HoloToy Hologram for iPhone and iPad

Posted on April 13, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter

Augmented reality is all about illusion.  Most applications project graphics on the real world.  But this HoloToy creates the illusion of a real space within iPhone or iPad, similar to the LevelHead game from last year.  The game has a number of modes including a Scarab Attack game, floating planets and a pet robot to interact with.  Most of them can be seen in this video.

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ARE2010 Countdown: 50 Days to Augmented Reality Nirvana

Posted on April 12, 2010 by Ori Inbar

Friends!

We are just 50 days away from the Augmented Reality Event (2-3 June, 2010 – Santa Clara Convention Center, California) – the best place to experience the latest and greatest of the augmented reality world.

2 days, 3 tracks, 30 hours of sessions, 40 AR companies, 76 AR experts speakers…and you!

Click the image to see the details

For updates and the latest news about the event checkout the website ARE2010.

***

If you are interested in participating in any of these activities – submit your proposal today!

1) “Startup Launch pad” – Five AR startups present their business models and products in front of an expert panel: VCs, Entrepreneurs, and industry luminaries – hosted by a major media outfit. Winner receives: “ARE Best startup prize” (to be announced.) Submit your proposal here and add: “Startup Launch Pad” in the title.
2) “The Auggies” – Teams get 5 minutes each to present on stage and compete for the coolest live AR demo. A panel with Bruce Sterling, Jesse Schell, Mark Billinghurst and a Jay Wright, will comment on the demos – American Idol-style. Winners will be determined by the audience and receive the prestigious “Auggies Award.” (to be announced.)Submit your proposal here and add “Auggies” in the title.
3) ARE Press Conference – If you are planning to announce a new product or service – secure your spot in the press conference that will kick off the event. Submit your proposal here and add: “Press Conference” in the title.
4) Exhibition and Sponsorships – A small number of booths is still available in the exhibition hall ($995 for 10′x10′.) Grab them while they last!

Don’t wait, register Today!

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Weekly Linkfest

Posted on April 11, 2010 by rouli

I know you’ve been waiting for it, here’s this week’s linkfest:

Weekly quote is from that pocket-lint article mentioned above. It’s so true, I had to bring it here:

Just when it looks as if it might take off, we may never hear from AR again. Why? Because consumers won’t be wanting, buying or using a service called “AR”. AR will go the way of AI. It’ll be taken for granted and never referred to, just part and parcel of most every valuable application used.

And this week’s video, is nothing else but an augmented version of Hello Kitty, which you can play with somewhere over here (via Development Memo for Ourselves)

Hopefully I’m going to see a live demo of Project Natal this week, wish me luck!

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iPhone OS4 to have Video Stream Access

Posted on April 8, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter

Though I’m not completely believing it until the OS4 actually comes out and the video access is really in there, but the announcement from Steve Jobs today on the OS4 details included that tasty little gem.

The developer preview is available right now and the release of OS4 will happen sometime “this summer.”

Hopefully this happens, unlike the OS3.1 promises that turned into vapor by release date.  I’m crossing my fingers.

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Augmented Driving on your iPhone

Posted on April 7, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter

For you experienced developers, the first question you’ll be asking is, “how are they going to do a car HUD without video access on the iPhone.”  So I’ll answer that question first.

Currently, video recording is not yet supported. However, the system takes snapshots of the screen at different intervals. The standard interval is set to about 10 seconds. If one vehicle is tracked this interval is reduced to 5 seconds. If a vehicle is close ahead or more than one vehicle is tracked, a snapshot is taken every 2 seconds.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s talk features on this new product from imaGinyze (though technically, its only submitted to the App Store and not yet out for purchase.)

The app does a pretty good job of tracking the lane you’re in, speeds, and distance to other cars.   And it switches between units easily for which ever side of the pond you’re on.  The app provides additional safety features giving you a lane switch warning, though if it switches between the 10 second frame interval then its not going to work so well.  Yet another reason Apple needs to give up the goods on the video access.

The functionality of the app shows what the GM windshield might do to improve the safety of its vehicles.  Though I really wish it would give that “Vehicle Ahead” warning to the a-hole tailgating me on the open highway and not to me.

More information:

Augmented Driving for your iPhone 3GS including the following features:

– Dynamic augmented reality overlays for lanes and vehicles
– Head-up display (HUD) for system and status information
– Lane detection and lane change warning
– Vehicle detection and low distance information
– System auto-calibration for easy setup
– Many configuration options and quick manual

The system is designed to work in good lighting conditions during daytime for visible lane markings on highways and country roads and for detection of regular cars. For operation, a fix mount is required.

