By Patrick Shaw | 07-02-2012 | 11:00PM
There are already hundreds of different apps specifically designed to enhance the shopping experience -- both online and off -- in one way or another. But now Amazon.com is applying an interesting bit of tech towards old fashioned, brick and mortar shopping.
Developed by Amazon subsidiary A9 Innovations, Flow allows you to point your smart device’s camera at “tens of millions” of products to overlay information, audio clips, videos and more augmented reality content intended to help you make a purchasing decision.
It's essentially a more sophisticated version of the numerous barcode scanner apps out there, but it's still very much worth checking out -- or as one user named "franklin" noted on Google Play "it kinda makes shopping fun, as a dude. Beautifully designed too!"
Flow makes use of A9 Innovations’ continuous scanning tech, which allows shoppers to quickly scan multiple items -- everything from video games to groceries -- to bring up pertinent AR content on their device’s screen. Considering how certain things like physical video rental stores are virtually extinct at this point, Flow’s ability to bring up movie trailers should prove valuable while doing your Blu-ray shopping.
“This is our first step towards integrating product search technology with augmented reality,” said Bill Stasior, president of A9.com. “The integration of a live camera display, graphical overlays, and visual recognition technology creates a seamless experience for a customer looking to discover information about objects in their physical surroundings.”
The app also features social media integration allowing you to share your shopping history with your pals on Twitter, Facebook, and the like.
The Android version of Flow is entirely free to download and works with all tablets and smartphones with Android 2.3.3 and up running on it. You can download Flow now on the Amazon Appstore and Google Play.
