Augmented reality for tours through a city...

Technology allows us to do beautiful things. Amongst others to stand with your Ipad or smartphone on a certain spot in the city and then look into the past by means of pictures or 3D virtual images. One very nice example, using the domplein can be found here on the weblab site. You can stand at the domplein and look around as if in earlier years.

It's a bit the trick of the retronaut that I am also pulling at this website, every now and then. Say that I am walking near the Biesboschstraat in Amsterdam. About here:

Then I go to a site: historicplaces.com or something like that and that pulls out the image of that GPS-position of older days:

It's a very powerful tool and of course additional local information could be added to the image. Such as this site that describes that in 1947 many kids lived and played in the streets.

I think there's room for a whole (historic-Ipad) industry that helps people look at the city as it was in older days. I noticed that the city of Amersfoort has already done quite a good job at it (click here). And as we speak I think the Amsterdam Museum is experimenting or designing such a tour for kids. So this will undoubtedly be continued.....