In a world crippled with coronavirus, the importance of social distancing can’t be overestimated. As suggested by health experts, maintaining a considerable distance from others is the only way to break the chain of transmission. But how do we do that? How to know if we are considerably away from other people and not putting ourselves at the risk of infection? Is there a way to eliminate the guesswork it involves? As always, technology comes to the rescue!
Google has been doing its bit to help the society contain spread of this virus. The tech giant recently launched a new augmented reality tool meant to assist users in maintaining social distance as per WHO norms. It has been developed under Experiments with Google initiative and not available to download from google play store at the time of writing this.
Available by the name of Sodar, the tool creates a virtual boundary around you using your phone’s camera and adjusts itself as you move. If someone breaches that boundary, an alert is thrown at the screen. Listed below are detailed steps on how to use it:
- Open Sodar on Chrome browser of your Android device.
- Press Enter AR when prompted.
- Point your camera towards the surface and it will start showing you the superimposed boundary.
This content was originally published for my TechTuesday’s initiative on LinkedIn.