The Best of the Best in Augmented Reality Compete for Top Industry Award

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Ori Inbar

Industry icons Bruce Sterling, Vernor Vinge, Will Wright and Jaron Lanier to judge “The Auggies” – at the worldʼs largest AR event.

Register Today!

SANTA CLARA, CA (April 26, 2011) – The Augmented Reality industry is getting ready to show off a new round of innovation to the technology, media, and marketing communities.  If you ever wondered about the potential of Augmented reality and wanted to check it out up close, you will be excited to know that “The Auggies” returns to the world’s largest augmented reality event, ARE 2011 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in California. The second annual Auggies competition will take place at the heart of Silicon Valley as the brightest minds in the industry put on a show to impress the industry’s most iconic judges and inspire the audience packed with AR enthusiasts.

The thing I like best about ARE is personally witnessing things that never show up on the Internet. There’s a tension in Augmented Reality, between the global scope of the technology and the local character of the teams that produce it. When you’re in the room with committed, creative people — looking them in the eye, breathing the air they are breathing — that’s what makes it an “event.”

- said Bruce Sterling.

For the Auggies competition, augmented reality teams get 5 minutes each on stage and compete for the coolest live AR demo. The panel of judges provides their unabashed comments, critiques and if they are deemed worthy praise. Winners will be voted by the audience and receive the prestigious “Auggies Award.”

The Auggies is the opportunity for AR developers to unveil their vision of the future, not only in terms of technical progress, but also on how creative you can be with this technology. Winning is truly an important recognition from the AR community and it surely means you’re defying the norm and taking one step further.

- said Ivan Franco of YDreams – the 2010 Auggies winner.

Nominations for live demonstrations at the 2011 Auggies include: Previznet, Georgia Tech, Mobilizy, Whistlebox, Ogmento, Metaio, Vertigore, and Occipital.

The competition is still open for additional nominations until May 10th.

The only way to witness the yearly AR battle for the Auggies and participate in the live audience voting is to register for the ARE 2011 event. Event registration is limited and does sell out.

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Special Discount for Games Alfresco Fans for ARE 2011 – an Event Packed with Augmented Reality Goodness!

Posted on March 31, 2011 by Ori Inbar
The second annual Augmented Reality Event (ARE 2011) is unveiling a sneak preview of the schedule for the world’s largest event – focused exclusively on advancing the augmented reality industry.
ARE 2011 will take place in May 17th-18th at the Santa Clara Convention Center in California, and is surely a must-attend event for the Augmented Reality (AR) community, and anyone interested to learn about AR.
****
Join Bruce Sterling (“the prophet” of AR) on the main stage, with Vernor Vinge (author of “Rainbows End” and “The Coming Technological Singularity”), and Will Wright (Legendary game designer of SimCity, The Sims, and Spore). Also returning from last year’s event, Blaise  Aguera Y Arcas (a leader in Microsoft’s mobile strategy), to top his Ted talk demonstrating innovations in Bing Maps and Augmented Reality. And if that’s not enough magic - Marco Tempest, the world’s most notable AR magician will stun the audience with a live augmented magic show.

****

The 2 day event will feature more than 33 hours of talks running the gamut of AR essentials in 3 tracks: Business, Technology and Production:
a) Business – For executives of established and start-up AR companies, as well as mobile hardware companies – in search of business models and promising verticals for AR;  a venue to form partnerships, learn about latest innovations, and most importantly speak with clients.

b) Technology – For Developers, programmers and technologists seeking the latest and greatest engines and tools for AR; learn from case studies and post mortems delivered by experienced developers from the leading companies in the space.

c) Production – For Producers, designers, project managers (in gaming companies, agencies, marketers, brands, and artists) hungry for proven techniques to leverage augmented reality to advance your brand, attract and keep your customers, and build successful campaigns and products that will delight users.

For a complete list of confirmed speakers checkout the website at: ARE 2011 Speakers

If you are an AR Enthusiast – you will feel like a kid in a candy store at are2011.

