With the release of faster, more powerful and feature equipped phones we’ve been able to do more and more with the one device in our pockets. The iPhone propelled the smartphone to new heights and smack bang into the public conciousness, but it’s with Android that the biggest innovation might come. A couple of reviewers looking over the new Samsung i7500 aka the Galaxy, took the phone for a little jaunt armed with an augmented reality app. The purpose of this app? To track people including celebrities.

Although I would have though that this kind of app wouldn’t be particularly useful, the reviewer was able to track positions of various people inside an apartment block with just his phone pointed at the building. The whole escapade culminates in the reviewers locating and somewhat harassing Brad Pitt (assumed). The video is in Dutch, but skip to 2:30 odd for the action. The look on Mr. Pitt’s face is unmistakable. I feel sorry for him and others like him. Armed with this kind of app, the celebrity culture that we live in now will hound them till they just can’t escape. Don’t get me wrong, this kind of person locating augmented reality app is such a great idea, but you should have some control over it. Something like Google Latitude, which enables you to authorise and share your location with only certain people is undoubtedly the way forward. Whether developers will build in that kind of stringent privacy protection is however debatable. It’s certainly a powerful demonstration of what is possible with the i7500 however.

[Via Engadget]