Weekly Linkfest

Posted on November 8, 2009 by rouli

Still waiting for Junaio.

In the meantime the backlash against augmented reality (and the hype bubble surrounding it) has begun, with PSFK’s “Is Augmented Reality The Next Second Life?”, Fast Company’s “Put Your Phone Down: Augmented Reality Is Overblown” and Techdirt’s critique of gimmicky AR applications. Even Zugara has called on bloggers to cool down the hype. The best of its kind is BusinessWeek’s “Augmented Reality: Getting Beyond the Hype” (you should read this article):

The industry could battle the hype and mislabeling by establishing standards the rest of us can understand. Otherwise, augmented reality will quickly meet the same fate as “green” products: Marketers will advertise even the slightest of augments as “augmented reality,” leaving consumers confused and bewildered.

On the other hand there’s Robert Rice’s reply to that Fast Company article.
Well, I don’t think that anyone will deny there’s a lot of of hype around augmented reality at the moment, and I’m sure most believe that augmented reality has a great potential. It is my humble opinion that really exciting AR is still a few years away and in order to get there, we need to keep the hype at bay. As Rice writes, there’s a fine line between evangelizing and hyping, and we should be careful not to cross it. Not that it’s going to help, as many startups are pumping air into the bubble, hoping for an exit before it bursts.

Oh, and in other news:

This week’s video is of an art performance named .txt , that features a tag cloud haunting a dancer. I’m not an art critique, so I can say anything about the performance itself, but technology wise, it’s using YDreams’ YVision for real time interaction between the dancer and words (via @YDreams):

Have a nice week!

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System Flaw – first augmented reality game for DSi

Posted on November 3, 2009 by Ori Inbar

The buzz continues, this time shooting alien invaders in a room near you.

We have seen similar (semi) Augmented Reality game mechanics with the addictive Arcade Reality and Mosquitoes.

The new game by Visual Impact System Flaw launched this week – has a much slicker interface, and the second DSi screen does add finesse (though I’d rather play it with just one hand on the iPhone):

The mission is to hunt down alien invaders – the Flaw – who are only visible through the DSi, and the radar tracker screen gets the player gyrating and spinning from room to room or running outside in pursuit!

With its US launch this week and UK and Europe scheduled for February 2010, System Flaw is the first game to come from new family-oriented publisher Enjoy Gaming.

One question remains: since the DSi has no compass – how does the tracking of aliens around you work? Optical flow?

Oh, and by the way, it was already awarded the “Best Innovation” nomination by Agence Francaise pour le Jeu Vidéo.

Via Game Zone

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Droid Does Tease

Posted on November 1, 2009 by rouli

If you were living in a cave for the last two weeks, Droid, Motorola’s new Android device is heralded as the new iPhone killer. The campaign created to promote the coming the new phone has focused on what Droid does that the iPhone cannot do. Interestingly, Thomas Carpenter has noticed the following tease on the Droid’s promotion site:

So, are they meaning Layar/Wikitude or something completely different? After all, we do have those on the iPhone, but the iPhone is famous for its lack of support for real video-feed-processing type of AR.
Time will tell …

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Buzz, Buzz: Augmented Reality Mosquitoes All Around Your iPhone

Posted on November 1, 2009 by Ori Inbar

Vincent Verwey is happy to report that his new augmented reality game  has just been approved on the app store. It’s called Mosquitoes.

It lets you kill pesky mosquitoes flying around you in virtual space.
Watch through the camera and you see tens of mosquitoes around you. On the
ceiling, hovering above the floor, on your left and to your right.

The game uses the compass and accelerometer (works on 3GS only) for a realistic augmented reality effect. The animated mosquitoes are projected in the real world,
which you see through the camera lens.

There are two modes:

1) Shoot Out. Kill as many mosquitoes as you can in just two minutes.

2) Precision. You get only 10 bullets and 10 mosquitoes. Don’t waste your ammunition and don’t waste time.


Here is more info about Mosquitoes from Makayama Software.

Or for just 99 cents you can get it yourself on the app store.

I did.
I can’t get enough augmented reality games on my iPhone.

Mosquitoes is based on a similar game mechanic as we have seen with Arcade Reality: alien space ships (or here mosquitoes) appear randomly around you, seemingly registered in 3D space (but not truly aligned with real life objects). It’s pretty addictive and sure makes you move (as well as behave like a deranged monkey ;)

Arcade Reality is very low brow, reminiscent of early arcade B games (and parents tend to ban it from their kids for safety issues), however it’s radar view makes the game a tad more interesting than Mosquitoes. Plus I’d rather listen to an 8 bit sound track than to mosquitoes buzzing nervously around me…

AR history buffs among you would remember that Mosquitoes is not the first AR game to use, um…mosquitoes.