Not convinced yet? Check out these special activities:
1) “Startup Launch pad” – Five AR startups present their business models and products in front of an expert panel: VCs, Entrepreneurs, and industry luminaries – hosted by a major industry powerhouse. Winner receives: “ARE Best startup prize” (to be announced.) Submit your proposal here under track: “Startup Launch Pad”.

2) “The Auggies” – Teams get 5 minutes each to present on stage and compete for the coolest live AR demo. An extraordinary trio of judges: Bruce Sterling, Vernor Vinge, and Will Wright, will comment on the demos – American Idol-style. Winners will be determined by the audience and receive the prestigious “Auggies Award.” Submit your proposal here under the “Auggies” track.

3) ARt Gala – A display of AR art projects and live performance art by the world’s top AR artists featuring: Helen Papagiannis, Amir Baradaran, Sander Veenhof and more to be announced. And to make sure all your senses are stimulated – drinks and food are on the house – courtesy of our sponsors.

4) ARE Press Conference – If you are planning to announce a new product or service – secure your spot in the press conference that will kick off the event. Submit your proposal here and add: “Press Conference” in the title.

5) Exhibition and Sponsorships – A small number of booths is still available in the exhibition hall ($995 for 10′x10′).Grab them while they last!

Use ORI295 - special discount for Games Alfresco’s fans and shave off $100 of the already sweet price tag of $395.

Register today for the augmented reality event!

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Pencil and Paper are not Dead: Augmented Reality Sketching Games at VR 2010

Posted on March 21, 2010 by Ori Inbar

Tomorrow, I’ll be at the IEEE VR 2010 conference in Boston. Monday is dedicated to a series of augmented reality presentations.

One of the most interesting one is:

In-Place Sketching for Content Authoring in Augmented Reality Games

By the all star team from Ben Gurion University (Israel) and HIT Lab (New Zealand):

  • Nate Hagbi
  • Raphaël Grasset
  • Oriel Bergig
  • Mark Billinghurst
  • Jihad El-Sana

When it comes to AR games – we are all still searching for “Pong” a simple game that will captivate millions of players and kickoff this new genre.

One of the challenges in many AR games, is the reliance on printouts of ugly markers.

Plus many games use the markers as controllers which is a bit awkward (especially to a bystander).

Sketching offers an alternative for a more natural user interface.

Sketching is more natural than drawing with a mouse on a PC, even more intuitive that a touch screen. That’s still the first thing that kids are taught in school.

It’s not necessarily a better interface – but it’s an alternative that offers a very intuitive interaction, and enriched the player’s experience. I believe it could create a whole new genre of games.

In place sketching in AR games has huge potential in gaming – but many questions arise:

  • What’s the design space for such a game?
  • What are the tools to be used?
  • How do you understand what the player meant in a sketch?
  • What’s the flow of interaction?
  • How do you track it?

What’s “In-place AR”?  It’s when the augmented content is extracted from the real world (an illustration, an image , a sketch, or a real life object)

Here is the sequence of research efforts leading to this:

Here are 2 game prototypes the team created called AR Gardener and Sketch-Chaser. It is played on a regular white board.

AR Gardener

Draw symbols on the white board and 3D content is pulled from a database of objects to appeas in an Augmented Reality (AR) scene.

The sketch determines what object to create, its location, scale, and rotation.

The outer line sketched here defines the game anchor and is served for tracking; in this game it becomes a brown ridge.

Simple symbols drawn generate a couple of benches, a cabin, and in the spirit of the playground theme – rockers, and swings.

Virtual elements could also be created based on a real life object such as a leaf; here it is used to create a patch of grass using the color and shape of the leaf (and no, it can’t recognize that’s a leaf, or 3D object whatsoever)

The color of the marker could define the type of virtual object created: For example, blue represents water. Other objects that are put in it will sink.

Sketch-Chaser

In the second game you basically create an obstacle course for a car chase.

It’s a “catch the flag” or tag game. The winner is whoever has the flag for the most time.

First you draw, then play.

Once again, the continuous brown line represents a ridge and bounds the game.

A small circle with a dot in it represents the starting point for the cars.

A flag becomes the flag to capture. A simple square creates a building, etc.

