Games Alfresco

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.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: augmented reality, Developer Challenge, Qualcomm |