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NAB 2010 Show Sets Super Augmented Reality Session

Posted on April 6, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter

I haven’t done many press releases as of late, but this one caught my eye due to the various partners involved–“Key Figures from Nokia Research Center, Total Immersion, Walt Disney Imagineering & More To Discuss Cutting-Edge Blend of Reality and Computer Generated Content.”

*** press release ***

WASHINGTON – The NAB Show, the annual conference and expo for professionals who create, manage and distribute entertainment across all platforms, has announced the participants in a Super Session titled “Augmented Reality: Entertainment Meets Ubiquitous Computing.” Augmented reality (AR) is an emerging form of experience in which the real world is enhanced by computer-generated content specific to a location and to an activity. The 2010 NAB Show takes place April 10-15, in Las Vegas, Nevada.

The panel will feature industry pioneers Rebecca Allen, director, Nokia Research Center; Gene Becker, managing director, Lightning Laboratories; Chetan Damani, founder and CEO, acrossair; Joe Garlington, creative vice president, interactive projects, Walt Disney Imagineering; and Bruno Uzzan, CEO and co-founder, Total Immersion. They will examine how augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and alternate reality games (ARG) provide new forms of entertainment and new ways of transmitting information by dissolving the boundaries between the real and the virtual.

New Amsterdam Media principal Seth Shapiro will serve as moderator. The session is produced in association with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Foundation and takes place Monday, April 12 at 2:30 pm.

“Augmented reality is a concept that is beginning to change media, entertainment and marketing in tangible, exciting ways,” said Chris Brown, executive vice president, conventions & business operations for NAB Show. “We are very excited that this group of leaders in the space will be at NAB Show to share their groundbreaking work and insight into what’s next for content.”

Rebecca Allen is director of Nokia Research Center Hollywood and Nokia Research Center Cambridge, US. Allen previously directed the Emergence Project at UCLA, an Intel funded research effort involving artificial life, 3D virtual environments, augmented reality and unique interfaces. She was also creative director/executive producer and 3D visionary at Virgin Interactive Entertainment and a member of the world-renowned NYIT Computer Graphics Laboratory and MIT’s Architecture Machine Group.

Gene Becker is managing director of Lightning Laboratories, a professional services company focusing on strategy and action for the connected world of ubiquitous computing, augmented reality, social media and the Internet of things. Previously, Becker was a technical director at Hewlett-Packard, where he led advanced research and business development for Cooltown, a web-based platform for mobile and ubiquitous computing.

Chetan Demani is founder and CEO of acrossair, a company dedicated to building advanced iPhone games and augmented reality applications using the OpenGL library. Previously, Demani launched several successful companies in the internet space, including Imano, a full service interactive agency with clients such as Nestlé, Citibank and Hotels.com.

Joe Garlington is responsible for the creative development of all interactive attractions for Disney theme parks around the world. Garlington has overseen the creation and development of numerous interactive attractions, including “DisneyQuest,” an indoor interactive theme park that debuted in 1998 at Walt Disney World; “Turtle Talk with Crush”; “Stitch Encounter”; “Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor”; the new post show for “Spaceship Earth”; and many more.

As CEO and co-founder, Bruno Uzzan in the driving force behind the growth of Total Immersion, the global leader in augmented reality and a pioneer in commercializing the technology. Based in Paris, Total Immersion maintains a presence in Los Angeles, London and Hong Kong, and has an impressive client roster that includes Mattel, McDonalds, Disney, Coca-Cola, Nike, Twentieth Century Fox and Nissan Motors.

Two-time Emmy® winner Seth Shapiro is a leader in the profitable application of new technology to emerging business models. He has managed digital media initiatives with Walt Disney Company, DIRECTV, Comcast, TiVo, Time Warner Cable, Showtime, HBO, STARZ, and many others, including a variety of startups, venture and private equity partners. Shapiro is principal of New Amsterdam Media, a partner at the Opportunity Management Company, and co-founder of Media Valuation Partners, a leading firm specializing in the economics of media, entertainment and emerging technologies.

About the 2010 NAB Show

The NAB Show will take place 10-15 April 2010 in Las Vegas (exhibits open 12 April). It is the world’s largest electronic media show covering filmed entertainment and the development, management and delivery of content across all mediums. Complete details are available at http://www.nabshow.com.

News media registration is now available online. Click here to register as press for the NAB Show.

About NAB

The National Association of Broadcasters is the premier advocacy association for America’s broadcasters. NAB advances radio and television interests in legislative, regulatory and public affairs. Through advocacy, education and innovation, NAB enables broadcasters to best serve their communities, strengthen their businesses and seize new opportunities in the digital age. Learn more at http://www.nab.org.

