I shot hoops at the top of a high-rise with Sturfee’s AR mobile platform

I made a few baskets while shooting hoops at the side of a San Francisco high-rise. 

No, really, take a look: 

Powered by the Sturfee cloud, the smartphone I carried on a walking tour of San Francisco’s waterfront recognized the 3D surroundings I was based out of and added a layer of augmented reality — all in real time. When I held up the phone to one building, a basketball hoop appeared on the top of it. When I swiped at the screen, I was shooting baskets over the real traffic passing by. The drivers were none the wiser.

Using satellite imaging, Sturfee’s CEO Anil Cheriyadat is able to make any city into an AR playground. Already, 15 cities have partnered with Bay Area-based Sturfee (a combination of the words “street” and “surfing”) to provide the computer vision tools for various apps and tools. In Japan, Sturfee is working behind the scenes to power telecommunications giant KDDI with an app, amongst other digital services, to provide navigation information during the upcoming Tokyo Olympics — all through smartphones.

You’ve likely experienced some form of AR through Snapchat or Instagram with filters that add a dancing hot dog or other visual flair to a real-time selfie or snapshot. Sturfee can work with social networks, entertainment apps, navigation tools, advertising, tour guides, or other more personalized experiences. The benefit of satellite imagery is that it covers pretty much everywhere since most of the world is digitally captured, and Sturfee can modify those surroundings through its platform. 

Here’s a real-life example of Sturfee showing how you could use AR for ride-sharing to know which car to get into when you order a vehicle. Or giant arrow overlays could appear to show you where to meet your ride-hailing driver. Sheng Huang, head of business operations and partnerships, said at the demo that “navigation is just the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to how companies, cities, media outlets, and more can use AR. 

A digital avatar walked and talked me through a 15-minute tour of San Francisco last week, bringing up restaurant menus when I held the phone over physical store fronts and listing facts for an office building. This all happened right before my eyes (through the phone screen), but in a 3D space. Instead of noticing the restaurant Angler across the street and opening up the Yelp app for more information, menus, Yelp ratings, and more, the information popped up as I gazed at the camera screen. Everything was presented in 3D instead of the usual 2D format.

For now, Sturfee is focusing on adding AR through smartphones, but “that’s just the beginning,” as Cheriyadat noted. Facebook recently confirmed forthcoming AR glasses. Just this week rumors picked up about an Apple AR headset. 

Walking down the street just got livelier.