Nokia Research talks about a new sensor based prototype application for mobile devices called Mobile Augmented Reality Applications that allows real-world physical objects to be identified by your mobile phone camera.
Using the absolute location, orientation of a camera and properties of the lens, it is possible to determine exactly what parts of the scene are viewed by the camera. The MARA prototype application uses accelerometers in all three axes to determine orientation, a tilt compensated compass for heading, and GPS for positioning. Since these sensors give the (approximate) location and orientation, it is possible to annotate the viewfinder screen with information about real world objects, once the device is focusing on those objects.

Once the real world object has been identified and saved as a virtual object on your mobile, one can:

-Find locations more easily by highlighting them on-screen with Virtual Object
-URLs can be associated with Virtual Objects, allowing for hyper-linking of real world objects
-Objects can be stored on the terminal, or streamed from a server. Streaming allows users to share positioning data, facilitating “Find a Friend” style applications
-automatically switch to map-view when the user holds the phone horizontally. This displays the users’ position on a map of the area, and highlights nearby virtual objects.