Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 hops aboard the London Eye in video

If you've ever floated above our nation's capital in one of the London Eye's great glass baubles, you may have gazed out over the famous urban landscape and wondered what exactly, beyond Big Ben and the BT Tower, you were looking at.

Wonder no more, for Samsung has stepped in to give a helping hand to tourists and ignorant Londoners alike in the svelte form of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android tablet. Each of the Eye's 32 elliptical capsules is now kitted out with six Tabs, all of which feature bespoke content detailing the intricacies of London's skyline.

The Tabs won the bid from among 16 ideas considered as possibilities for revolutionising the London Eye experience and in the video above, Amie Parker-Williams clambers aboard the ferris wheel to take the new technology for a spin.

The slates give passengers touchscreen access to information about what they're looking at and are pegged firmly to the handrails which ring each pod, so no sticky-fingered tea-leaves will be able to make off with them.

Specially curated content includes detailed annotations of various important buildings, 24-hour time-lapse photography of the skyline and the option to view London as it would look during the day or night.

A whole rotation of the Eye takes a whopping 30 minutes so even though each globular pod of the Eye only has six slates, there should be plenty of time to elbow your way in the direction of a Tab and have a quick swipe around. 

On a clear day you can see 40 miles from the top of the Eye to Windsor Castle -- it's unclear if the building descriptions extend that far, but we'd hazard a guess the information will be limited to this side of the M25.

We must say we're not particularly sad to see the back of the traditional fusty old audio guide and awkward headphones and we're glad London's tourist attractions are adopting cutting edge technologies to enhance the visitor experience.

Hit play for a closer look at the new Galaxy Tabs in action. Let us know if you've been to the London Eye recently and had a tinker with this new technology in the comments below or over on our Facebook page.