Death of a Browser – Gamaray No More

Posted on September 23, 2009 by rouli

Today is a sad day for many AR enthusiasts. Just yesterday I’ve asked how would Layar’s new 3d feature affect Gamaray. Now, I unfortunately know the answer. Clayton Lilly, the man behind the Gamaray browser, has decided to quit developing it. In a mail to Gamaray’s developers mailing list, Lilly writes:

After hearing the announcements made by Layar and Mobilizy yesterday I’ve decided to stop developing Gamaray any further. I’ll still support the existing version of Gamaray as best I can, although I would suggest applying for a Layar developer key or learning ARML. The main competitive features Gamaray had were 3D objects and its open http/XML architecture. Since Gamaray couldn’t compete against the other companies when it had these advantages, there’s no point in continuing now that both these features will be covered by the other browsers.

Gamaray was one of the first mobile AR browsers, and took the original approach of embedding 3d virtual objects from the get go. I first interviewed Lilly in June, when he had high hopes for Gamaray. However, even back then, Lilly was woried about the developing a platform:

Right now we are focusing on the creation of multiplayer AR games for Android, our first one being a tank combat game. Beyond that, it will depend on how the market looks, although we have lots of ideas.
We know that AR is going to be very big in the near future, but the challenge is knowing what to focus our efforts on. For a while we thought of creating a more general purpose AR platform, but I’m concerned that Google may already be developing a first person AR viewer for KML data and 3D models.

I hope that in a world where new AR browsers are created by the minute (I learned about two new ones just today), Lilly and Gamaray would find their niche, and maybe create that tank game.

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Create Augmented Reality and Win Vuzix AR Goggles

Posted on September 22, 2009 by Ori Inbar

A shift from focus on technology to content typically represents major progress in an emerging industry.

Are we there yet?

Seac02 is sponsoring this content creation contest:

Submit videos or images created using LinceoVR — if you still don’t have it installed, what are you’re waiting for? Download it now!

Get the most out of LinceoVR: both virtual reality and camera matching (aka augmented reality) modalities of LinceoVR are allowed. Express your creativity, there’s absolutely no limit to your digital content creation! Just a few examples, to let your imagination flow:

  • Industrial design images or videos;
  • Character animations images or videos;
  • Viral augmented reality images or videos;
  • Packaging design images or videos;
  • Viral marketing images or videos;
  • You name it.. :)

At the end of the public web voting period (30th of November 2009), the top ten voted works will have the right to be judged by our amazing jury. Don’t miss this opportunity, get the chance to know better the power of LinceoVR and to win a Vuzix iWear VR920+CamAr, a Canon PowerShot SX120 or a Logitech Fusion 9000 Pro!

This contest is worth participating for 2 reasons:

1) win a Vuzix iWear VR920 + CamAR

2) Be judged by a mouth watering collection of Italian first names: Andrea, Davide, Fausto, Michele, Antony, Francesco, and Fabio…

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Augmented Reality in Your Hands

Posted on September 21, 2009 by rouli

Researchers from the University of California Santa Barbara have a lofty goal on their minds – “Anywhere Augmentation”, which means augmenting arbitrary environments with little prior preparation. Or as they put it:

The main goal of this work is to lower the barrier of broad acceptance for augmented reality by expanding beyond research prototypes that only work in prepared, controlled environments.

Now, if have been following the world of augmented reality for the last year, you are probably familiar with the following situation. There’s some site offering an AR experience, but in order to access it, you have to print at least one black and white symbol. Unfortunately, the marker you have just printed last week, for another site, just doesn’t cut it. Each site requires its own marker, that becomes obsolete after two minutes. It’s a defining example of prior preparation in order to experience AR, and the researcher at UCSB as a plan to eliminate it.
Enters HandyAR. Instead of using a marker, Taehee Lee and Tobias Höllerer want to track your outstretched hand.

You can even have some minimal interaction with virtual objects, dragging and dropping them, by closing and opening your hand, as the following video shows:

Ain’t it cool? You can find much more information over here, where you can also download a binary (Windows) and source code (Visual Studio 2005) to play with.
(via @totalimmersion)

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Weekly Linkfest

Posted on September 20, 2009 by rouli

It’s time again for the weekly linkfest. Let’s see what else happened this week in the world of augmented reality:

In the realm of mobile browsers:

  • SREngine has a new video out showing its slick user interface.
  • Hong Kong’s Leisure Guide – yet another AR browser (YAARB™)
  • Metaio announces the coming release of Junaio, but doesn’t give much information about what Junaio really is.

And in other news:

  • Total Immersion now enters the world of soccer trading cards, at least in Italy.
  • You can get pregnant without the morning sickness via the wonders of Flash based AR.
  • The Virtec project is a thesis project using AR to teach about Aztec culture by means of a book and a head mounted display.

This week’s video revisits one of this blog’s reoccurring themes, the Transformers (previously here and here). This application comes with the Transformers coming DVD, or as this trailer puts it “Prepare for Augmented Reality! An exclusive 3D Holographic Experience!”:

Have a nice week!

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Happy Rosh HaShana

Posted on September 18, 2009 by rouli

For our Hebrew readers (the three of you):

It’s the Jewish new year, and Israeli web design firm Netcraft produced this new year greeting. You can try it yourself here. (thanks Alon!)

Happy Rosh HaShana, Ori!

