Borglar Turns Your City Into a Video Game Through Augmented Reality

Augmented reality has been a dream of geeks for decades. The idea of putting on a set of glasses or having a chip implanted in your head that creates a virtual HUD augmenting everything you see sounds like something right out of science fiction. Until recently, it has been.

Now, augmented reality apps are available for smartphones and companies are racing to see which one can create interfaces that can exist everywhere from a set of eyeglasses to contacts you can actually put on your eyes.

One of these apps hopes to turn your city into a giant video game. Borglar gives you the ability to see and collect prizes and special deals at stores you are actually near. Collecting coins and medallions as you play will also allow you to win real-world prizes offered by sponsors of the app.

What is Borglar?

Borglar takes advantage of your Android or iOS (coming soon) device’s built-in GPS and camera to present an augmented reality that encourages you to walk around your city to collect coins and take advantage of special offers available through the app itself. Think of it as an interactive Foursquare that allows you to physically locate, walk up to, and collect virtual prizes and currency that could save you real money or help you bring up real-world prizes just for participating.

Borglar uses a combination of technologies to give the user the ability to experience a surprisingly accurate augmented reality as they view the world through their smartphone or tablet. This reality places medallions, coins, and boxes with mystery prizes in 3D spaces around real places. You could walk right up to a medallion, put it in the on-screen crosshairs, and tap the screen to collect it. You just have to be within 15 meters of the virtual item.