Augmented Reality for the Pagine Gialle Mobile iPhone App: Finding People and Places Has Never Been So Easy

Turin, 31May 2010 - SEAT Pagine Gialle is introducing a new version of the Pagine Gialle Mobile for iPhone app, an application available to all Apple handset users that allows them to find geolocalised information quickly and easily: finding out whether there is a good restaurant, cinema or supermarket in an area is now faster and more intuitive.

The application includes an innovative “augmented reality” function that allows owners of the iPhone 3GS to view the results of their searches in graphical form by overlaying them on top of the picture taken by the handset’s camera. Using GPS and the iPhone’s compass, Pagine Gialle Mobile determines the distance and direction of the places of interest from the user’s position and overlays virtual elements and geolocalised data on the real video images taken by the camera.

This innovative technology shows all of the points of interest (for example, hotels) in the area around the user through a virtual representation that completes the real picture in the form of information “panels” that may be viewed through the camera. By touching a “ panel,” the user may view the available details for each identified point of interest, such as a telephone number, which may be called directly with a simple click, e-mail address or link to a website, all of which may be used directly through the features already provided by the handsets. The Pagine Gialle Mobile app allows users who are looking for a store they are already familiar with or another particular place to activate the “augmented reality” feature directly from the individual search result, thereby showing the user the direction and the distance to the destination.

The “augmented reality” features of Pagine Gialle Mobile for the iPhone was achieved by using original solutions and allows additional content to be viewed both horizontally (“ landscape” orientation) and vertically (“portrait” orientation). Depending on the chosen orientation, the control panel for the “augmented reality” features is automatically positioned accordingly so as to allow the application to be used as preferred in a consistently simple and intuitive manner. Users may also decide to restrict their view to the nearest results by using the cursor that defines the viewing radius.

"Augmented reality" may be used both to search for companies or services and to find private users, making it easy to find out where the home of a friend or acquaintance is and which way to go to get there.

Less than one year after the application was launched, the Pagine Gialle Mobile for iPhone app is now in its fifth version and also includes other interesting new features, some of which are intended to satisfy users’ specific needs, such as a search for a person based on a telephone number, which is very useful, for example, in learning who has called from numbers not in the handset’s memory.

“ The new version of the Pagine Gialle Mobile for iPhone app represents a further step forwards in the achievement of increasingly innovative, fast, and easy-to-use services that may be accessed at any time and place,” commented Paolo Chiaberto, in charge of the Mobile Project for Seat Pagine Gialle. “ This application aids users of Apple mobile phones in many situations of their daily lives, both when they need to find a company or a business service and during their free time. In addition, we are very pleased to be able to meet the needs reported to us by our users by creating services that make the search experience increasingly pervasive and interactive.”

SEAT PG

The Seat PG Group is one of the main operators at world level in the sector of multimedia profiled advertising, offering “print-voice-online” directories, as well as complementary communication services such as one-to-one marketing. SEAT Pagine Gialle has been engaged in information services and search and communications tools for over 80 years. It is a success story based on a brand that is familiar to everyone, a sales network employing over 2,000 persons, a technology that is constantly evolving and a database that includes 13 million households and 4 million businesses (2009 data), and a wide range of products guaranteeing a real integrated system of communications to about 500,000 Italian Customers: a total of 53 million volumes distributed to the homes and offices (2009 data), about 29 million enquiries through the directory assistance service (2009 data), and about 323 million hits on online directories (2009 data) connect people and businesses, bringing together needs and solutions and promoting economic exchanges.

Press contacts:   

Seat PG:
Communications Department
comunicazione.stampa@seat.it
Tel. 011.435.2884

Burson-Marsteller
Antonella Violante – Alessia Quaglio
antonella.violante@bm.com
alessia.quaglio@bm.com
Tel. +39.02.721431