However, this video is still amazing, and more than a million views on Youtube are evidence for that. It also serves as a reminder for one possible future for augmented reality, where fun packed, fast paced games are not bounded to a LCD screen. The Kinect was a big step forward, AR may be the giant leap ahead.

(via Geekologie)

I don’t usually consider projection on buildings augmented reality, but this video from Madrid has a fine twist. Instead of scaling a virtual construction site, Mario fights Donkey Kong on a real building:

Finally, here’s another video coming to us from Madrid, this time from Espada y Santa Cruz Studio. A bit more information can be found here (in Spanish).

Apparently Augmented Shadow stems from Moon’s MFA thesis in Design & Technology for Parsons. He writes:

In this installation, the shadows exist both in a real and a virtual environment simultaneously. It thus brings augmented reality to the tabletop by way of a tangible interface. The shadow is an interface metaphor connecting the virtual world and users. Second, the unexpected user experience results from manipulating the users’ visual perceptions, expectations, and imagination to inspire re-perception and new understanding. Therefore, users can play with the shadows lying on the boundary between the real, virtual, and fantasy.

More details on the project’s home page.

• Lester of Augmented Planet on why augmented reality glasses are 20 years away. I sadly have to agree. It’s another reason why people should consider publicly-installed AR projectors has a viable option.
• Augmented Planet also bring us the story of one gigantic marker and the world’s largest AR project.
• Damon Hernandez continues with his video interviews series, this time with the “AR magician”, Marco Tempest (with some behind the scenes at some of his magics).
• In Indonesia, even a celery can be sexy with the aid of augmented reality (via @TalkingDogAR)
• Real-time OCR/translation of Chinese text through iPhone video camera from Pleco Software is coming soon.
• Change your eye color, look like you have been possessed by a deamon , all via augmented reality – Angel Eyes.
• There was a lot of buzz around Metaio’s iPhone-augmented magazine (it’s a first under some assumptions).
  

This week’s video is of a year old, yet cool project by Karolina Sobecka with software development by Jim George. Sniff is a projected virtual dog that interacts with people passing it on the street. You can find lots more detail over Sobecka’s site (where you can watch other fun projector based projects, like Chase). [via Augmentology]

Have a good week!

In the following video Byrne explains the motivations behind his design and show some other uses:

Visit the West Washington University’s channel on Youtube for more possible uses of Sixthsense, such as aiding those with impaired memory, in the classroom, for construction, and while driving or traveling.

[via Yanko Design]

• Tish Shute has a short interview with Sims creator (though I’ll always remember him for Simcity) Will Wright. Highlights:
  • “our senses are set up to know how to filter out 99% of what is coming into them. That is why they work, and that is what is beneficial. I think that is why AR needs to focus on”
  • “definitely one of our strong interests is AR.”
• And there’s a short video interview with Christine Perey.
• Mydeco.com and Dassault Systems launched a new iPhone app to let you try out virtual furniture in your home (see my AR in 2010 – a look indoors post for similar applications).
• Now that you have found the right furniture, you can look for the right partner, using AR, of course.
  
• Gizmodo dug out a nostalgic “mobile” AR implementation.
• Doritos Brazil has another AR campaign, but this time it features the largest marker ever.
  
• Infiniti uses old AR tricks to sell its G model.

The weekly video is not exactly a demo of an augmented reality system, but it relates well to other projected interfaces we have featured previously. It’s made by Microvision, and it’s pretty cool (as long as you don’t have any furniture, rugs or ceiling lamps in your room) [via ecademy.com]:

Have a nice week!

As shown in these modes, the advantage of our approach is to allow players to get information through the original interaction offered by the Go board and the stones. By superimposing information onto the board, players can concentrate on the match at hand or self-training without fragmenting their attention towards an instructional book and etc. This is important to make it possible for the players to allocate enough cognitive resources for recognizing the situations in the game. Using original game items as the basis preserves Ma and traditional look-and-feel, such as distance between players, touch of a wooden board and sound of stones.

I really like they used the stones to control the menus. Nice touch, and a cool project as a whole.

More information here.

It’s nothing new either – you could have rent the setup for the game for at least a couple of years. The company behind it writes:

The setting is very simple: a reflector on each foot is the only physical tool to interact with Sportpong. The interface is integrated in the field which is projected on the floor. The players control the game with their feet, nothing else. This control is intuitive, naturalistic and very direct.

I really, really, can’t wait to try it out. Last year I had a session of Atari Pong (the first in twenty years) and enjoyed it immensely. This looks even better. Would be great having it on ARE or ISMAR.
More details on sportpong.ch via SwissMiss.

ARScope is an interesting combination of old world metaphors such as a magnifying glass and a crystal ball, head mounted display and projected AR. The user holds a handheld device covered by reflective material, on which an image is projected from a micro-projector the user wears on his head. Two cameras, one on the handheld device and one on the headset, and a sophisticated algorithm are used to calculate the user’s point of view relative to the handheld device, and thus ARScope is able to project a suitable image. In the case of the crystal ball, it even allows two users to see two different perspectives on the augmented world.

Can’t understand why no-one has commercialized this idea yet. It seems to be far more natural than HMD that blocks your peripheral vision.

Another video can be found here, and an interview with one of ARScope’s creators is here. More details on the project’s website.