We are just 3 and a half months away from another Augmented Reality Event, the world’s largest AR event, and I can’t wait. As one of the event chairs, I can share with you a secret – ARE 2012 is going to be even bigger and better than before!

ARE 2012 will take place on May 8, 9 at the Santa Clara Convention Center in California.

ARE is where the people working on, and using, Augmented Reality technologies come together to explore best practices and innovations in software development, tools, business strategies, design and marketing. Developers, technologists, marketers, hardware manufacturers, mobile operators, researchers, designers, startups, business developers, and entrepreneurs gather to share their experiences and learn from their peers.

Submissions

Awareness for augmented reality (AR) is building up and getting stronger and broader all over the world. I can see it by the number of submission for talks pouring in, covering all aspects of augmented reality and venturing into new topics and uncharted industries. Thank you for your fantastic contributions!

If you have an idea for the event, there is still time to submit your proposal for a talk, demo, or become a sponsor and exhibitor.

Schedule

We have published a first glimpse into ARE 2012 schedule to give you a sense of the event structure and the topics that will be tackled. Check out the preliminary schedule. This may still shift a little, but will certainly remain the event backbone. Would love to hear your feedback.

Registration discounts

Make sure to take advantage of the early bird registration. It will save you a $100 (or 20%) from the standard price. But you have to act before March 21st.

If you have ever attended an ARE event before – you are eligible for the Alumni rate. But that offer will only last until February 21 – so act really fast!

Become a member

We have added this year a new membership option. With a mere $49 you can become an official member of the Augmented Reality Event. What is that? A new ploy to extract more from attendees?

Well, first you should know that ARE is a non-profit organization, initiated for the sole purpose of helping to advance the Augmented Reality industry. The new membership has several purposes:

First, it is a new approach to gauge the interest and help fund the video recording and distribution of all event sessions. It has always been the achilles heel of the event. We never found the time and funds to properly edit and distribute the content. So if you are in favor of ARE videos – this is your opportunity to vote. The value of these videos extends way beyond the mere $49.

The second purpose is more strategic in nature. ARE has always been about raising awareness to AR and helping advance the industry. And yet, although it established itself as the largest global AR event, it only takes place once a year. But when you think about it, each year, key players across the industry see the value in taking the time and uniting with their peers for 2 days in Santa Clara; they extract tremendous value from this get together which persists for many subsequent months. So, how about we use this opportunity to build a formal community that will join forces in helping promote awareness to augmented reality on a global and local basis? How about we extend the magic for the entire year?

We are not yet sure where this will go, but thought we should give it a go. If people sign up and show solidarity, it will be a great motivator to keep it going even after we all leave Santa Clara.

At the event, ARE members will bear a distinguishable badge, so you will be able to spot them from afar. So make your choice: do you want to be that guy with the plain-looking badge? ;)

Seriously, if you care about raising awareness to AR, and want to contribute as well as benefit from this program, join the ARE membership this year. The videos alone are worth the cost. The free T-shirt makes it a steal. Helping spread the word about AR is…priceless.

Register for ARE 2012 here

And now she’s putting out a Augmented Reality Pop-Up Book for mobile devices using image recognition.  The book can be enjoyed alone or with the enhanced graphics using an iPad2 or iPhone4.

What I like most about her Pop-Up book is that Helen gets what AR is all about.  Or really what it is–a medium to transfer information.  If you handed the book and the iPad2 to a child and told them to play around, you wouldn’t have to worry that they wouldn’t “get” augmented reality.  They wouldn’t require an explanation or that “AR is that thing on the first down line in football.”  They would just play.

Helen is a natural storyteller, as seen by TEDx talk.  Even her twitter account is called @ARStories (I wish I’d thought of that one.)  She gets that AR is all about telling stories in new and interesting ways, whatever the level of technology.  She used the tools at hand, in this case the AR browser Junaio, to make her Pop-Up book.

And as the technology advances, so too will the level of stories being told.  I expect from this simple Pop-Up book, that we’ll be seeing more of Helen for quite some time.

