The explosion of craft beer has its ups and down. For one, there are now so many beer options that it is impossible not to find one that suits your tastes. However, the complete opposite is also true. Mystery bottles of beer can go so horribly wrong that it becomes a complete waste even buying them!
And since these are valid concerns, someone decided that there is, indeed, an app for that. Korean startup Letsee created the app which goes by the same name, Gizmodo noted. It uses smartphone cameras to scan labels of beer cans and bottles. It displays the beer's basic information and hashtagged descriptions like #fruity and #damntasty. Very interesting!
But the app would like to do more than just crowdsource hashtags of some beers. The use of augmented reality bridges the virtual and physical worlds and creates a social media experience that has real world effects to its users.
"By using the more intuitive AR interface, the users will be able to focus on the user-created content itself instead of getting distracted by cumbersome app interfaces," shares Ahn Sangchul, founder and CEO of Letsee. He adds, "People may enjoy sharing their drinking experiences with others using our service, and we hope to encourage them to love beer even more."
Sangchul started the company last year with nothing but a dream of making an AR-based web content ecosystem. In his dream world, all physical objects could be scanned and searched online. This is in comparison to typing keywords in Google, something Sangchul believes disconnects users from reality, Tech In Asia reported.
The CEO, together with a few friends, drank and scanned hundreds of bottles of beer in a span of three months to set up the database. The rest would hopefully be filled up by users, Geekwire reported.
The app is not yet perfect and it is not completely unique. Other AR-scan apps are already existing and some of them have solid funding from their investors. However, Sanchul is confident that his familiarity with AR and sharper tech will allow his company to roll with the big boys.