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What is Tagwhat? A Look Behind the Scenes with Dave Elchoness

Posted on April 6, 2010 by Ori Inbar
Dave Elchoness from Iryss, recently sat with me (virtually) to provide more details behind the scenes of the recent launch of Tagwhat.

Games Alfresco: Hi Dave! and thank for taking the time off your busy launch of Tagwhat for an interview with Games Alfresco.

How did you and Iryss get into Augmented Reality in the first place?
Dave: Thank you so much for the opportunity, Ori.
We were among the first developers in the world on the Layar browser.  As GoWeb3D, we developed a number of the more popular layers including Wikipedia, FlickAR, Eat, Drink, Mazda, and UDR Real Estate.
In the second half of 2009, we decided to create our own proprietary AR platform.  It was then that we renamed ourselves Iryss to better reflect our new business focus.  In November, we demonstrated the integration of Iryss’ AR platform with active RFID (RTLS) data.  Once we saw how we could deliver that data to the enterprise in AR via a very inexpensive consumer mobile device, we knew we have something exciting on our hands.  We demonstrated that technology in the military training context (to track soldiers via AR as they moved through the training environment) but there are compelling applications in virtually every market from military, to healthcare, and retail.  The feedback to our technology was tremendous as we could immediately replace laptops and cumbersome harness systems with a single consumer device loaded with the Iryss platform.  We could equip every user of our technology with an unparalleled awareness of their surroundings as well as the ability to easily communicate with the added dimension of geo-contextual information using a commercially available mobile device.
Not wishing to focus solely on enterprise applications, we developed Tagwhat – our creation and distribution system which can be used in either the enterprise or consumer contexts.  Tagwhat is now in private beta as of March 30. Take a look:

Games Alfresco: What exactly have you just launched with TagWhat? Who’s the target audience for this new product/service?

Dave: We have launched something very special and unique. Tagwhat is a create and share mobile AR system that is easy to use, fast, and free.  Basically, Tagwhat allows users to place mobile AR through a robust on-line map interface or via mobile AR.  They can attach multimedia, URL’s, phone numbers, and e-mail addresses to the AR tags, all of which are immediately accessible and can be directly launched from the mobile.  What makes Tagwhat particularly compelling is that it applies social media principles for interaction.  Users follow others in Tagwhat, thereby merging those users’ AR streams into theirs.  Sort of like a Twitter stream.  Users can place AR anywhere in the world, send their followers ‘for their eyes only’ directed tags, and comment on the tags of other users.  We have also provided each user with a media center and private messaging service.  Privacy is very important to us at Iryss.  If users only want to share their information and tags with specific friends, they can do that.  If they want to share their lives with everyone in the world, they can do that too.  This not only protects our users, but also helps ensure that every Tagwhat experience is filled with pertinent data.
The target audience is tremendous.  Since our launch, we have met with industry experts ranging from museum directors, to teachers, to writers, to social media experts, to mothers, to local business owners, and each of them has described completely different but equally powerful ways that they are planning on using Tagwhat to reach THEIR target audiences.  After each meeting, we continually realize that we are dealing with much more than just a product, we’re building a protocol that’s letting people share information and communicate with their surroundings and each other in a way that has never before been possible.  We are finding that Tagwhat’s intuitive way of viewing and processing information is a natural extension of people’s everyday lives.  Because of this, Tagwhat is not only understandable, but more importantly, highly accessible for those who aren’t the most technologically savvy.

Games Alfresco: Tell us a little about the team behind it? Anything you can share about the development process? The technical challenges?

Dave: The founders are Don Cramer, Angus Shee, and me.  Don is our CIO, an IT and development guru. Someone I met in Second Life as a technical wiz, everything that Tagwhat is technically, is due to Don’s amazing skill and work ethic.  He is one of a kind.  Angus is our CTO.  A very accomplished engineer, Angus is able to combine the big picture with the finer details that are an important part of implementation.  In my experience, that’s a rare combination.  As for me, my background is as an attorney and executive. The majority of what I do is establish and articulate the vision for Iryss and Tagwhat.
Development is an extremely iterative process.  We believe in functionality and simplicity.  As one of the earliest in the consumer augmented reality space, we have numerous lessons-learned that are unique to augmented reality.  The Tagwhat experience needs to make sense and every function needs to be useful.  We use our product incessantly, look for feedback from our testers, and integrate the best changes immediately.
There are lots of challenges.  Don puts the scare in them and they go away.

