Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Posted on May 8, 2011 by rouli

Took a break last week (missed me? you should follow me on Twitter), back today with many AR links:

This week’s video is just cute rendition of a possible augmented future, featuring Super Mario Bros villains in real life (via Neatorama):

Have a splendid week!

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Final Schedule Published For the World’s Largest Gathering of Augmented Reality Professionals at ARE 2011

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Ori Inbar

The second annual Augmented Reality Event (ARE 2011) is just 1 week away – and the final schedule published today has got it all: Entertainment & drama, learning & playing, psychology & emotion, brain & heart, capitalism & art – and many other superlatives about augmenting the world.

Confirmed number of speakers at the event is a staggering 113 leaders from 82 AR companies!

But it’s not about the quantity – the quality of these speakers is what makes it a must see event: check out the wide variety of talks in the ARE2011 schedule-at-a-glance and you’ll start drooling. Come to the event and see for yourself how AR is already changing practically every aspect of our lives.

Register today with the exclusive discount code for games alfresco readers: ORI295

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Doodle War – AR Game

Posted on May 4, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

The inevitable infantile drawings aside, this game is a wonderful display of augmented reality.  Honestly, I could easily see myself sitting around a display table, drinking beers and betting on our ships as they blasted each other off the map.

Each combatant is drawn by the player on a game card that is scanned into the game by a camera, and the stats of your ship are determined by the shape, size and colours used to create it.

It was nominated for the ‘Award for Technical Excellence’ at the 2011 FITC Awards, and won the award for ‘Best Experimental Flash’

Doodle War gets my vote.

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A New Look At Vuzix’s AR Glasses

Posted on May 3, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

Paul Travers, the CEO of Vuzix, has been busy these days.  Selling AR glasses to the military for one million a pop sounds like a good deal to me.  Especially when that DARPA money helps fund a commercial version.

May 3 (Bloomberg) — Augmented-reality glasses made by Vuzix Corp. may allow soldiers on the ground to coordinate with unmanned drones in the air. Vuzix signed a one-year, $1 million contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop glasses to work with military drones. Bloomberg’s Megan Hughes reports the technology may also have potential civilian applications. (Source: Bloomberg)

Go here to see the video and get a first person POV of the AR glasses in action.

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How Will You Protect Your Customer’s Data Exhaust?

Posted on April 27, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

Last week on The Future Digital Life, I posted about the Dangers of Computer Vision.  The post garnered a fair amount of interest but it is a question that’s a tad ahead of its time.  We don’t have cameras greedily sucking up information by the bucketfuls right now.

But we do have GPS for our augmented reality apps.

Cue the Imperial March soundtrack and bring out Apple’s turtlenecked front man in role of Darth Jobs.  A recent “bug” was uncovered in iPhone’s software that allowed tracking of the phone user’s location.

Apple claims the data is not the actual smartphone location:

“The location data that researchers are seeing on the iPhone is not the past or present location of the iPhone, but rather the locations of Wi-Fi hotspots and cell towers surrounding the iPhone’s location, which can be more than one hundred miles away from the iPhone.”

Either way, it’s a perception that a breech of trust has occurred.  Rather than ramble on about the dangers of this data, and since many of the readers of Games Alfresco are software designers, I thought I would pose a question.  One that won’t be that surprising if you read the title of my post.

Sound off, software developers of the rabid interwebs…

How will you protect your customer’s data exhaust?

