• Change your perspective with MirrorMap – an augmented reality application that lets you tap to near by CCTV cameras. I think they had a similar thing in Rainbows End.
• Interesting case study from Zugara on the ROI of e-commerce AR software: uniques up 841%, conversion rate rose by 4.2%!
• What AR can learn from the days of early cinema and the fine line between magical and gimmicky by Helen Papagiannis.
• Chauncey is the guy to follow on YouTube, here he is demoing his very own AR helmet. In other videos you can see him reviewing Vuzix gear.
• A revealing interview with Dr. Marco Feuerstein of TU Munich about AR surgery, and why it’s still not a viable option.
• Speaking of interviews, Toby held one about augmented reality for cultural institutions.
• Augmented Planet on AR and NFC. The wave of the future?
• A sneak peek to Layar Vision’s analytics tool

This week’s video comes to us via Etsuji Kameyama’s blog. I often complained about not having the AR equivalent of Angry Birds (ARAB). Well, we are not there yet, but Junaio now features a channel with the boids, enabling users to take picture with them. Even though it’s a wholly new media, still nobody likes the boomerang bird.

 Have a great week!

I think the “share it now” button has a potential to become a huge hit (think Instagram big). What do you think?

 
Update – misunderstood the documentation. You can have different augmentations depending on both location and image.

An augmented reality artwork created by John Goto and Matthew Leach using the Layar platform, Gilt City confronts the banking crisis in an unusual way. Famous beggars appear on your mobile’s screen, and you choose whether to help them, or make them explode. Art – I’ll never understand it, but maybe you will, by reading more about this project here.

Have a grand week!

Have an excellent week!

This week’s video is of a simple augmented reality game, called Tapcloud with an interesting premise. By chasing virtual cloud (and looking a little bit foolish), the game forces you to get some exercise, and even counts the number of calories you burned once it’s game over. The game is available for free on the app store, so you have nothing to lose (except, again, calories).

Have a tremendous week!

• Happy Mother’s Day! It can be even happier if you get your Mom an AR cake (via DMFO)
• Tish Shute and Ori Inbar hold an interview with Bruce Sterling – it doesn’t make sense to write fiction about augmented reality nowadays as AR is not fictional topic anymore.
• As part of the ARE2011 media blitz, Sterling was also interviewed, together with Vernor Vinge on ReadWriteWeb about augmented reality in the workplace.
• Plush toys on sale at a virtual store, existing only in the augmented world of Layar.
• AR games in real life, a photoshop contest at Kotaku. AR remake of ‘They Live’ won first place.
• From now on Wikitude will come preloaded on millions of BlackBerry devices
• The augmented version of the lowly doorbell is a nice use of Junaio
• Guy has an AR marker tattoo done, going to regret it when AR goes completely marker less.

This week’s video is just cute rendition of a possible augmented future, featuring Super Mario Bros villains in real life (via Neatorama):

Have a splendid week!

Paranormal Activity: Sanctuary

I covered this one a month back on the Future Digital Life.  Great game and I loved that it got the kids and I out of the house on late night adventures and using our imaginations.  Nice work, Ogmento.

Paranormal Activity: Sanctuary from Ogmento on Vimeo.

Nintendo 3DS – AR Games

Let’s count the whole suite of them from AR Shot to Fishing.  The game system takes card based AR to a whole new place.  Well, actually, it’s the same place you’re in, but with cool graphics overlain.

AR Soccer

Short and simple but can be addicting for at least as long as it takes your calves to cramp up.

Paparazzi (Qualcomm’s AR Challenge Winner)

The point of the game is to snap as many pictures as possible before the Star gets to pissed and decides to go Lindsey Lohan on your camera.  Thankfully, the cracked screen is only part of the game.  Will a Charlie Sheen edition be coming soon?

Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner

Epic space battles on your iPhone.  New York City sold separately.

AR Basketball

Sorry, but swiping the screen on this game just makes me want to play a version of AR Angry Birds.

AR Pirates!

Created by Optricks Media to get you to say “ARrrr Matey!” for the rest of the day after you’ve played it.

AR Defender

Tower defense by Int13.

The AR Drone

Like having a quad-rotor hovercraft wasn’t cool enough, they had to go and add augmented reality.

Pringles Game

There’s a whole host of these product placement games out there.  I’ll summarize them by posting just this one video.  Fill in any number of other products that have jumped on the product as AR game bandwagon.

PBS Kids Games

It’s not a game yet, but it’s a nice article about combining learning and games.

• A preliminary schedule for the second Augmented Reality Event has been posted, lots of interesting sessions await you.
• Sander Veenhof created the first one-dimensional art piece using Layar, aptly named 1px (math geeks, calm down! a pixel is indeed not 1 dimensional, but as close as one can get). You can also see an interview with Veenhof about art in AR.
• Toby has a nice roundup of non-visual augmented reality projects and applications.
• If you have any programming in the last year, you surely know of StackOverflow.com. Now there’s an attempt to create a similar Q&A site for augmented reality. If you think this idea has any merit then show your support.
• Marketing with Augmented Reality – an Infographic (via @comogard).
  
• Mavericks have teamed with Qualcomm to add augmented reality to this year’s playoff tickets.
• April fools: AdBlock Freedom – augmented reality eyewear that detects and removes ads from the world in realtime. Probably the guys at AdBlock never heard of Artvertiser.

I love videos done by students to show off their work. This week we are lucky to have Predator, a very impressive video (though I haven’t tried it myself) tracking algorithm resulting from Zdenek Kalal’s phd thesis at the University of Surrey, UK. You can try it yourself by downloading a compiled application to your pc, and read more about it here. Though desktop bound right now, Kalal claims that “implementation for mobile devices is feasible”.

have a great week!

• Whats the ROI of AR, and other questions in Zugara’s guide to augmented reality for marketers.
• According to Fast Company, augmented reality may be the killer app for iPad2 (via @Layar).
• Cool ad for Axe/Lynx body spray puts a scantily clad angel next to you in a London’s train station.
• Augmented reality application helps to break the ice in parties, but what’s wrong with the old name badges?
• Raimo van der Klein on the early history of Layar (as in 3 years ago!), and why context is the future of mobile applications.

This week’s video is a fantastic demo of Seac02′s Eligo SDK power to track 3d objects and overlay virtual layers on them. This gives the programmer the ability to “X-Ray” a model car:

Augmented reality Xray ARAY from Seac02 srl on Vimeo.

Have a good week!