You can find Helen at her blog – Augmented Stories.

To participate in the NYC Culture Hunt campaign, users download the free GoldRun application from the Apple iTunes Store, and select the NYC Culture Hunt “run” to follow it.

The GoldRun campaign challenges Flavorpill readers to find and visit 10 of the most influential venues in New York City’s entertainment, arts, and education scene. Participants will visit each location, in teams of five, where they will capture an interactive virtual object using the GoldRun app. Capturing all 10 objects will lead players to a secret Flavorpill party, followed by an afterparty conceived by local artist collective, CHERYL.

“GoldRun was able to seamlessly tie into their promotion, adding a unique layer of engagement so participants could experience the event on a deeper level,” says Alex Poole, GoldRun’s Director of Strategy & Engagement. “We worked closely with Flavorpill to creatively integrate their partners into GoldRun’s built-in technology and create this dynamic experience.”

Its about the message, not the medium.

The game is for the Microsoft Kinect only and utilizes the characters to immerse you into their insanity.  What I love about the Rabbids and AR is that it gets you out of the gimmick and into AR.  Right now what holds most applications of AR back is that they’re focused on the trick and not telling a good story.  Rabbids are weird and at times, unexplainable, but playing their games helps you forget there’s a thing called AR at all.  And that’s a good thing.

Looking forward to when this game comes out.

Virtual Fitting Room for Topshop

AR Door, a Russian agency specialized in Augmented Reality solutions, teamed up with Topshop, a woman and man clothes retailer, to create a virtual fitting room for a new collection of dresses Dress up.

A special kiosk for the fitting room was installed at the flagman Topshop store in Moscow at the shopping centre European, 5-8 May 2011.

The virtual fitting room is built on the most sophisticated technologies: augmented reality and Microsoft Kinect. Augmented reality allows the customers to select a garment off the rack without having to try it on physically.  As a customer, you see yourself onscreen with a 3D copy of a dress. Kinect allows the user to control the program by simple gestures pushing virtual buttons right in the air.

To activate the program you don’t need special markers: the built-in camera tracks a person’s body and superimposes over it a 3D model of the dress.

A unique feature that allows the customers to watch both the front and the back parts of the dress was deployed in the Topshop fitting room for the first time in the world practice.

Each combatant is drawn by the player on a game card that is scanned into the game by a camera, and the stats of your ship are determined by the shape, size and colours used to create it.

It was nominated for the ‘Award for Technical Excellence’ at the 2011 FITC Awards, and won the award for ‘Best Experimental Flash’

Doodle War gets my vote.

May 3 (Bloomberg) — Augmented-reality glasses made by Vuzix Corp. may allow soldiers on the ground to coordinate with unmanned drones in the air. Vuzix signed a one-year, $1 million contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop glasses to work with military drones. Bloomberg’s Megan Hughes reports the technology may also have potential civilian applications. (Source: Bloomberg)

Go here to see the video and get a first person POV of the AR glasses in action.

But we do have GPS for our augmented reality apps.

Cue the Imperial March soundtrack and bring out Apple’s turtlenecked front man in role of Darth Jobs.  A recent “bug” was uncovered in iPhone’s software that allowed tracking of the phone user’s location.

Apple claims the data is not the actual smartphone location:

“The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone.”

Either way, it’s a perception that a breech of trust has occurred.  Rather than ramble on about the dangers of this data, and since many of the readers of Games Alfresco are software designers, I thought I would pose a question.  One that won’t be that surprising if you read the title of my post.

Sound off, software developers of the rabid interwebs…

How will you protect your customer’s data exhaust?

Now local areas can be filled in with detail that will help users manage their every day world.  You could add a shortcut through a campus or a favorite hot dog vendor location that doesn’t show up on the normal map.  It’s possible this information could be used for an AR world.

This is huge news for future AR browsers (or current ones if they can draw from this data.)  Augmented reality is essentially information overlain the life sized map of our world.  Maps are just less detailed versions of our world and Google Map Maker helps transition between the two.