GDC 2009 Roundup: a (tiny) spark of augmented reality

Posted on May 4, 2009 by Ori Inbar

The dust over GDC 2009 has settled a while ago and finally I got to reflect on the AR experience at the show.  Guess which headline would summarize it best:

a) augmented reality was the talk of the show

b) the expo floor was swarming with AR demos

c) AR games snatched lucrative game awards

d) none of the above

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A friend in San Francisco wearing retro AR goggles

Unfortunately (d) is the right answer.

But – and it’s a big ‘but’ – the ignition spark was there. The seed was planted. The first shot of the revolution was fired.

(OK, maybe the last metaphor went too far.)

Here are 5 triggers I identified that ignited the spark:

1) Blair

The first GDC augmented reality talk – ever: Blair MacIntyre covered the latest and greatest about mobile augmented reality in front of a packed room of game developers. Awesome.

2) Demos

Was it the first time AR demos (and more demos) were presented at a major Game Developer Conference ?

Not sure – but it certainly was my first…

3)  Mentions in talks

Was Blair’s AR talk an isolated case?

Perhaps as a main topic it was. However, for the first time, I heard significant mentions of AR in multiple other talks. Check them out:

A talk about pervasive gaming. I liked the title: “Beyond the Screen: Principles of Pervasive Game” by the folks from Pervasive Games. The played with the concept in which the whole world is the playground.  These games, are founded in the belief that doing things for real is pleasurable. Games that harness reality as a source book have interesting dynamics.  Everything in reality matters to the game, the game play emerges from coincidence, and real and artificial blur.

Jane McGonigal fantastic talk “Learning to Make Your Own Reality: How to Develop Games that Re-invent Life As We Know It” introduced a concept she calls programmable reality. Augmented reality is among the key technologies to enable that idea.

Camera Based Gaming: The Next Generation by Diarmid Campbell attracted the attention of a room packed with game developers. He talked about Sony’s upcoming camera games for the PlayStation 3 such as Eye Pet. Armed with the EyeToy camera, these games will have the power to extract amusing gestures from players. Not quite AR – but sure smells like it.

Stretching Beyond entertainment – AR made a surprise appearance in a high profile panel discussion feturing some of the gods of the gaming industry: (from right) Ed Fries , Lorne Lanning,Bing Gordon,Will Wright, and Peter Molyneux.
The best quote award went to Ed Fries for saying: “We need to take game mechanics and apply them to the real world”.

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4) Meet ups

Dinners, lunches, business meetups, brainstorming sessions – haven’t had that many meetings with AR enthusiasts since ISMAR 2008…

5) The iPhone

When it comes to bringing AR to the masses – the iPhone is a category on its own . And it doesn’t even know it yet…why the iPhone changed everything

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Will we ever get to see answers a, b, or c become a real headline?

Most likely in the next few years, if you ask me.

A (tiny) spark was ignited.

Filed under: AR Events, AR Games, AR Tracking, AR User Experience | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | 9 Comments »

Weekly Linkfest

Posted on May 3, 2009 by rouli

That was quite a week for augmented reality.
The top article at Games Alfresco was “Augmented Fear of Heights” (with about 1000 views!), and on Augmented Times the top post was about Marco Tempest’s magic Trick.

There were so many news items this week, I couldn’t cover them all even if I wanted to (though, I might cover some of those next week):

Quote of the week comes from Joshua Falken (is that a WarGames reference?), as a comment to the “Augmented Comedy” post:

The widespread usage of standard AR toolkits for non-science by self-proclaimed “AR researchers” is the root cause for the bad reputation that AR has now. If one mentions AR / MR as an area of interest to, e.g., computer graphics or computer vision researchers, one immediately is flagged as a mediocre me-too person. Unfortunately, these stereotypes are now applied to good and bad AR researchers alike. Therefore, a funny clip, but the topic, unfortunately, is very serious. Just ask all the people who have found it practically impossible to acquire research funding for AR topics for the past several years already.

You should go read that thread. Have a look at the replies Falken got and express your own opinion!

Finally, to kick-off the coming week, here’s a fun little video of some guys putting the Living Sasquatch application to good use:

Have a nice week!

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More Augmented Advertisement

Posted on May 2, 2009 by rouli

Our friend Diego Gopen has notified us that his augmented advertisements service, ARvertising.com, has a new demo, one that lets you play augmented dice online:

According to him it’s “100% random! good for stuff for casinos online ;) because it works with physics so it’s impossible to manage”.
But beware Diego! There are new competitors in the AR advertisements business! Brian Selzer found that ADmmersion.com has a very similar service. No videos yet, though if you register you can try their very basic FLARToolKit demo.

Combining several proven technologies, ADmmersion™ brings advertising to life like never before – giving consumers access to an interactive experience like none other.

For the first time, consumers aren’t just watching ads – they’re part of the experience and can interact with them directly.

Admmersion.com comes to us from DCSI, a company that according to its site, specializes in those LCD screens at grocery stores that show endless ads. It’s good to see they are trying to diversify their business.

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