Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Posted on February 27, 2011 by rouli

You’ve been waiting for this the whole week – here’s the weekly linkfest:

Only a few weeks ago, we reported on Virtual Master Reel, an augmented reality game whose aim was catching virtual fish with an augmented fishing reel. Seems that augmented reality fishing games are trending right now, because Nintendo got one for its Nintendo 3ds platform. Video doesn’t do it justice, because the whole 3d display thingy is lost, but it still looks good. You can read more about the planned AR games for 3ds on Wired.

have a fantastic week!

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The Augmented Reality Sword Fight

Posted on February 24, 2011 by rouli

Well, the following video is obviously not a show of augmented reality by any definition. The virtual entities are well orchestrated, and do not interact in real time with the actor. They are also projected on a screen behind the actor, so he can’t really see them.

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)

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Augmented Reality U.S./Iraq War Memorial

Posted on February 21, 2011 by rouli

Here is another example of art activism where augmented reality is used to convey a message. Building upon Layar, artists Mark Skwarek and John Craig Freemand created was is probably the first virtual war memorial, commemorating each of the 52,036 deaths, both Iraqis and Allies, in the last gulf war.

The artists translated the place of death in Iraq to a location in the US and placed there a virtual casket, either “American” or “Middle eastern” in design. The result is disturbing:

More info on the project’s blog, via Development Memo for Ourselves.

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Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Posted on February 20, 2011 by rouli

As always, here the augmented reality news stories and tidbits, I didn’t have the time (or will) to cover this week:

This week’s video is a neat meshup between the insanely successful indie computer game Minecraft and augmented reality, by one Scott Kronick (or at least I think that is his name). Kronick, an artist by trade, came to the realization that it would be great “to hack away at and modify your city or school made of cubes”. The result is “RealCraft”:

Have a nice week!

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Augmented Reality in the Fight Against Car Accidents

Posted on February 17, 2011 by rouli

Safe for Humans is a really smart mobile app concept that harness augmented reality to make people more aware of car accidents involving pedestrians. As you can see in the video below, it will use “natural” markers and probably GPS. However the big challenge here, I suspect, would not be pinpointing the user’s location, but rather matching the video to the user’s orientation.

Safe for Humans from Hey, on Vimeo.

What other “public service announcements” can be reinvented using augmented reality?
(previously covered AR activism: bringing BP’s oil leak to your hometown, fighting domestic violence and going against the hunt of Siberian tigers)

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Qualcomm Announces Winners of the 2010 Augmented Reality Developer Challenge

Posted on February 15, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

Qualcomm Announces Winners of the 2010 Augmented Reality Developer Challenge

SAN DIEGO – February 15, 2011 – Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ: QCOM) today announced the winners of its 2010 Augmented Reality (AR) Developer Challenge. The top prize of $125,000 was awarded to a team of two developers from Lithuania, Paulius Liekis and Arminas Didžiokas for Paparazzi. Second prize of $50,000 was awarded to Defiant Development Pty Ltd. for Inch High Stunt Guy. Third prize of $25,000 was awarded to five graduate students at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts for their submission, Danger Copter. The Challenge, which kicked off with the public availability of Qualcomm’s AR software development kit (SDK) in October 2010, encouraged developers to create a new generation of vision-based AR applications, including innovative games, educational applications and interactive marketing concepts.

“Qualcomm congratulates the winners and all the developers that provided submissions,” said Jay Wright, director of business development at Qualcomm. “With just over three months of development time since the SDK became available, developers have shown that compelling AR experiences can be created rapidly using Qualcomm’s platform.”

Winning Applications

1st Place – $125,000 – Paparazzi by Paulius Liekis and Arminas Didžiokas (Lithuania)

An interactive game where the player becomes a virtual paparazzo and sneaks pictures of a vain celebrity before he gets agitated and attacks the photographer

2nd Place – $50,000 – Inch High Stunt Guy by Defiant Development Pty Ltd. (Australia)

A game where the player arranges various obstacles to enable a stuntman to successfully jump his motorcycle through a hoop

3rd Place – $25,000 – Danger Copter by Alex Beachum, Jonghwa Kim, Jason Mathias, Kedar Reddy and Evan Sforza (USA)

A gaming adventure where the player becomes a helicopter pilot who maneuvers a water-spouting chopper to extinguish fires and rescue people from danger

The judges for the Challenge were a mix of individuals from industry and academia. Entries were judged based on creative concept, technical execution, overall user experience and other factors.

Publically available since October 2010, Qualcomm’s AR platform uses computer vision technology to align graphics tightly with underlying objects in the real world. The approach is an evolution from current AR techniques that use a device’s GPS and compass for mapping applications. Vision-based AR delivers a fundamentally different user experience in which graphics appear as if they are anchored to real world objects.

Select video clips of applications submitted to the Challenge can be viewed at www.qualcomm.com/ar. To create your own application, visit Qualcomm’s AR developer portal at developer.qualcomm.com/ar.

 

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Valentine’s Weekly Linkfest

Posted on February 13, 2011 by rouli

You can’t find a date using augmented reality yet (?), but you can sure do other things with it:

This week’s video is a must see. Being in German, I can’t tell you much about it, but it seems to be a concept design for in car head up display done as a university assignment. It looks very realistic and compelling – I can’t wait to have such a display in my car:

Have an excellent week!

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Augmented Reality to Combat eBooks

Posted on February 8, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

As eBooks are slowly eroding the pricing structure of physical books, publishing houses are looking for ways to make the book as an object more appealing.  The ideas of limited editions or signed copies are going to expand to gimmicks like augmented reality covers, or special content for hardcovers only.

The latest book in Jean Auel’s series about a woman surviving the time around the end of an ice age 30,000 years ago comes with a special sticker on the front that gives the buyer a special augmented reality experience.  The main character Ayla will come alive on the computer screen by the power of AR.

Here’s the publisher’s description:

THE LAND OF PAINTED CAVES concludes the story of Ayla, her mate Jondalar, and their little daughter, Jonayla, taking readers on a journey of discovery and adventure as Ayla struggles to find a balance between her duties as a new mother and her training to become a Zelandoni — one of the Ninth Cave community’s spiritual leaders and healers.

Once again, Jean Auel combines her brilliant narrative skills and appealing characters with a remarkable re-creation of the way life was lived thousands of years ago, rendering the terrain, dwelling places, longings, beliefs, creativity and daily lives of Ice Age Europeans as real to the reader as today’s news.

Will this AR add-on help convince a reader to purchase the hardcover rather than wait for a regular copy or download an e-version?  Probably not.  But it is another step in the expansion of my favorite new technology and for that, I cheer.

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2010 Qualcomm Augmented Reality Developer Challenge

Posted on February 7, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

The results for the 2010 Qualcomm AR Developer Challenge are coming next week on February 15th.  Qualcomm released this teaser video today:

Developers from around the world participated in Qualcomm’s 2010 Augmented Reality (AR) Developer Challenge and created rich AR experiences including interactive games, educational applications, and marketing concepts. These apps use Qualcomm’s AR platform, which includes the AR SDK for Android and the AR Extension for Unity.

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Super Weekly Linkbowl

Posted on February 6, 2011 by rouli

links, who wants some links?

I found this week’s video on Toby’s weekend “linkfest”. It’s one more example how augmented reality can upgrade almost any old board game, this time making “battleships” more interactive. As Toby rightfully states, there’s no need for two boards when AR is deployed, as the two players can be shown different views of the same board. Still, it’s a cool demo:

Have a great week!

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