What is the Sodar App? Google develops app to ensure social distancing

During this time of the pandemic, the world is trying its best to contain the virus. Social distancing, masks, sanitizers and more have become weapons to prevent oneself from getting affected. While the world is changing, many applications and software have emerged that helps a user to protect themselves from going to places where a COVID-19 patient must have visited. However, there was no app that could help a user understand if someone is coming closer than the pandemic guidelines recommend until Google launched its new Sodar App.

What is the Sodar App?

Google-developed Sodar app has now enabled all the smartphone users to have a new way to let themselves know if a person is closer than the stated distance from one another. This tool is available from this week and uses Android smartphone cameras to put the users of the application in the centre of a circle which as a radius of about two meters, or 6.5 feet. If any nearby person comes inside the circumference of the circle, the user gets notified. The interface is simple and is similar to the smartphone game PokemonGo which uses the perimeter augmented reality technology.

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These circular perimeters move around with users while the smartphone remains the centre of it. The users of the Sodar app get a visual warning when they are within the potentially hazardous radius. The Google-developed application works the Google Chrome browser on Android smartphones that support augmented reality, according to the reports. The website of the Google Sodar website stated that this experiment uses WebXR to visualise 2-metre social-distancing guidelines in your environment.

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Apart from this, Indian users are using the reportedly world's most downloaded healthcare app, Aarogya Setu. The Government health app was officially launched by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Government of India. The app is a location-based Coronavirus tracker app that allows the user to understand if they have come in contact with any COVID-19 positive patient. The application not only provides COVID updates but also includes an interactive form that allows everyone to check themselves for COVID symptoms, and guides them to see a doctor if needed. Using Aarogya Setu and Sodar app will help users to maintain the social distancing norms and keep themselves safe at the same time.

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