Announcement: Nude It Augmented Reality application for the iPhone now on AppStore

A special message from Presselite Co-founder Antoine Morcos:

I take the liberty to contact you to let you know that our new application has been approved by Apple today, we are very proud to announce Nude It for the iPhone, now available on AppStore.

Nude It app shows your friends naked! Nude It is a funny Augmented Reality application for the iPhone that lets you see through clothes. Simply point your iPhone at a friend (less than 6.5 ft / 2 m from you), and using Nude It scanning technology, you will see him or her totally in the nude. Please, note that you must clearly see your friend’s face on the screen to get good results.

Of course, we were inspired by whoisthebaldguyblog Nude It amazing video to develop this application, we hope you will like the result.

You can find all details about the application on presselite and here’s the iTunes Link

Thank you.

Antoine Morcos
Co-founder of Presselite

Going to download it now and check it out…

Acrossair Augmented Reality Browser Hits the iPhone App Store

Acrossair, one of the pioneering companies in augmented reality on the iPhone, just made it to the iPhone app store with a new app: acrossair augmented reality browser.

Previous apps by Acrossair were task specific: find the Nearest Tube, Nearest Places and Nearest Tweets.

Today, it’s joining the likes of Layar and Wikitude as multipurpose AR browsers. Congratulations.

Let’s take a look at the new browser.

First screen aggregates various information sources such as Panoramio, Stella Artois – LE BAR Guide as well as  Acrossair previous apps such as Nearest Tube, etc. Scroll through the long list by swiping your finger iPhone style.

Once an information source is selected, you get to see the nearest as points of interests (POIs).

The heads up display is minimalistic, with just one pink icon on the top left to access more info – and Acrossair signature “stack” of POIs

.

From the Acrossair site:

The browser uses awesome 3D navigation which you can see as you spin around. There is local data from property companies and big name brands which is represented in an augmented reality view. Holding it flat jumps to a Google maps view and when you spin around so does the browser to make sure you know where everything is in orientated.

What will be Acrossair next steps?

Will they open it for developers? for user generated content?

We’ll have to see how things unfold in 2010 which is promising to be a hot year!

Augmented Reality iPhone Sudoku Grab

I thought the purpose of Sudoku was a time killer and exercise for the brain.  If you’re more interested in having a filled out booklet on the coffee table to impress your friends and family then this augmented reality iPhone Sudoku Grab can quickly analyze the board and give you the answers. 

When AR computing technologies become more ubiquitous, you won’t ever want to let your friends wear their AR glasses during any board game because there will certainly be helper-agents to plan the next move.  And I for one am waiting for the Scrabble-helper so I can quickly figure out what seven letter words I have.

Junaio is Available on the iPhone App Store – Can Social Augmented Reality be Fun?

They made it:

metaio, Inc. is proud to announce that junaio – the world’s first social augmented reality platform is now available in the App Store. The application is free and available globally on all iPhones. Users without an iPhone can also edit and share 3D augmented reality images via the online platform on http://www.junaio.com.

junaio is a mobile and online platform that lets users create, explore and share information in a completely new way using augmented reality and location-based content. Users can place 3D objects, Twitter messages or websites into the real world and then share their creations with friends through social networks such as Facebook.

Download from the App Store or Visit the website

I participated in the beta and it was quiet fun.

I took pictures of interesting things in and around my house, and in a few minutes – folks from around the world (mostly Germany…) added creative fun stuff to it.

I like Junaio’s concept of You (stuff you created), Here (stuff people around you created), Now (stuff being created right now). However, it was a bit weak on the Here. I guess no one else in NYC participated in the beta. Hopefully that will change now that it’s on the store.

What I am missing in Junaio is the ability to see my creation (and others) truly overlaid on reality. That is quiet hard to achieve on the iPhone with just GPS and compass. This will get much more interesting when computer vision is used and objects are aligned with your real time view of reality.

In the meantime – congratulations to Metaio and all the best!

Mobilizy Previews Augmented Reality Navigation System

Yesterday, Mobilizy released a second press release this week – now for a brand new product for AR navigation: Wikitude Drive.

This PR blitz comes from the company behind the original AR browser Wikitude – as if saying – we don’t make noise, we make good products.

VentureBeat says it needs a car phone holder.

Bruce Sterling likes the soundtrack and the jazzy font choices (when the rubber augments the road).

Android Guys were intrigued by the team’s quote: “it was created out of curiosity.”

