In an effort to enrich tourists’ appreciation of historical sites, the iTACITUS (Intelligent Tourism and Cultural Information through Ubiquitous Services*) project is using augmented reality to create a virtual time machine. Tourists can snap a picture of a site, upload it to a central server, and have instant access to cultural and historical information about the location.

“[Tourists] can look at a historic site and, by taking a photo or viewing it through the camera on their mobile device, be able to access much more information about it,” explains Luke Speller, a senior researcher at BMT in the United Kingdom who oversaw development of the technology.

“They are even able to visualize, in real time, how it looked at different stages in history,” he adds.

The technology can also be used to create “smart itineraries,” choosing efficient routes to sites that match a particular tourist’s interest.

I like the idea, as Discoblog put it, of being able to say, “Look Kids, Big Ben in 1890!”

Link (via Discoblog)

*Sometimes I just want to find the people who come up with these tortuously backformed acronyms and pat them on the head.