Google caused a stir a few weeks back with the announcement of its new mobile phone platform, Android. Of particular note was the control it gave developers over the features of mobile phones - features such as built-in GPS and Wi-Fi receivers. However, all we were given was the tantalising technical details of the new platform, and not much else - no sample applications, or even any real idea of what could be achieved with the new platform.

Now, though, a few details are starting to emerge of just what can be done with it by enterprising software developers - developers such as Wi2P Entertainment, who've used Android's ability to control a phone's GPS receiver to create a new Augmented Reality game called Wi-Fi Army.

You can see a preview video of Wi-Fi Army after the jump.


Augmented Reality is kind of like reverse Virtual-Reality: rather than entering a virtual world, you stay in the real world, but with virtual features overlaid. In the case of Wi-Fi Army, you engage in a first person shooter game that takes place in the real world. You find your opponent via your phone's GPS and Wi-Fi receivers and Google Maps, and shoot him via the camera phone.

The game works out whether you've hit your opponent or not by recognizing the picture of him when you upload it to the Wi-Fi Army web server. Of course, he must have registered with the service first, and also indicated that he's happy to play the game before you go around shooting him!

Indeed, after registering, you can be contacted by any other player within a 300 foot radius, as the game works out your location and the location of any other players within this area. You then select which player you want to play with, and if they accept, you're both sent pictures of each other, and the game then commences, with you both set on locating each other and trying to be the first to take a photo of the other (effectively shooting them).

You're also able to keep up with the location of your opponent via Google Maps, which effectively turns your current location (such as a shopping mall) into a battleground.

It's this that makes Wi-Fi Army an augmented reality game, turning a normal situation such as a shopping trip into a hunting game in which a previously random shopper (or more likely your friend) suddenly becomes your prey.

Ethical considerations aside (do you really want to let yourself be effectively stalked by a complete stranger who may be take the whole idea of hunting down a stranger way too seriously, and not be content with simply taking your photo?!), Wi-Fi Army provides a novel use of mobile phones' location-aware abilities, and shows what can be done with location-based services when the whole mobile phone handset is opened up to software developers.

Wi-Fi Army isn't released yet, but then nor is a Google Android-compliant mobile phone. As a first stab at using the potential of such an open platform, though, it shows real promise, and gives us a flavour of the type of new location-based services we can expect when Google Android handsets become available next year.

[Source: Wi-Fi Army]