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Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Posted on April 24, 2011 by rouli

This week in the linkfest – computer vision, Easter bunnies and furniture:

  • “Augmented Reality for Smartphones” is a 50 pages-long report that analyzes many popular AR platforms in order to give developers better perspective on what’s available in the market today.
  • Computer vision (1): Thomas K. Carpenter warns us against its dangers.
  • Computer vision (2): Raimo van der Klein gives an excellent talk on why computer vision, like biological vision at the time, will start an evolutionary arms race – Birth of the Digital Eye.
  • Computer vision (3): IQ Engines is a cool startup, offering “vision as a service”. I’ve tried their mobile application, and it is amazing at recognizing objects – but also usually slow, because it is still partially based on humans behind the scenes.
  • Fraunhofer presents an eye-tracking microdisplay that delivers Terminator vision (via @Ben_Thomas_Ech).
  • Oh noes! Giant Easter bunnies invade the Earth!
  • Finally, if you ever find yourself confused by IKEA’s instructions, there will be an app for that (maybe).
This week’s video was featured on Bruce Sterling’s Beyond the Beyond, but if you missed it, here’s your opportunity. It’s in French, and depicts a modern fairy tale, made possible by augmented reality. Luckily you don’t need to know French to follow the story, and I find it only adding to the video’s allure. (However, I’ll be thankful if you can translate the old guy at the end of the video in the comments).
Happy Easter/Passover!

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Google Map Maker Will Help Annotate AR World

Posted on April 20, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

Google is finally allowing us to edit and add to the map of the United States.  Google Map Maker accepts user contributions and map edits which will, after being checked by a small verification group, be added to the map.  This information can now be seen in Google Street View along with searchable content.  I added a point to my local map and it was added within minutes.

Now local areas can be filled in with detail that will help users manage their every day world.  You could add a shortcut through a campus or a favorite hot dog vendor location that doesn’t show up on the normal map.  It’s possible this information could be used for an AR world.

This is huge news for future AR browsers (or current ones if they can draw from this data.)  Augmented reality is essentially information overlain the life sized map of our world.  Maps are just less detailed versions of our world and Google Map Maker helps transition between the two.

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Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Posted on April 17, 2011 by rouli

It’s time again for the weekly linkfest, a collection of augmented reality news stories that I didn’t find the time to blog about during the past week:

This week’s video comes to us from Nokia Research, showing their indoor navigation solution. Coming from Nokia Research, one of the first bodies to look into mobile AR, this should be considered as no more than a teaser. It’s very cool and alluring with its 30cm accuracy, and its “where I put my keys” functionality, but not likely to be adopted anytime soon. Five years from now, Apple/Google will probably come with inferior solution which will be hugely successful. You can read more about the technology on GSM Arena.

Have a great week!

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Interactive Billboard with Feelings

Posted on April 13, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

My favorite part of the billboard is that it’s made for when you’re stuck in traffic.  I’m thinking the billboard is going to be mostly sad.

Partnering with Tronic the billboard sits near the entrance to the Holland Tunnel and reads, ‘Today I’m Feeling _____’. Using a the GoldRun GPS augmented reality app, passerbys or drivers stuck in traffic can see if the billboard is happy or sad or, whether it feels like dancing or cheering on its favorite team.

Because the billboard is GPS tagged, a number of images can appear at the same site making it more interactive than typical augmented reality applications, essentially, taking a traditional billboard and making it digital. For example, users can change the feelings themselves using large-scale emoticons, and then post them to Facebook or Twitter.

This billboard is part of ADstruc’s ‘Billboards for Everyone’ campaign that partners with artists and designers to help promote creativity and innovation in the outdoor space.

ADstruc Interactive Billboard from TronicStudio on Vimeo.

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Traveller AR – iPhone RPG

Posted on April 12, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

Traveller AR is an upcoming iPhone AR RPG (whew, that’s a mouthful) that has released a beta and a brief video.  The game is based on an old RPG, basically D&D in the stars.

Traveller-AR uses iPhone’s Augmented Reality to:

  • See a virtual 3D world over-layed on the real world through the window of your iPhone.
  • Allow you to move your phone around in real-space, and explore virtual space as though looking through a window to unreality.
  • Place you in the virtual world, near your actual GPS position.
  • Provide travel bonuses and trading bonuses based on your actual GPS position.
  • Discover and interact with other real players near your actual GPS position

 

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