Location Amplifier: A New Interaction Framework that Bridges the Real and Virtual Worlds

Location Amplifier is a service framework that enhances your personal experience by unobtrusively pushing location based content to your mobile device. Your mobile device turns into an “amplifier” that presents you with rich content from the networked virtual world based on your location to augment your real world experience. It provides a framework that allows you to interact with the surrounding environment in new ways. Users’ lifestyles can be enhanced by providing practical applications via Location Amplifier such as way-finding and guide services, but Location Amplifier can also bring the real-world experience closer the user in fun and otherwise unexplored ways.

We presented Location Amplifier (Amp) for Tokyo Train at the Where Fair in 2008. It was a custom application tuned to amplify your experience on the Yamanote Line, one of the main train lines that runs in the heart of Tokyo. Location Amp for Tokyo Train combined the wireless LAN positioning technology, PlaceEngine and the accelerometer module in the device to estimate your position.

Other Location Amp services have already been rolled out for the Japanese market. It has been proven in a city-wide environment in Yokohama and in building complexes such as stadiums, conventions, and event halls. Users simply bring their PSPs or iPhones to the area to access Location Amp services. Recently, we have been planning to provide Location Amp along the Tokyo train and subway lines to provide practical way-finding services with guides for tourists, restaurants, and shopping, or even historic information from the past. On top of this, Location Amp can be applied to fun game-like situations where users can interact with the environment and each other to join an orienteering session, treasure hunting (for coupons, character icons) game, and even find trivia on Japanese folklore spirits and creatures who might have inhabited that area in another lifetime.