Can Augmented Reality Help Save the Print Publishing Industry?

By Chris Cameron at ReadWriteWeb…

There’s a memorable scene in the movie Minority Report where a man reads a futuristic newspaper with rich embedded multimedia updating live with breaking news. While we are a long way seeing anything like this in the hands of the general public, a German newspaper has taken a small step in that direction with the release of a special augmented reality (AR) edition of its Friday magazine.

Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ), Germany’s largest national newswspaper, has partnered with Munich-based AR vendor metaio to provide subscribers with an immersive reading experience that hints at the future of publishing. The experience is similar to Esquire’s augmented reality edition from November of 2009, but with advancements that have been made to smartphone AR technology, a desktop webcam is not needed to view the content. More…