Other gadgetry that went on display for the first time yesterday included object-recognition binoculars created by NTT DoCoMo, Japan’s largest mobile phone company.
As users scan the surrounding area, the binoculars will recognise certain objects and details about them will appear in the eyepiece.
Fix on a passing plane, for example, and the machine will tell you the flight number and destination. Turn your attention to a flower, and it will tell you what variety it is.
The machine contains a 360-degree “radar” to point you in the direction of things that it knows it already has information on.
DoCoMo hopes to use the technology in camera-equipped handsets. With particular databases of information installed, the phones could be pointed at objects of interest and used to collect information. Waved past an item in a shop, for example, it might inform users where the same thing could be bought more cheaply.