Yelp: Shake phone thrice
By Shalini Singh

Yelp was launched in 2004 and has now become America’s most popular business review site. It is particularly popular among Americans who want to check reviews before eating out.  It also has Yelp Events and special offers.  According to Yelp, more than 24 million people visited it in July. Its Indian equivalent is ‘Burrp!’.

Yelp has just released its new application for the Apple iPhone which has a secret feature also known as an ‘Easter egg’.  Many games and even search engines like Google have often featured hidden ‘Easter eggs’ which if discovered add to the fun of using the software.

American super blogger Robert Scoble was the first to discover the Easter egg hidden in the Yelp Application for the new iPhone 3GS.  Apparently,  if you shake your iPhone 3 times it activates a feature labeled ‘Monocle’ which sources all the relevant information from the Yelp database and superimposes it on the video of the restaurant being taken on the phone. Put simply,  it can show you neighbouring businesses and what Yelp customers have to say about that particular restaurant.

This technology is known as ‘Augmented Reality’ and was only meant to be allowed in the next version of the Apple iPhone. Yelp has managed to sneak it past Apple checks done before an application if formally approved to be sold in their online store.