Games Alfresco: How do you differentiate Tagwhat from other social AR browsers such as Metaio’s Junaio, Tonchidot, and others?

Dave: Tagwhat is unique, period.  I can’t speak for other technologies, but I don’t see Tagwhat as another AR browser.  Tagwhat is a lot of things including a creation and distribution system, a communications protocol, and a social network.  We have structured Tagwhat so that each of these aspects works hand in hand with the others.  No functionality is an after-thought or just there for its “cool-factor.”  Everything is truly integrated such that each functionality is made better because of the others.  To be able to create an information-rich augmented reality tag, tie it to a relevant geographic location like your favorite restaurant, share it with your friends, have a threaded conversation about what they think or what they’re bringing, and then have everyone use the original tag to get turn-by-turn directions from all of their unique locations, text if they’re running late, or browse the menu on their way over is a mind-blowingly powerful experience.  Something we dreamed about before Tagwhat.  And there’s much more to come including partnerships with some great companies integrating their own content rich Channels, a Rewards system that seamlessly integrates local as well as national businesses which we believe will revolutionize e-commerce, and quite a bit more.

Games Alfresco: How do you see TagWhat evolving in the future? Iryss evolving?

Dave: Tagwhat will evolve first as a consumer application as we ‘plug in’ a ton of geo-contextual data that people will want to use.  We are moving into a phase of showing new users ‘how/why’ one uses Tagwhat (keep your eye out for a great video series in the next couple weeks).  As I mentioned earlier, we’re really not fans of technology that isn’t practical, usable, and enriching in our daily lives and we’re looking to show how different unique users incorporate Tagwhat into their lives.
As our consumer products mature, we will continue development on the enterprise side.  We see a significant synergy with the Iryss/Tagwhat platforms and enterprise requirements of countless industry verticals and think that organizations will be very interested as they see the impact Tagwhat will have on the consumer market.  At least that’s how things are sketched out today.

Games Alfresco: So how can we get started with Tagwhat?

Dave: I hope Games Alfresco readers take a look at Tagwhat on-line and in the Android marketplace.  We anticipate an iPhone 3GS release in the coming weeks.  For Games Alfresco readers, please input beta invitation code beta46 for access – and feel free to invite some of your friends.
Thanks very much for this opportunity.  We’ve been Games Alfresco fans for some time.

Games Alfresco: Many thanks for sharing, Dave and good luck with Tagwhat!

Dave Elchoness will be speaking at the upcoming Augmented Reality Event (June 2-3, 2010 – Santa Clara Convention Center, California) among a great lineup of AR industry speakers. Only a few discount tickets are left – so use code AR245 and register Today.

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Preaching to the Augmented Choir

Posted on April 5, 2010 by rouli

Yet another use of the BBC big screens for augmenting reality. This time it’s a project by a group of artists named “The Sancho Plan” who deployed the display in Bristol late last March. I don’t have any more details, but it seems the participants had a lot of fun:

Big Screen Augmented Reality from The Sancho Plan on Vimeo.

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Weekly Linkfest

Posted on April 4, 2010 by rouli

It will be a challenge cramming all of this week’s links into seven bullet points and a video, but I’ll try my best:

This weeks video shows the work coming from the University of Ulster. At first, those may look like very simple games – and they are, for a very good reason. Intended to aid in upper-limb stroke rehabilitation, these let patients practice some of the finer movements such as reach, grasp, manipulation and release of objects. You can read more about it here.

Have a grand week!

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TagWhat Social Augmented Reality Network

Posted on April 1, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter

Forgive me for posting this on April 1st. I feel like anything on the Internet is suspect today.

TagWhat looks to be a mixing of Foursquare, texting, and Yelp with a dash of augmented reality thrown in for good measure.  I’ll let the makers of TagWhat explain their product since I haven’t experienced it for myself:

Tagwhat is a new kind of social network focused on creating and distributing mobile augmented reality.

Mobile augmented reality, or AR, is a new way of displaying information in the mobile device, at the user’s location, over the live camera view of the mobile device.  Essentially, but placing data over real life, we ‘augment’ reality in ways that hopefully make your life richer.

In Tagwhat, we interact with maps to place text, urls, photos, or videos anywhere on the globe.  By following others in Tagwhat, users are able to merge the AR worlds of others’ with their own to form a completely unique social experience.

Beyond a status update or a location check-in, Tagwhat is a brand new way of reaching friends, communicating, socializing, delivering information, entertaining, and learning.  Tagwhat’s approach means higher quality interaction with brands, companies, customers, students, viewers, fans, and visitors.  The possibilities for you to discover and invent, meet and connect, are endless.

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