Yesterday, at the TechCrunch 50 conference in San Francisco, a small start up from Tokyo stole the show; the name: Technidot, the cool product they unveil: Sekai Camera (World Camera) running on the iPhone.
In their own words, the Sekai Camera is:
…a real-world interface for the iPhone that connects real and virtual worlds, allowing anybody to create, experience and participate in both.
While at your favorite mall, point your iPhone camera at things around you such as food, toys, art, transit maps, and get detailed information about it. More fun for you, more business for retailers.
AirFilter takes care of the customized search to bring you the additional information, based on a database generated by advertizers.
And you’re not on your own; the Sekai Camera is also a social networking environment: leave messages to your friends – in space – so they can see it when they pass by.
Isn’t that a killer augmented reality application?
And Tonchidot’s take on Evolution could become the symbol of the AR revolution…
Captured in an interview with Pocket Gamer (Thanks!) in London via Kotaku:
“I can imagine mobile platforms evolving…in that they interact with the world around us in a way that changes our perceptions in a really interesting way”, said Wright, “Games could increase our awareness of our immediate environment, rather than distract us from it”.
Will Wright is by far my idol in the gaming world. He’s the smartest and the funniest, and he single handedly invents new game genres (SimCity, The Sims, Spore).
If you wonder why or how, give yourself 20 minutes off and watch his speech at TED…
As the coolest gadget around, the iphone is raising a lot of interest in the augmented reality community. This was once again confirmed in an interview with Stéphane Cocquereaumont, President and Lead developer at Int13, a mobile games developer:
“The iPhone is in fact our main target, the next demo we’ll publish will be on this device, this is probably the best device to do mobile AR today, even if its camera is far from perfect.”
Stéphane conversed with me following a post of Int13’s demo on the augmented reality games facebook group titled: “Augmented Reality on mobile devices that just works”
He added:
“Our AR library should work easily on devices such as Intel’s MID [which is coming out this summer – games alfresco]…but we’re more interested in Smartphones…”
Games alfresco: How central do you see augmented reality in your company’s future?
Stéphane: “We plan to continue working on our AR technology and improve it, we’re especially interested in markerless tracking.”
And here is what I really liked in this interview:
“But our main objective is to create cool games and sell them”
Int13 is among the first pure game developers to dive into the AR space.
“if our current AR projects reveal themselves to be commercially successful then AR could become central for us.”
Cautious optimism, always a good trait for a game developer.
Thanks Stéphane and France from Int13 for sharing your experiences and plans!
As the light at the end of the (summer vacation) tunnel is almost insight, let me ask you a reflective question:
Where do kids prefer to be on a summer day:
(a) Museums
(b) Theme parks
(c) Staying at home and playing video games
Any volunteers for (a) ?…
What if you could combine all three into one?
What if you could transform learning about cultures, art, science, history – into a fun experience for kids? What if museums were as much fun as outdoor adventures and video games combined?
This fantasy is becoming a reality thanks to efforts by pioneers around the world.
Here are my picks of the 4 5 best augmented reality tours that are reinventing museums:
1. Lifeplus in Pompei
Pompei Ladies in an afternoon promenade in front of your eyes
Breathing new life into the ruined streets of Pompei
Visitors stroll in the real streets of Pompei, while watching thru their glasses, virtual scenes of city natives living their lives as if it’s 79 AD, minutes before the eruption of Vesuvius.
This EU funded project was lead by MIRALab – university of Geneva in 2004. See more at Lifeplus.
2. DNP-Louvre Museum lab
A behind the scenes look at exhibits
A mobile device with live video, shows on the display virtual objects such as a balloon that guides visitors through the exhibits. The climax of this tour arrives (1:37) when shards of an antique Islamic platter are virtually reconstructed to create the real platter.
Kudos to Metaio who developed the experience for DNP-Louvre Museum Lab in Tokyo, though they should try trimming the bulky device…
3. Mobile Augmented Reality Quest (MARQ) – Expedition Schatzsuche
Treasure hunt in a museum (in Austria)
A team oriented game where museum visitors play the role of investigators required to solve 3d virtual puzzles surrounding exhibits. Successful completion of puzzles reveal further steps of the story.
Beyond the new type of interaction with museum exhibits, MARQ introduces multi user collaboration: collected virtual items can be shared between groups, and “guided tour replays” can be viewed at any time – on the Gizmondo (RIP) gaming device.
This novice approach to experiencing Museum exhibits was developed by the Graz University team in Vienna, led by Daniel Wagner and Dieter Schmalstieg. It was shot at the Kärner Landesmuseum in Klagenfurt/Carinthia.
Rome Reborn is the largest computer simulation of an ancient city. Cool. But what Fraunhofer (Institute for Computer Graphics Research) has done with it is way cool: walk among the ruins of the Roman Forum and point your Vaio UMPC anywhere to see buildings being reconstructed.
Blair MacIntyre and his team at GA Tech have done the impossible: they have turned the Oakland cemetery in Atlanta to a visitor magnet – all thanks to an augmented reality tour which can be experienced on a cell phone. You have to see it to believe it.