The player adds more ridges to make it more challenging. Adds blue to generate a little pond  (which also indicates a different physical trait to this area)

Then – graphics are generated, the players grab their beloved controllers and the battle begins!

This research represents an opportunity for a whole new kind of game experience that could make kids play more in the real world.

Many questions still remain, such as how do you recognize in a sketch what the player really means without requiring her to be an artist or an architect. Or where does the sketch fit in the game play? Before, after or during?

Now, it’s up to game designers to figure out what sketching techniques work best, what’s fun, what’s interesting, and what’s just a doodle.

Who want’s to design an sketch-based augmented reality a game?

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Magic, Games, Education, and Live Coding at the Augmented Reality Meetup in NYC

Posted on March 17, 2010 by Ori Inbar

Magic, games, education, even live AR coding – we had it all last night at the Augmented Reality Meetup NY (or as we fondly like to call it ARNY.)

51 AR enthusiasts showed up in an amazing location (Thanks Sophia!) – out of 211 registered members – but who’s counting…we are all about quality ;) What I like about this group is that it represents all walks of life: developers, gamers, attorneys, artists, journalists, magicians, even a police officer!

ARNY’s purpose is to help advance the business of Augmented Reality, by bringing together the best of AR with the best talent in NYC. And have fun while at it.

Thanks to Chris Grayson, the “revolution” was “televised” (aka live streamed)

In case you want to remotely take part in this meetup, or any other AR meetup around the world – there is a site for that: ARmeetup.org. (Last night wasn’t recorded due to a Ustream glitch)

Yours truly kicked off the evening with a recount of AR at GDC by the Numbers. Sony Move was the most exciting AR news at GDC.

Then, a fantastic lineup of speakers took the stage:

1) Alejandro Echeverría – Student at Engineering School in Chile, who came all the way from Chile just to be with us (seriously he’s a visiting student at NYU) – presented Games for learning with AR. I loved the simple yet memorable approach to use movement and augmented reality to teach kids about electricity.

2) Patrick O’Shaughnessey - Patched Reality – FLAR in Five: building a FLAR app “from scratch” (mostly) in five minutes. Patrick which is one of the most experienced AR developers out there received the bravery medal of the evening for demostrating live coding!

The feature presentation of the evening was next:

The man you’ve all been waiting for. He’s been traveling all over the world, blowing people’s mind with his AR magic show – and today he’s here, live at ARNY. Ladies and gentleman please welcome – Marco Tempest!

3) Marco Tempest – The highly anticipated Augmented Reality magician brought the house down.

See a live account of the show, along with a rare explanation of how it all works – in the video below:

4) Ohan Oda – Archemist – Augmented Reality Game with Goblin XNA

Last on on the program was another kind of magician, returning fresh from a demo at the game developer conference in San Francisco; he’s known for Goblin XNA – a development framework for AR applications for the Windows platform, and an avid AR game developer. This time, Ohan demonstrated his latest gravity-based AR game using Vuzix Goggles: Arble.

Here’s a video of a previous game with a similar mechanic.

UPDATE: Here’s a live video by ARNY member David Polinchock.

Next was my favorite part – high energy conversations in smaller teams. That’s where the true magic happens. Free beer courtesy of Topp didn’t hurt at all; the discussions went on late into the night.

UPDATE: Check out live commentary by AR aficionado Dan Romescu – all the way from Germany.

But wait, there is more!

Have you registered to the Augmented Reality Event (ARE 2010 in 2-3 June, 2010 – Santa Clara, CA)?

You are in luck.

Here is a discount code for the first 100 folks to register to the event (before the end of March). Go to the registration page, type in code AR245 and you’ll be asked to pay only $245 for 2 full days of AR goodness.