Rhymo from Layar twitted generously: “Watching Wikitude Drive video. Impressed!!”

And I say: with so much AR productivity apps I have much more free time – so can I PLAY a little AR with reality?

First iPhone Augmented Reality Application on the App Store

It’s now confirmed.

Augmented Reality has hit the iPhone app store. And we didn’t even have to wait for OS 3.1.

Presselite apps have been updated with a new Augmented Reality functionality called Your New Eye. This only works with the latest iPhone 3GS (compass needed). If you don’t believe it – check out the quick demo here :


In the words of co-founder Antoine Morcos:

Basically, with this application, you are able to see all the metro and bus stations around you (<1km), and also a lot of Points of Interest (Restaurants, etc.) via Augmented Reality, thanks to the camera.
London Bus is available on AppStore. (More details – screenshots, etc.)
Métro Paris for iPhone is also available here.

How come Apple approved an app that uses a private API ?

Does it really matter as long as it did?

Has Apple opened up?

Will it signal a flood of AR apps on the iPhone app store?

Press Release: Mobilizy Releases WIKITUDE 3 and an Enhanced Version of Wikitude.me

From our friends at Mobilizy, this exciting press release:

SALZBURG, Austria: AUGUST 26TH 2009. Mobilizy GmbH introduces WIKITUDE
3 for the Android OS and relaunches a completely new Wikitude.me geo-tagging platform.  WIKITUDE 3 is the latest release of the Wikitude World Browser, the premiere mobile AR application for Android, which displays location-based, geo-specific content in a real-time augmented reality camera view on a smart-phone using GPS & gravimetric (compass) sensors.

WIKITUDE 3 is the latest release of the Wikitude World Browser, which presents the user with data about their surroundings, nearby landmarks, and other points of interest by overlaying information on the camera-view of a smartphone bringing information from the internet into context with the real-world. The Mobilizy development team has listened to it’s users and implemented several new features to improve and enhance the user experience within WIKITUDE 3.  New features include:

*Full Integration with the Wikitude.me user-generated, geo-tagging platform;

*An enhanced User Interface (UI) which tightly aligns with the UI in
the forthcoming iPhone version of the Wikitude World Browser;

*Improved methods to enhance perspective and depth of perception of POIs  (Smaller POIs indicate further distance, larger POIs indicate close proximity);

*The search and viewing-distance for POIs can be regulated by the user with a sleek slider bar;

*New & Improved filter options allow end-users to choose which content overlays and POI categories are displayed;

*Improved methods for locating POIs through search terms;

*An improved radar-overlay displaying the user’s current viewing direction and POIs within a specified radius;

*An entirely new “Beam-Me” feature which tele-ports the user to a pre-defined geo-location, allowing the user to experience a specified geo-data overlay;

Currently, WIKITUDE World Browser 3.0 offers data overlay sources from Wikipedia, *Qype and user-generated content from Mobilizy’s Wikitude.me (www.wikitude.me)

Wikitude.me
Mobilizy GmbH has partnered with Netociety Ltd., a specialist in enterprise social software, to develop an enhanced geo-tagging experience that empowers individuals with the tools to create POIs and location specific, hyper-linked digital content which can be viewed through the WIKITUDE World Browser. According to Markus Tripp, the project manager of Wikitude, “Wikitude.me is the first platform which allows individuals to actively contribute to augmented reality.  This is an amazing and huge step forward in the AR industry!”

Wikitude.me provides an open, easy-to-use, free mobile information platform for anybody who wants to access or provide location based and situation-specific information or services via mobile phones. Basically, Wikitude.me can be understood as a platform which encourages community-driven content creation to which anybody can contribute freely, very similar to the philosophy of Wikipedia, but for mobile augmented reality. With regards to intellectual property, Wiktude.me is implemented under a Creative Commons
Attribution-Sharealike 3.0 Unported License.

To get started with Wikitude.me platform users can login through existing 3rd party accounts such as Yahoo!, Google, Twitter and Facebook. The ability to add points of interest and “geo-tag the world” is done through any Internet-enabled device, such as a netbook, laptop, desktop or a smartphone like the Apple iPhone, Nokia N97 and the Android handsets which are available today. For each point of interest there is a title, description (250 chars), category, language, and link to a URL.  Each POI that is geo-tagged on the Wikitude.me platform is also cross-posted on Twitter (http://twitter.com/wikitude_me ) to inform the global Wikitude
community of the creation of fresh geo-content.