Mozzies (also known as Mosquito Hunt) was developed for the Siemens SX1 launch in 2003. The mosquitoes were superimposed on the live video feed from the camera. Mozzies was awarded the title of best mobile game in 2003.

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Weekly Linkfest

Posted on November 1, 2009 by rouli

While reading this week’s linkfest you may find some links are missing – don’t worry, many ISMAR related links and videos will be posted later this week.

Although Halloween was yesterday, and I’ve dedicated a whole post to Halloween related AR, here’s another cute scarry example found by Bruce Sterling. Actually is part of a campaign to promote eco-friendly chargers and power managemant systems, and you can try it yourself here.

Have a nice week!

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Augmented Job Board

Posted on October 31, 2009 by rouli

Looking for a position at a leading AR company?

Metaio’s  is looking for an iPhone developer for its San Francisco offices:

Your tasks include the analysis, the design and the transfer of customer specified Augmented Reality solutions.
Task profile:

  • Application development on iPhone / MacOSX
  • Working on customer projects
  • Requirements analysis / engineering
  • Application design
  • Project communication
  • Collaboration with the core development, research and product development
  • Customer and service orientation

You can find this and many other available positions at Games Alfresco’s Job Board.

If you happen to look for the right person to fill an augmented reality related position, why won’t let us publish it over here? There’s nothing to lose, it’s free!

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Freaky Friday – Nude It

Posted on October 30, 2009 by rouli

I’m sure that such an application would be a killer-app for augmented reality. “Augmented reality? I’m only using it for the articles”. Via @u2elan.

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Three More HMDs to Consider

Posted on October 29, 2009 by rouli

Cool NEC is developing a head mounted display named Tele Scouter which it hopes to begin shipping somewhere in 2010. The eyepiece shown in the image below has some really neat features like front facing camera and eye tracker. This enables a remote server to see whatever you’re looking at, and send you some relevant content to be displayed on the little screen. Not so cool- it’s going to cost a small fortune, and NEC is only planning to sell about 1000 of those in the next three years. More details on SlashGear.

Cooler Fellow Japanese company, Brother Industries is not left behind. Apparently they developed a light-weight HMD (by light-weight I mean 350 grams including batteries) that should also hit the stores in 2010. Like in Tele Scout’s case this unnamed HMD superimposes the image it generates over reality, not blocking the user’s view. So why is it cooler than NEC’s device? Well, they use terms like “green diode lasers”, and if that doesn’t make you blind, it’s surely very cool. More details on TechOn.

Coolest Now you can make a HMD right in your own home (though you’ll need an iPhone and some cardboard):

Though none of those devices (certainly not the last one :)) is aimed for the AR crowd, I guess that enthusiasts will find way to harness them for cool demos. Don’t forget to read Tom’s review of more concrete offerings from ISMAR.

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Augmented Reality – Now Comes in Banners

Posted on October 28, 2009 by rouli

For their latest campaign, promoting Burger King’s one dollar menu, ad agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky chose to break the mold of former AR campaigns. First, there’s no mini-site, the whole experience is neatly contained within a single banner ad. Moreover, there’s no need to print a marker. You simply show this ad a one dollar bill and it shows you an item from BK’s one dollar menu. You flip the bill and it shows you another item. Finally, when you hide the bill from your web cam, your face is covered by a king’s mask.

Apparently it works with other bills and even white sheets of paper, so you can give it a try. The banner is featured over here.

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Augmented Teddy Bear You Can Touch

Posted on October 27, 2009 by rouli

Researchers from Tokyo Institute of Technology and the University of Electro-Communications may have created the cutest AR creature to date. In the last SIGGRAPH conference they have presented the following poster, discussing a haptic ring that let you pet virtual creatures (VC) and enable virtual creatures touch you.

We installed models of optical / touch sensation into our VCs. It
enables VCs to react for user’s actions to VCs in various and appropriate
ways. For example, they express attention by looking back
when they are hit from backward. They express happiness when
they are stroked gently, and they step away after a strong hit.

(if embedding does not work for you, video is here)

More details can be found here. Via Development Memo for Ourselves.

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