Watching AR prophet Bruce Sterling, and gaming legend Will Wright deliver keynotes for this price – is a magnificent steal. And on top, participating in more than 30 talks by AR industry leaders will turn these $254 into your best investment of the year ;)

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Live from GDC: Augmented Reality at the Game Developers Conference – by the Numbers

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Ori Inbar
Reporting live from The Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, with my Augmented Reality filter on – here are the stats:

0 (Zero)

Number of mentions of Augmented Reality during Sid Meier’s keynote - the game design legend behind “Civilization”
Truth be told –  also missing from the keynote were mobile games, social games, casual games, and virtual goods…

0.1

Number of mentions of Augmented Reality in 10 Microtalks by 10 of the most revered visionaries in the game industry
Jesse Schell touched on the impact of games on reality (AKA Gamepocalypse) as an epilogue to his mind blowing Dice Talk

1

Number of mentions by investors on a panel about how to get funded
Brought up as example of games that will help developers differentiate themselves. The advice: build real life RPGs!

2

Mentions of Augmented Reality  during Facebook’s Social Games Summit Keynote
Gareth Davis touted augmented reality twice as the next generation of mobile social games.

3

Number of press articles about augmented reality during the GDC week

3.5

Number of GDC sessions focused on Augmented Reality
(on a personal rant – my submission for a talk titled “Put a Spell: Post Mortem of the first augmented reality learning game for the iPhone” was shamefully rejected!)

5

Number of Augmented Reality game demos on the exhibition floor
  • Sony EyePet and Move
  • Vuzix presented a game by Ohan Oda – Columbia University (video below shows a similar game)
  • AR Drone CES sensation by Parrot and Int13;
  • Nestle Cereal box as controller by 3DVia-Dassault Systemes;
(Metaio skipped the show this year and is betting on SxSW with ScavengAR)

6

Number of AR capable devices showcased at the event
iPhone, Android, DSi, Sony EyeToy. Plus Windows Phone 7, and Xbox Natal – promised to be released before the end of 2010 (NVidia mobile AR demo was MIA – missing In Action)

27

The least number of back-room meetings focusing on augmented reality which took place at GDC
(or in other words – meetings I was part of…)

100

Percentage of game developers familiar with the concept of augmented reality
(based on my anecdotal survey)

∞ (infinity)

Amount of inspiration at the event for designing augmented reality games

***

So how does GDC 2010 compare with last year’s Tiny Spark of Augmented Reality?
In a nut shell: Augmented Reality made progress in mind share – but not yet in real impact on the game industry.
Wanted: Game Designers to build Augmented Reality Games!

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Who Should Attend The Augmented Reality Event in Santa Clara, CA June 2nd & 3rd, 2010

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Ori Inbar

Over the last 2 years we have seen growing interest in Augmented Reality in various events – panels, dev camps, meetups – and many more. Due to growing demand for knowledge and expertise in augmented reality (AR), a group of AR industry insiders, backed by the AR Consortium have put together the first commercial event dedicated to advance the business of augmented reality.

How is are2010 different from ISMAR…

…previously touted here as the “World’s best Augmented Reality event”?

Well, ISMAR is still the best AR event for the scientific community. If you want to learn about (or present) the latest advancements in AR research – you should be in Seoul this October for ISMAR 2010. However, for the rest of us, who wish to take advantage of AR in practice, in the commercial world, and build a business around it – there was a gaping hole.

That is, until now.

Meet the Augmented Reality Event.

Who’s this event for?

For established and start up AR companies -

For established and start up AR companies (such as Total Immersion, Metaio, Acrossair, Ogmento, Circ.us, Mobilizy, Layar, Zugara, Neogence, whurleyvision, Chaotic Moon Studios, and many more) – are2010 is a stage to showcase their products and services; a venue to form partnerships, learn about latest innovations, and most importantly speak with clients. Bruno Uzzan, CEO of Total Immersion will wow the audience with a cutting edge augmented reality show; Peter Meier, CTO of Metaio, will speak about his companies latest products. Early stage startups and individual developers will receive guidance from Cole Van Nice (Chart Venture Partners) for how to build a successful company in the AR space, including raising funding (from VCs that actually invest in AR), licensing technology and IP, legal aspects, forging partnerships, etc. Christine Perey will speak about the scope of the mobile AR industry today and it’s growth trajectory.

