<div>Lately, Nokia has been extra big on maps and location and directions. In fact, its chief, Stephen Elop, said he wanted Nokia to be the “where” company, sensing things nearby to give inputs to the user all the time. Using a Lumia phone’s accelerometer, GPS and camera, and combining that with maps, could give Windows phones a differentiating edge in a world where Android phones are beginning to look alarmingly alike and the iPhone is the iPhone. <br /> </div><div>With an experimental app called the City Lens, Nokia has added a layer of augmented reality to the mix. Download the app free from betalabs.nokia.com/trials/nokia-city-lens-for-windows-phone, start it up, and go out into town. When you find yourself thinking you want to visit an interesting place or go eat somewhere, aim your phone at the places around you. The camera view will immediately acquire an overlay of tappable names and labels of places. You can tap to see stacks of information and check</div><table width="100" cellspacing="6" cellpadding="6" border="0" align="right"><tbody><tr><td><img width="100" vspace="6" hspace="6" height="100" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=516dddb2-3ac9-45ff-9377-389d3b5a6b1e&groupId=222922&t=1349515514800" alt="" /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>out say, restaurants right where you are. You get distance, direction and star rating. You can tilt the phone to get a map view which you can touch-navigate to find more information, including how long it will take to get to a destination, each of which has an associated page with detailed information. The lot is shareable on social media, mail or SMS — just in case your friends are joining you. You can also save your searches for later use. There’s also a list view, if you want to avoid the augmented reality, but it’s more interesting to see AR making it to everyday use. The City Lens should be particularly nice for when you visit new cities and when you want to explore without feeling quite so lost. <br /> </div><div><strong>The News, Beautifully Trapped</strong></div><div>How many ways can you do news? Many, it would seem, if you go by the number of news apps,</div><table width="100" cellspacing="6" cellpadding="6" border="0" align="left"><tbody><tr><td><img width="100" vspace="6" hspace="6" height="100" src="/image/image_gallery?uuid=a8bc07ce-bb20-4ad9-8ad7-59679cff3a09&groupId=222922&t=1349515555634" alt="" /></td></tr></tbody></table><div>specially for the iPad. Surprisingly, each one adds a new dimension or nuance to the way you can consume content. Trapit, which admittedly has a strange name for a news app, works by getting you to feed in an interest area by keyword or phrase and then trapping content based on that. In many ways, this has been done before. News-reading app Zite lets you build a magazine when you enter keywords representing your interests. Trapit just does it differently and just as beautifully. When you enter a keyword, the trapping begins and you soon have a row of tiles of pictures for the articles. Touch a tile and the screen opens to a full screen of the tiles for a particular trap. You can send to Instapaper, email or share on social networks for later reading —but scanning through what you want to read is the thing here. Trapit also learns your reading preferences. If you thumbs-up an article, the input goes into getting you similar stuff in the future. If you thumbs-down it, you are asked why — did you find it irrelevant, for example. At the time of writing, Trapit is quite happily free. If you get it free or in a sale, it’s worth a look.<br /><br /><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; ">(This story was published in Businessworld Issue Dated 15-10-2012)</span><br /><br /><br /> </div>
BW Reporters
Mala Bhargava has been writing on technology well before the advent of internet in Indians and before CDs made their way into computers. Mala writes on technology, social media, startups and fitness. A trained psychologist, she claims that her understanding of psychology helps her understand the human side of technology.