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More Augmented Business Cards

Posted on September 18, 2009 by rouli

A couple of months ago, the ARSphere was gushing over James Alliban’s augmented business card (the one with the pixelated talking 3d face).

That nice little creative work led Alliban to recently launch Augmatic, a company that provides augmented reality services, and yes, among them is a personalized augmented business card.

Of course, Alliban is not the only one in the augmented business-cards-business. We have previously featured Toxin Labs. This week sees another implementation, by one Burton Posey, which can only be described as cute (of course, you can choose a more menacing avatar):

Says Posey:

This is an idea I’d been kicking around in my head since February. I wanted to find a way that a company could deliver a catchy identity for themselves. Avatars, be it the Mii’s on the Nintendo Wii, or an Xbox Live Avatar, have become extensions of the people who use them.

You can try his implementation over here. I wonder if any of the guys at ISMAR 09 is going to have augmented business cards.

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Concept Glasses to Photoshop Reality

Posted on September 16, 2009 by rouli

Good magazine has apparently asked some interviewees to imagine that will improve their daily life. The two ladies in the video below, Freya Estreller and Natasha Case, came up with Photoshop Glasses. A first step to improving the world may be seeing how much better it could be:

If you happen to think that’s a far fetched idea, you are probably right. However, we already saw head tracking software that puts on virtual masks on faces. So maybe in your next job interview, if the interviewer just looks a tad like your ex-boyfriend, all you’ll need to do is wear some dorky glasses, and see him as Optimus Prime.

via Red Tory

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Augmented Reality? I’m Loving It

Posted on September 15, 2009 by rouli

Or used to, I’m currently in the trough of disillusionment. But never mind that, here’s how McDonald’s Italy chose to promote their new hamburger. Giving new meaning to Bruce Sterling claim that current AR is a bit cheesy.

Try it here.
Previously – Find Nearest McDonald’s via AR and Augmented Burger King.

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Weekly Linkfest

Posted on September 13, 2009 by rouli

Actually, it was a relatively quiet week in the ARSphere. Here are some links to news bits that I haven’t had the time to cover over here:

In the mobile AR front:

  • Kooaba is an iPhone application that much like Snaptell (or Nokia’s “Point and Find”) lets you take a picture of a product and get information about it. Now they venture into the realm of AR browsers, but since they fail to show their image-based browser working on a real iPhone, I’ll remain skeptic for now.
  • Cyborg is an AR application that helps you find the cheapest gas station around. Yes, they could do that with a simple map, but that’s like having a web 2.0 site without rounded corners.
  • And if you live in Hong Kong, forget about gas prices, just use this application to find the nearest train.

And in other news:

This week video comes from Techcrunch’s favorite Tonchidot, makers of the Sekai Camera. Apparently their application was finally submitted to the iPhone’s appstore, and we may soon compare it to other AR browsers. The next video is indeed in Japanese, but starting from 0:45 you can easily understand what’s going on, even if you are not a native Japanese speaker. It certainly has some Japanese flair to it:

Have a nice week!

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Follow Friday – AR Favorites in Twitter (part two)

Posted on September 11, 2009 by rouli

Continuing my endeavor from last week, here are some more recommended accounts to follow on Twitter if you are interested in augmented reality. As promised, today I’m going to focus on mobile augmented reality companies. But first, let me just add two more guys that I absentmindedly missed last time.

  • @chrisgrayson – Chris is the only advertisement guy I’m willing to follow. Many times he finds interesting AR oriented links long before anyone else. Moreover, he is very concise, and won’t spam you with mundane links, so there’s no reason not to follow him.
  • @thomaskcarpente – Thomas Carpenter is of course the guy behind The Future Digital Life. He’s new on Twitter, but if his blog is any sign, you wouldn’t want to miss following him on Twitter.

And now, without further ado, mobile augmented reality accounts:

  • @Wikitude – The official account for the Austrian trailblazers Mobilizy. It’s really all about Wikitude, and a bit spammy, but there’s no better source for news about this application. Advanced users – check out Mark Kramer’s account, Mobilizy’s human experience lead.
  • @LayarMobile – Probably the world’s most famous mobile AR application, Layar is also the most followed account on this list. Mainly about Layar, but sometimes tweets about the external ARSphere. Advanced users – chekout Raimo van der Klein’s account, Layar’s CEO.
  • @acrossair – makers of London’s tube finder AR app (and NY subway, and so on…), and recently their own AR browser.
  • @srengine – One of the few AR applications that is based on image recognition. Partly in Japanese, but you are more likely to see English over its Twitter account than on its official blog.
  • @GeoVector – One of the first players in the field of mobile augmented reality. When their World Surfer browser like application for the iPhone is approved by Apple they may become a strong player in the western hemisphere.
  • @symbiancoder – David Caabeiro’s account, one of the developers at Sequence Point Software, makers of ARound, your best option for Symbian based AR.
  • @Robotvision – The AR browser we wrote about here. Only one tweet to date, so advanced users should follow Tim Sears, the guy behind it.
  • @sekaicamera – Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera, The AR sensation from Japan. Only five tweets till now, but should warm up as they prepare to launch soon.

Obviously, this list is not comprehensive, and I’ve probably missed some accounts. If you know of any account that should be added to this list (does Gamaray have one?), please leave a comment, or better yet tweet me. As always, you can follow me on twitter at @augmented.

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