Augmented reality is meant to be location based. Good to see the makers of the Falkland Ghost Hunt remembering that.
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Conquar – The Layar Based Strategy Game
Posted on August 17, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter
Today my wife and kids were ignoring me so I hijacked my wife’s new iPhone. I’d been curious to try the game on Layar called Conquar. The idea sounded simple–take control of your city using troops. Unfortunately, the game IS that simple.
The way the game works is this: when you create an account, you’re randomly put into a team and given around fourteen armies to conquer your enemies. My favorite colors are blue or red, so therefore, I got stuck with yellow. Boooo! Then I used my fourteen armies to conquer the municipalities around St. Louis. There are only five control points in St. Louis and I now own four of them. Hazelwood, I’m coming for you next!
The game promises me more troops each day, so I can continue my smackdown of the Greater St. Louis area. However, once I’ve beat the tar out of Hazelwood tomorrow, what else will I have to do? I’m an old grognard who’s played countless strategy games, so you’re going to have to do better than one button war. I expect to have armies to train, resources to manage, supply lines to protect, a wedding to plan, Gilder to frame! Oh wait, got carried away there.
I recognize that AR gaming still has a long way to go, but if it wants to take off, it’s going to have to offer more than two minutes of fun. Add some options, give me blood dammit! The makers have posted that “Conquar Updates will soon follow!” Here’s to hoping we see some soon. Until then, if you’re in the St. Louis area and you log into Conquar, don’t forget pay homage to Emperor Carpenter.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: AR Games, augmented reality, Conquar, Layar | 1 Comment »
Weekly Linkfest
Posted on August 15, 2010 by rouli
Celebrating Ben Affleck’s 38th birthday, here’s this week’s linkfest:
- “Augspace has turned the city into an onion — if every layer of the onion had a distinct flavor“; Everything is Clickable – a look a futuristic augmented day by Jack Graham (via @chrisgrayson)
- “Swiss watchmaker Tissot also embarked on an AR campaign with built-in reporting metrics and discovered that in-store sales of its watches rose by 85% on the back of its AR ads” ; Why Augmented Reality ‘hype’ could cost marketers millions (via @bdwassom)
- Behind the scenes look at what it took to develop Ben&Jerry’s MooVision application.
- Yet another “Is augmented reality just a cheap gimmick?” piece, this time on computerworld.
- If you have the spare time, a hour long Augmented reality in education webinar.
- Ever wondered who’s the most influential twitter user among the AR crowd? According to peerindex.net it’s none other than Tonchidot’s Takahito Iguchi, though you are more than welcome to follow me
Today’s video is of a project named “SMSlingshot” by the guys at VR/Urban (also check the link for its predecessor, the Spreadgun). As you can guess by its name, it’s a slingshot that throws short text messages at walls (aided by a powerful projector). The results are quite beautiful:
(via Beyond the Beyond)
That’s it, hope you enjoyed it, and see you at Ben’s party this evening.
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BlindType
Posted on August 11, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter
I’m sure the implications for an air-typing interface are obvious.
Thanks @jelleprins for pointing this one out.
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Logged In
Posted on August 11, 2010 by rouli
I don’t much to say about the following video except that it’s named “Logged In” and I wish it was in English. On the other hand, it shows that AR can be an excellent tool for learning new languages. And I know it doesn’t meant to portray AR, but it sure looks like it:
[via Swiss Miss]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Futuristic Visions | Leave a comment »
Augmenting TV
Posted on August 10, 2010 by rouli
Recently two concept designs illustrating the use of augmented reality in order to enhance the plain old tv set, had come to my attention.
The first is a prototype from KDDI lab, presented at the NAB 2010 conference a couple of months ago. I couldn’t dig much information about it (here is some), though it seems to have the goal of personalizing advertisements in mind.
The other design is no where near reaching a prototype stage. Called the Meta-Mirror and imagined by Irish design studio Notion, it has less commercial agenda than the one by KDDI. It really strives to improve television. And with all the reality-tv shows out there, maybe augmented reality is the best way to do so. See more images of Meta-Mirror on Yanko Design.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Futuristic Visions, KDDI | 2 Comments »
Now Available on the App Store: SR Engine 2
Posted on August 9, 2010 by rouli
My favorite independent augmented reality framework, Sein Kanemura’s SR Engine, has just reached the important version 2.0 milestone, freely available on the (Japanese) App Store. Moreover, an SDK was released, allowing developers to create their own image recognition based applications. Capable of identifying up to 150 images, one should be able to use SR Engine to create augmented reality applications for small galleries and venues.
As always, I’m pretty impressed with the UI design, fitting such a “futuristic” application. Mr. Kanemura seems to not only have excellent programming skills but a good eye for design.
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Invisible Sculpture
Posted on August 6, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter
A little real-time camera trickery and some augmented reality, and wa-la…invisible cube.
A camera fixed on the concrete cube sculpture recognizes the presence of human faces within its scope. With a randomized choice it will focus on one of the bystanders and adjust its movement to his; tracking the eye movements of the viewer, a software computes the corresponding angle of view projecting onto the cube the very section of the space the sculpture is blocking from the viewers eye; thus making the cube appear transparent.
The video sculpture, Durchsehen, Exp. 01 (Augmented Perspective) overwrites the common notion of perspective and plays with the significance of perspective in an art historical perspective; the work of art evades the gaze of the viewer or rather: the two are equated. The gaze of the observer coincides with the object of observance in a piece that also draws a line to former strategies of dealing with vision and depiction: the renaissance praxis of “painting on glass”.
Through the real-time projection on the cube a 3dimensional depiction of 2dimensionality occurs; the catoptric turns dioptric. The framing plane of the conventional video image becomes fragmented as work and reality intertwine in an augmented perspective.
Learn more about it from the creators Daniel Franke and Markus Kison.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: AR Art, augmented reality, Daniel Franke, Markus Kison | Leave a comment »
Games Alfresco 