Unfortunately, the cemetery was destroyed last year by a hurricane. So the students of subsequent years wont be able to keep playing with it.
6. Science Museum in Paris
Navigate Museums with AirTags
A new implementation by Tonchidot for La Villette Museum in Paris where visitors use AirTags provided by the Museum or by users to enrich their museum experience.
In the creators own words:
Sekai camera turns a museum into a “living” internet environment…The real world becomes “clickable”
7. Digital Binocular Station for Cultural Museums
A stationary Augmented Reality device developed by Mind Space Solutions. Because it is fixed to a single location, it allows the use photorealistic, cinema-quality visuals, and compensate for the lack of parallax by presenting everything in stereoscopic 3D.
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What are the 10 ingredients to augment a museum tour?
A practical augmented reality device (avoid backpacks and bulky displays) with visual tracking software
High quality 3D models of exhibits, and how they looked and behaved in the past (and future?)
A combination of learning and fun with a really really good story
Breath life into inanimate objects
Sprinkle some sound when necessary
Incinerate verbose plaques; say what you have to say in 2 to 5
Indoor tours are great; outdoor tours are even better
Multi user interaction and collaboration
Location based services, including (fun) navigation instructions
Did I mention it has to be fun?
…and don’t forget to send the kids home with a souvenir DVD: “my augmented tour at the museum”
Didn’t make the list…
The following efforts didn’t make the list, mostly because they forgot ingredient #10…
Geisha Tokyo Entertainment Inc. announced a new augmented reality game. They call it Dennoh Figure ARis or Cyber Figure Alice (which only works in japanese thanks to the interchangeability of L and R in Japanese). Thanks Akki from Asiajin for bringing it to the western world. It is scheduled to hit Japan this fall.
Is it a breakthrough?
From a technical perspective we have seen similar implementations on the market – many covered in this blog’s demo category (see left sidebar). It’s based on the widely used marker AR technology (that is ‘widely’ within the narrow AR community).
What’s new about it is the theme chosen for this game: a high-school-graduate-in-training-geisha. This is a departure from the infant oriented magic books and wiz cubes, yet it doesn’t dwell with extreme practicality as the Fix-Your-Own-Car applications.
Enter the world of augmented reality for grown ups: here you can peep, poke (using the supplied cyber sticks), and peep at your own geisha.
The publisher describes her (according to Google’s translation of the product’s site) as “rich in the sensitivity of your desktop to make sure spectacular”. You may rephrase based on your own taste.
Now who will take it outdoors?
What if you could experience this non-intrusive interactivity with real people on the street?
A beatiful 4 min concept film about how augmented reality will change the way we interact with information.
It’s a bit geeky in the file managment piece , and too emotional around the edges – but other than that – awe-inspiring. Nuff said, watch Stewart Morgan in action.
To see the man behind the images, here is an interview with Stewart Morgan.
Media Power announced today a donation of $5M to the GVU research center at Georgia Tech – for the advancement of Mobile Augmented Reality (http://www.cc.gatech.edu/news/media-power-donates-5m-to-gvu-center).
It’s intriguing that Media Power’s founder is none other than the controvertial Carl Freer, the executive from Gizmondo – a mobile game device that went belly up “under a cloud” after demostrating huge potential in 2005. Although it made it to the #1 position of “The 10 Worst-Selling Handhelds of All Time” on gamepro it was pretty popular among mobile augmented reality research(Demo).
So now Carl will not only resurrect Gizmondo, but will also establish a new division – Magitech – “centered around the very promising field of Augmented Reality”.
The objective of the joint initiative between Magitech and Georgia Tech is to “envision, prototype and evaluate the next generation of mobile AR games and entertainment applications and positions the company as a leader in AR.”
This initiative looks promising mostly thanks to its ability to attract worldwide top talent in the field of augmented reality (many of them regular contributors to this blog – games alfresco):
Dr. Leonard Kleinrock (Professor, University of California at Los Angeles), Blair McIntyre (Professor, Georgia Tech), Mark Billinghurst (Professor, University of Canterbury), Daniel Wagner (Professor, University of Graz, Vienna), Dr. Michael Gervautz (CEO Imagination, Vienna)
Now, what would you do with $5M and that kind of caliber to advance augmented reality games?
So far we have looked at demos of augmented reality gameplay and investigated preferred hardware devices. That was just the warm up. Now we’re getting into the real beef: who offers the best software engine that can augment our reality (and our spirits)? Who will spearhead the creation of a totally new gaming experience?
Games alfresco brings you the unofficial roundup of the top 10 best augmented reality engines.
We will look at one engine at a time (enough with these looong posts!) and at the end of the round up, will rank them based on the feedback from you, the community. This is collaborative work in progress of group of passionate contributors on facebook. If you want to take part of the fun, join us at: augmented reality games.
Here is a sneak peak at some of the engines that we may or may not review:
Games Alfresco 