For Developers -

For developers, are2010 is a window into the latest AR algorithms, engines and programming tools. Learn from case studies and post mortems delivered by experienced developers from the leading companies in the space. Blair MacIntyre, director of the GVU Center’s Augmented Environments Lab at Georgia Tech, will speak about his experience with tools and technologies while developing augmented reality games. Daniel Wagner, one of the leading mobile AR researchers in the world, will bring developers into the wonderful world of mobile AR. Patrick O’Shaughnessey, which has lead the development of more webcam-based AR campaigns than anyone else I know – will share his knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. Mike Liebhold, Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future , will speak about Technology foundations of an Open ARweb. Gene Becker, co-founder of AR DevCamp, will dive into augmented reality and ubiquitous computing, and Sean White, a pioneer in Green Tech AR will suggest concrete examples of how AR can help save the planet

For Mobile, Hardware, and Platform Companies

For Mobile, Hardware, and Platform companies (such as Vuzix, Nokia, Qualcomm, Intel, QderoPateo, Microsoft, Google, Apple etc.) are2010 consists of a captive audience to launch and showcase their latest devices, processors, AR glasses, sensors, etc. The best collective minds of the AR commercial world will be onsite to articulate the market demand characteristics and help influence the design of future hardware.

For Clients and Agencies -

For clients and agencies in entertainment, media, publishing, education, healthcare, government, tourism, and many more – are2010 offers everything you need to know about AR: how to leverage augmented reality to advance your brand, attract and keep your customers, and how to build successful campaigns and products that will delight users, including postmortems of landmark augmented reality projects.

Jarrell Pair, CTO and a founder of LP33.tv, will speak about “Augmented Reality in Music Entertainment: Then and Now”, Brian Selzer, co-founder and President of Ogmento, will deliver a crash course for clients and agencies about how to leverage AR in marketing campaigns. Marshal Kirkpatrick, lead blogger for ReadWriteWeb, will share the results of his AR survey collecting feedback from dozens of AR developers and their experience in delivering AR campaigns and apps. Kent Demain, designer of the visual effects in Minority Report, will open our minds with the talk: “Taking Hollywood visual effects spectacle out of the theatre and into your world”. And of course…

For any AR Enthusiast -

Are you an AR Enthusiast? If so, you’re going to feel like a kid in a candy store at ARE, with a soon-to-be unforgettable keynote by Bruce Sterling, demo gallery, exhibitors from leading companies, artists installations from AR artists such as Eric Gradman and Helen Papagiannis, and many more surprises.

If you are into Augmented Reality – are2010 is the one event you should attend this year.

Want to join the event? Early registration is now open!

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How to Produce Augmented Reality Applications: Share Your Experience and Help Nurture a Healthy Industry

Posted on January 25, 2010 by Ori Inbar
Marshal Kirkpatrick, the lead blogger for Read Write Web – one of the first tech blogs to dive into the fascinating field of augmented reality  - is working on a research report about the use of AR for marketing.
In order to generate data for the report  that best reflects the market reality – he has put together a survey.
In fact, he prepared two surveys: one for webcam-based AR applications, and a second for mobile AR applications.
Here’s Marshal’s message:
We hope that people in the industry will be
interested in anonymously contributing their knowledge so we can all benefit from the aggregate results.   The intended respondents for these surveys are people who have built or have hired other people to build AR apps.  The intended readership of the results are people who are interested in hiring AR developers.  We hope this information will help more people feel comfortable hiring AR developers, that more information will be good for the AR economy and the people who want to be a part of it.   We’ll be sending the results out to everyone who participates, along with a discount code if you’d like to purchase the larger research report this will be a part of.   If you’ve got any questions you can email me at marshall@readwriteweb.com  Thanks for you time taking these surveys.
This is a most welcome collaboration between ReadWriteWeb and Gamesalfresco, and we intend to share the highlights of this initiative on this blog.
***
Expect a talk by Marshall about this initiative at this year’s most anticipated AR commercial Event - coincidentally titled the Augmented Reality Event, scheduled for Jun 2-3, 2010 in Santa Clara, California.

To access the surveys go to:

Webcam AR

Mobile AR

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Live From NYC – Part II: Augmented Reality Developer Camp

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Ori Inbar

If you missed our coverage of the morning – read part I.