Mobilizy GmbH believes that the future of mobile augmented reality (Mobile AR) literally rests in the hands of the users.  Our team can develop the infrastructure for Mobile AR experiences such as WIKITUDE 3 and platforms like Wikitude.me,  but ultimately the end users will determine how mobile AR will be shaped. Mobilizy is constantly researching and developing ways to improve the WIKITUDE mobile AR experience by placing the user at the center of our development process.

NOTE: POI data created by early-adopters of the beta version of Wikitude.me will be migrated to the new platform early next week.

About Mobilizy:
Mobilizy GmbH is an early pioneer in commercial augmented reality and
the creator of the WIKITUDE World Browser, which is the first
practical augmented reality (AR) mobile application. Available on
Android (Coming soon to iPhone). Mobilizy engages in the research and
in-house development of location-based services and augmented (mixed)
reality experiences for smartphones.  Mobilizy is one of the leading
innovators in developing new methods and applications for data
acquisition and exchange in the emerging market of augmented reality.

About Netociety:
Netociety Ltd. is a UK-Austrian based software development firm
helping companies customize, implement and adopt social software,
collaboration tools and best practice. Netociety facilitates the
development of collaboration systems for engaging with customers,
employees and partners. Improvements in innovation, change, marketing,
and productivity efforts are focused on.

WIKITUDE: The World IS the Platform!

————————
Mark A.M. Kramer
Product Strategist / Human Experience Lead

Mobilizy GmbH
http://www.mobilizy.com
Jakob-Haringer Str 5/IV
5020 Salzburg
Austria

End press release

Well, what do you think?

Japanese Augmented Reality Punch Continues

via augmented times, via Sein Blog, thanks to google translator…here are the AR news from Japan.

Scene Recognition Engine (SR Engine) demonstrates its ability to recognize buildings, pull relevant information, and display it live – on an iPhone. And it works outdoors – alfresco.

Looks like a marriage between Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera and Mobilizy’s Wikitude.

Interested in a look under the hood?

How does it work?
(loose translation from the creator’s speech in Japanese):

Stores in the city are stored in a database and mapped and tagged with information from brochures and videos. Based on the “scene” caught by the Camera, the app pulls information from its database and tags the actual image, the AR-free sensor networks. It uses GPS, angle variation and image matching, to recognize the targets.

So, I guess it only works when you observe the target from a certain perspective.

Why develop it for the iPhone?

IPhone’s CPU is [not] bad, folks like it…

Who’s behind it?

According to the blog it’s the man with the big name:

Sunday Star Geumchon

have you seen this man?

Who are you Sunday Star?

Augmented Reality Helps Solve the Rubik’s Cube

The Cult of Mac just uncovered the new iPhone app: CubeCheater.

It helps you decode your Rubik’s cube.

Take pictures of the cube’s faces with your iPhone and it will guide you through the shortest number of moves required to solve it.

Now, take it a step further and imagine the iPhone (or better yet – goggles) continuously watching your cube and cleverly guiding you on every move – for the fastest solution ever.

Wouldn’t it be cool?

Well, at least for Cube obsessed kids, it would.

In any case, I’d mark this app as an important milestone towards putting augmented reality to use for the good of mankind.

Today it teaches us how to solve the Rubik’s cube. Tomorrow it will teach us everything else.

Ab Fab Lab in a Street Near You

While we are on the topic of touristic applications, LastMinute.com labs, a travel site, has found a new way to tackle the problem of interfacing with an augmented reality world – for tourists. It is uncovered in an article on FastCompany.

The application Nru (pronounced Near You) uses  the GPS, compass, sensors and other goodies available on Google’s G1 phone. As you point it to different directions while strolling on a London street – Nru will display signals about your surrounding attractions; the usual suspects include restaurants, movies, shows.

Now, here comes the interesting part: the user interface. Hold it parallel to the ground and it displays a radar like view of your touristic targets. Hold it vertically and it transforms into a purple-black “heat” sensor highlighting worthy targets in your front.

To get more info about a selected target use the “old” gesture: just touch it.

They claim to pull information from a number of sources including Qype and fonefood. Not surprisingly – both are London focused information services.

Some will argue that since it doesn’t overlay (register) the signals on top of what’s in your field of view – it’s not a pure augmented reality implementation, but rather a location-based app.

But the British accent certainly masks that thought and adds a certain Je-ne-sais-quoi to the demo. Absolutely fabulous.

Nru is now available on the android marketplace – but only for UK customers. Top bollocks.