Everything we know and a few things we don’t know about the new XSight app.
Sight has just launched its flagship product on Product Hunt. The AR app, which XSight calls “the first augmented reality social mobile app” helps users find people, places, and things of interest to them by layering contextual information over their live camera view.
Meet XSight
The XSight team, operating out of Australia and Ukraine, calls their AR app a “PokèmonGo-like social app” analogous to the head-up display in Iron Man’s helmet in Marvel films. People and places are to be identifiable within the app, as well as experiences.
More than that, when users select an identified element within the app, they have the ability to send a message. Examples in press materials shared with ARPost include hailing taxis with a text message, or putting in an order at a café from across the street.
Social Features of the New AR App
As for people, the app displays an individual’s social media presence when the individual is recognized through the app. According to press materials shared with ARPost, the AR app “doesn’t use any personally identifiable information to recognize people.” Instead, it uses an “in-house Onion Recognition Algorithm.”
This isn’t detailed in the release, and the company website is still a work in progress. However, “onion routing” is a method of encryption that uses multiple services to access different layers of information on the same subject so no one agent except for the user has the whole story. In other words, users can identify individuals through the app, but the app can’t.
Further, users have to enable this feature through a “GoPublic” status tool. If you don’t want the person sitting across from you on the bus to find you on LinkedIn, just turn the toggle off. If you’re at a convention, conference, or concert and want to connect with like-minded people, toggle it on.
A Word About New Apps
You probably noticed a lot of … hesitancy in this article. That isn’t because of any lack of faith in XSight. However, this is the first release of their first product, and it is currently marketed towards “early adopters.”
To be clear, the AR app is available from Google Play and the App Store, and that means that it’s already been through some pretty significant hoops. However, like many early-phase AR apps, the information ecosystem and so the overall experience isn’t likely as robust now as it is likely to be in a few months.
In addition to the website in progress, the app’s page on Product Hunt says that “many more extensions are coming” to support other use cases. If this app sounds like something that you need in your life, check it out – it’s free. If you’re curious but not sure that you want to commit, no one would blame you for waiting a few months to see how it grows and changes.
Are You XSighted?
This is a very promising AR app, and we’re looking forward to seeing it mature. Specifically, it would be really cool to see partnerships with other AR apps and studios so that the XSight app could do things like direct you to location-based experiences on other platforms. We’ll have our eyes on them.
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