Rain turned into snow and a ground breaking discussion was kicked off:

Yours truly proposed an open collaborative game development project: The Big NYC Game – a city wide augmented reality game for New York by New Yorkers.

It would be launched by 2010 June’s Come Out and Play Festival.

Everybody was on board and the ideas kept flowing into the room faster than you could spell: ARDEVCAMPNYC. Wow what a great team!

The discussion consisted of multiple layers:

From technical considerations (what AR engines and devices to use?)

…thru game concepts (learning about AR, teaching how to build AR games)

…and game play (Easter eggs, capture the flag, learn about NYC history)

…and even government relations and promotional activities with local businesses.

Here is a set of slides I captured during the discussion.

If you like the idea and want to join – let us know!

Tish captured the rest of the sessions and took many pictures which can be found on her blog UgoTrade.

Sophia (the organizer of the day) added a quick summary and reference for follow ups.

And if you are wondering what happened at the (bigger) sister event on the left coast (HackerDojo in Mountain View) – here are some snippets:

Mike Libehold (IFTF) summarized the event with these words:

Turnout  for the 12 hour ARdevcamp  at the Hacker dojo was mind boggling. I estimated that at peak, 130-140  people were in and out of the space more comfortable for 70-80.

it was a  barely disciplined massively parallel and fun! dialog  (and party) in 40 discrete sessions, mostly technical and social, with exponentially complex interactions in between all day into evening. We asked everyone to log their session notes on the ardevcap wiki, but the huge crowd flooded the meager DSL connection  from the building, complained they couldn’t post pages.  I haven’t had a chance to explore,  or inspect damages yet.

The mass of expert devcampers  was simply astounding  and uniformly brilliant hackers, mobile techies, mappers,image recognition scientists, 3D, artists, media designers, nav, techies, game designers, a  teacher  a museum guy . . .

The dialog was multi-disciplinary, definitely friendly towards, but not closely focused yet  specifically on  an open ARweb, data interoperability, software and service ecosytems, APIs, rendering and UI conventions. I suspect all of these were discussed in some depth, but but not yet logged.

David Cheney summary of the day

Summary of AR and art session

More Photos

AR is certainly gearing up to start 2010 with a bang!

Next event in NYC is the Augmented Reality New York Meetup – ARNY. Join today!

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Live from NYC: Augmented Reality Dev Camp

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Ori Inbar

On a rainy Saturday morning, the Canal strip is already busy. Just a block away, a group of passionate (how else would you explain the Sat morning meetup) techies are hauling up  the elevator to Topp’s Penthouse – The Open Planning Project. The coolest work place I have ever seen.

About 20 people are in the room + 10 on Skype (from Europe and the US)
In the spirit of unconference – all the rules are broken in the first 5 minutes…the day is kicked off with a session about PyGo Wave and a discussion about using Google wave (XMPP protocol) for distributed Augmented Reality.

Welcome to the NYC AR Dev Camp. In a few hours a parallel session will start on the left coast in Mountain View.

Next is introductions of the passionistas on location:

Sophia Parafina – Open GEO (and the organizer of the event – thanks!)

Tish Shute – UgoTrade blog + Using Google Wave for distributed AR on the internet
Omer Gunes From NYU MLP -
Steven Feiner -  Columbia Professor for the AR lab
Don Schwartz – Demystifying tech, virtual worlds
Name – Local search, social search
Kate Chapman – web developer FortiusOne
Dimitri Darras – web dev
Ohan Oda – PHd from Columbia – Goblin XNA
Sean White – Columbia, Smithsonian institution
Ori Inbar – Games alfresco author, Founder of Ogmento – maker of AR games.
Dan Leslie – web consulting reflections delta: will launch a loc based social graph analysis tool (iPhone)
MZ – startup to develop a platform to use semantic data to enable virtual worlds
Jon Russek – film production + law + internet. Interested in AR as artistic medium for creativity
Bert Picot – entrepreneur – live entertainment ticketing. learn about AR
Steven Henderson – Columbia – AR for procedural applications
Matthew Pierce – a writer – interested in user experience

Davide Byron – developed the game Spads and Fokkers and code
Chris Grayson – Web developer and marketing consultant
Marco Neumann – KONA
Noah Zerkin – The inventor of the Zerkin glove

Who have I missed?

