Here is great news for Audi lovers, you can now ‘upgrade’ your car’s model just by downloading a mobile app and playing and winning a game within the app. Gameloft, a French video game developer and publisher of digitally distributed video games, have teamed up with premium car brand Audi to launch a mobile app named Asphalt Audi RS 3. The game pits players against each other and offers them the chance to win the new Audi A3 Sportback worth $70 000.

This mobile app is available for free download on Apple’s App store. App users can enter the competition (which ends on 16 March 2011) where they must race three laps around the Bahamas racing track. Players compete in three race carrier modes in the game – two regular races followed by an elimination round. The racers are able to post their final scores on GameLoft Live. The highest score posted on GameLoft Live stand the chance to win an Audi A3 Sportback 2.0 TFSI Quattro. The video below demonstrate the app’s functionality, take a look.

The app provides users with an adrenaline pumping experience where they can ‘feel’ the speed and power of the new Audi A3. The competition, which is run via the app, is proving successful in promoting the Audi brand and now the game is available for download at $4.99. The paid-for game offers players a wider variety of cars and more precise control on fixing minor bugs. If you’re a racing fan, head over to the Apple App store and download the app. Happy gaming!

Augmented Reality (AR) allows recorded and animated images to blend and be viewed in real time. Most of the past augmented reality apps mainly focused on entertainment, such as the Lego Kiosks, futuristic baseball cards and even a virtual tour of the starship Enterprise. More recent apps however, have shifted their focus: providing travelers with useful information and answers to their possible questions.

What does augmented reality mean for tourism?

Augmented reality apps comprise different layers, such as museums, historic sites, dining and real estate to name but a few. The tourism layer, however, is the one most commonly used. This makes sense since tourists need information which will make their travelling experience easier, more informed and more secure, allowing travelers to experience the destination before they arrive.

A few examples of how augmented reality was used in tourism

TripAdvisor launched their Augmented Reality Tours app for iPad this month, using images from Google Street View to create a virtual walk through various destinations. This app might not be as advanced as apps by Layar, Lonely Planet or mTrip, but is still more useful and fun to use than 2D maps.

The Beijing Institute of Technology created a virtual reconstruction of Yuanmingyuan, a local historic site destroyed in 1860 during the Opium War, by using various paintings and sketches. They built a coin-operated viewing platform which tourists can use to see what Yuanmingyuan used to look like.

The Cluny Abbey Museum in France has a giant augmented reality screen, a “window to the past” if you will, allowing users to “travel back in time” and view a pre-destruction example of the Abbey. GraffitiGeo launched the first ever augmented reality restaurant recommendations app. Just point your phone towards a restaurant and see immediate reviews.

There are a lot of augmented reality apps, too many to mention in only one blog. Did I miss your favourite? Please share it with us in the comments.

The Medical Information, Anytime, Anywhere (MIAA) app, created by Palomar Pomerado Health (PPH) in partnership with CISCO, is the “first of its kind” created in the US.

Using Google Android-powered mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, the MIAA healthcare app allows physicians to retrieve a patient’s complete health record in real-time, anytime, anywhere, allowing for more informed diagnostics and improved patient care.

Because of the app’s interoperability feature, which makes it possible for it to retrieve information from major electronic health record systems across organisational boundaries, a patient’s lab reports, drug allergies, virals and even x-rays can be viewed within the app. “This new technology will improve patient care by taming the complexity of health care, and reducing the current hassle inherent in a highly fragmented industry,” said Ben Kanter, MD, chief medical informatics officer and pulmonologist, PPH.

Features and Benefits

• User-friendly mobile app
• Anywhere, anytime access to a patient’s complete medical history
• Integrated physician-to-physician messaging, all the while maintaining patient context
• Real-time integration: vital signs monitoring (heart rate, blood pressure, temperature and respiration)
• Automatically adjusts to home, hospital or clinic environment
• Compatible with different software – automatically breaks down records into a common, understandable format

PPH had a live demonstration to showcase the MIAA app’s abilities and various features at the annual Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), for the first time in public, on the 21^st of last month.  According to Orlando Portale, PPH’s Chief Innovation Officer, PPH is eager to share the app with the rest of the healthcare industry and encourages investments in wireless healthcare solutions.  The future is now!