95 8GB, N76, N81, N81 8GB, E51, E66, 6290, 6124 Classic, 6161 Classic, 6120 Classic, 6110 Navigator and 5700 XpressMusic
If you are in the USA, here is the direct link to the download page.