What shall we talk about?

Sean White volunteers to moderate the discussion, and collcts these topics on the board:
-egalitarian usage – relevance of AR to small businesses
-limitations of mobile devices (handsets) – how to overcome limitations in the near-mid term
-open marker system (database) to be implemented for global use (what role RFID might play?)
-what about voice recognition as input – multimodal (ARXML voice protocol?)
-computer infrastructure for sensor fusion (current apps only use limited sets of sensors) blue tooth?
-create a sound map based on a picture?
(Sean mentions an iphone app for hearing impaired)
-revenue models ?
-use AR for advertising, enhancing existing tech and business models
-Big NY game (location based, social, AR game built for NYC by New Yorkers!)
-where does AR meet traditional motion tracking?
-natural feature tracking
-intersection of AR and semantic web – using AR as basis for formal models on the web
-patent land mines? (GEOVector)

Lots of great topics. Sean proposes to group them into 4 categories and have a vote:

1) Business

2) Standards

3) Tech

4) Apps and games

Surprisingly, business and Apps get the most votes!

Now we are off to a lunch break (Denno Coil playing on the screen). Will continue after the break.

To get a sense how cool this location is – checkout this video (courtesy of Sean White)

Ohan Oda presents “his baby” from Columbia university: Goblin XNA a development tool for AR games based on the Microsoft XNA game development environment. See more info.

Questions range the gamut from -” what does it run on?” (anything as long as it’s a Microsoft platform…) to “how much can it be customized?” (practically anything – it’s open source!)

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ISMAR 2009 Epilogue: A New Augmented Reality World Order

Posted on October 23, 2009 by Ori Inbar

ISMAR 2009 is over.

It was the best of times. Augmented to the Nth degree.

How does the world of Augmented Reality looks like in the morning after?

Eager, revolutionary, strong, creative, responsible, loving – with a speck of a hang over.

Does it feel any different than before?

Well, a few tectonic plates have shifted overnight.

Here it is, my -

Top 10 tidbits reshaping the augmented reality industry:

1) AR Browsers make peace not war
Augmented reality browsers and navigation apps have been the media darlings of 2009. They have been depicted as gladiators battling to the death (we take some of the blame). ISMAR, on the contrary, was all about love and peace. On Monday’s Mobile Workshop, Robert Rice and I had the privilege to moderate a session about collaboration in the AR industry. Picture this: Layar, Wikitude, Junaio (from Metaio), and Across Air sitting around a table planning a communication standard for augmented reality information. I had a tear at the corner of my eye.

Missing in action: Presselite, Tonchidot, RobotVision, GeoVector…

2) Mobile is king, and the iPhone is the emperor’s new clothes

In 2009, ISMAR organizers decided to feature Mobile Augmented Reality (driven by Christine Perey) as the highlight of the event (duh!). The event guide explains: “much of the media and consumer attention is on mobile AR…because AR is increasingly with users where ever [they go].” The intention manifested itself allover the place: in workshops (“Present, Future, and the Roadmap to Mobile AR”, “Outdoor AR”), tutorials (Introduction to Handheld AR), sessions (Human interfaces, Human Factors, Tracking on mobile devices), announcements (Junaio, Artoolkit on the iPhone), posters (Streaming on mobile phones, In-situ outdoor geo models, Clinical Training experiences, Egocentric space distortion for environment exploration, Learning on the iPhone, and EyePly – mobile AR for sporting events), and demos (first panda ever to appear at ISMAR, PTAM on an iPhone.)

And all this hoopla around a phone that requires you to access a private API for live video?

3) Vuzix leading the pack in AR glasses

Photo Credit: Ron Azuma (Nokia)

Photo Credit: Ron Azuma (Nokia)

Mobile AR was all the rage, but AR aficionados in-situ were hungry for new AR glasses that will truly unleash its power. ORA Lab and Canon still offer huge-expensive HMDs; Microvision is focused on thick military grade monocle, and Nokia tries to leapfrog with way-cool gaze tracking but poor display (check out Thomas Carpenter’s post for more on ISMAR HMDs.)

