Thoreau once wrote, "Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves."
Well, in San Francisco, it's going to be rather difficult to accomplish this transcendentalist goal thanks to Junaio.
Junaio is a "mobile augmented reality browser." And unless you work in software programming, chances are you're going to have to google what that phrase even means.
So what does it do? Junaio "provides users with interactive web-based information and services wherever they are" as an application for the iPhone and the Android.
According to the company, users need only to point their camera and are instantly fed historical and logistical information regarding their surroundings via the web. Effectively, with Junaio, people will never be lost.
BART recently teamed up with Junaio, supplying the latter with its API (application programming interface). According to BART, this collaboration will allow for the following:
"Junaio lets users tag photos, audio and text in the real world and leave digital 'crumbs' behind at particular locations for others to explore. For example, a rider coming out of the Montgomery BART Station in San Francisco could see recommendations left by friends for restaurants or shops to try that are nearby that station. Or, simply by pointing the camera on her phone, a user could find the direction of the nearest BART station and get a list of estimated arrivals for the next several trains to her destination."
An ABC article said that, "New York hasn't done this. Chicago and Washington haven't done this" so it would seem that thanks to BART, San Francisco is one of the first major cities to use this technology.
The act of discovering a new favorite cafe requires no more effort than the tap of a finger now. For this generation, technology is the preservation of the world, not wilderness. Sorry, Thoreau.
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