Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera iPhone application – Augmented reality coming to iPhone

Forget virtual reality – that was soo last decade. The future will be filled with devices allowing us to view our real-world through augmented-eyes. Augmented reality is the idea that location-based data can be overlaid on your view of the real life. Last we heard, Enkin was developed to bring augmented reality to Google’s Android. Using GPS positioning, Enkin could would use your mobile phone’s camera to display location-specific information on top of your real-world view.

The notion that your cellphone could be used to augment your own reality with location-based information – essentially meta-tagging the real world – is highly intriguing. And, with mobile phones routinely including GPS receivers, large displays, and quality cameras, it makes sense that our handsets be leveraged as augmented reality devices.

Enter Tonchidot.

The Japanese startup rocketed to internet fame with their demonstration of the Sekai Camera iPhone application at TechCrunch50. Sekai Camera is being billed as a mobile social networking application that uses positional data to determine your location, and, in turn, serving up augmented reality views of the world around you. As the name of the application might suggest, Sekai Camera is a camera application that overlays meta-information on top of your live camera-view of the world. As you move your iPhone’s camera around, meta-information about various products, places, and even notes from your friends pop-up on your viewfinder screen – it’s augmented reality with a social networking twist.

Check out the video below to see how Sekai Camera works, then start praying to the Cupertino-gods that Apple allows Sekai Camera into the AppStore. Otherwise, just hope that Sekai Camera brings augmented social networking to the jailbreak community…