This leaves Vuzix lonely at the top with with the only see-around, semi-dorky, inexpensive glasses (the envy of any Panda)

PandaVuzix

Missing in action: Lumus

4) Sketch is the new marker

Oriel_Nate

Best student paper award went to Oriel, Nate et al. for AR Sketch (which featured in our top post and popular video). Their work is revolutionizing the AR world by avoiding the need to print markers – or any images whatsoever.

Two other winner were Steven Henderson (with Steven Feiner) for “Augmented Reality for Task Localization in Maintenance of an Armored Personnel Carrier Turret” and honorable mention for the lovely Susanna Nilsson (with Bjorn Johansson) for “AR to support cross-organisational collaboration in dynamic tasks”(read: disaster relief) – but both would have made scarry headlines: “Tanks Take Over ISMAR” or “Fire sweeps ISMAR”…

Missing in action: Daniel Wagner – who delivered his best paper yet: con-graz on your new baby!

5) Qualcomm spearheads as the most aggressive chip maker in AR

As diamond sponsor of the event, and with its own Jay Wright painting the vision for AR in 2012, as well as bravely moderating the controvertial “Past and Future of ISMAR” Panel -  Qualcomm leapfrogged the other chip makers to become the most sincere contender in the future of AR devices.

Missing in action: Nvidia

6) Microsoft – the new big player to watch

Georg Klein, inventor of PTAM-on-an-iPhone (and the smartest Computer Vision guy on the block) joins Microsoft to make Mobile AR. Look out for Microsoft.

7) Minority report VFX designer is looking for the next big thing in AR

The mere presence of guy with the most enviable AR credentials in the world (the guy who designed VFX for minority report), Kent Demaine, signaled the entrance of AR into the major leagues. Now he just needs to convince J.J. Abrahams to make a movie out of Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End.

8) New ARtist in charge

At ISMAR 2008, only one artist was present at the show and easily grabbed my Most Beautiful Demo award. In 2009 with a whole new tarck for Humanities, Arts and Media – the competition was more intensive. One artist came above all with commercial-quality, entertaining-yet-sophisticated pieces – and proved that with good design today’s technology is ready for prime time. Helen Papagiannis is the new AR artist-in-charge.

9) The AR ivory tower has been shaken
The fearless Pattie Maes presented, in front of an AR-only crowd, her popular off-mainstream augmented reality project the Six Sense making the point that with simple technology, low cost components, and clever design -  it may be easy to bring the digital world into the physical one.

Although they all saw it coming – the audience was stumped.

Just check out who asked the questions:

Mark Billinghurst – “have you evaluated the user experience with users?”
Steven Feiner – “It won’t work on large buildings, would it?”
Bruce Thomas – “What about privacy?”

Nuff said.

10) AR goes commercial
This was already the 10th ISMAR yet since the first – multiple attempts were made to bring AR to consumers – but the market has been elusive. This year, was the first time were consumer-oriented products were introduced. From Layar to Wikitude to Across Air and the just-announced Junaio, and learning games like Ogmento‘s Put a Spell – ISMAR became the breading ground for commercial AR. Christine Perey even dares to estimate Mobile AR revenue in 2009 to hit $10 Million. The tsunami is coming, prepare your surf boards.

~*~*~*~

If you feel this list is lacking or biased, I kindly refer you to the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which states that one can not measure both position and momentum in precision, because the mere observation affects the results. Beat that excuse – brainiacs.
(thanks Noah for the pointer)

By the way, I finally discovered why Korea is at the epicenter of the Augmented Reality world: How do you say “good morning” in Korean?

To find the answer you’ll have to come to ISMAR next year in Korea!
(hint: 증강 현실)

How did ISMAR change YOUR view of the AR world?

~*~*~*~

Other ISMAR 2009 posts you mustn’t miss:

ISMAR Demo preview

Our ISMAR 2008 link collection

Stay tuned for links to videos and presentations here and at the ISMAR society site.


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