As long as we define media as “the storage and transmission channels or tools used to store and deliver information or data” (Wikipedia), we might as well consider augmented reality as a medium. And not just any medium, but a mass medium, if our hopes and predictions come true.
I find it interesting to look at the development of past mass media in order to gain a historic perspective on augmented reality. Following is the first post in a series of three doing such a comparison. Since it’s far from my typical posts, I’ll decide whether to post the other two depending on how well this one is received. Please comment and let me know what you think!
Content, not Technology is the best way forward
Augmented reality is in its “Lumière stage”. At the turn of the twentieth century, a new technological spectacle was enchanting people from all around the western world. The moving pictures, or films were all the rage in Europe and the US, showing short scenes from everyday life. Early movie goers got excited seeing a 50 seconds long film portraying a train arriving at a station.
The animated photographs are small marvels. …All is incredibly real. What a power of illusion! …The streetcars, the carriages are moving towards the audience. A carriage was galloping in our direction. One of my neighbors was so much captivated that she sprung to her feet… and waited until the car disappeared before she sat down again. (source)
The similarities to augmented reality are obvious, and I don’t think that it’s just a coincidence that Total Immersion (which is French, like the Lumière brothers), chose to show an augmented train on their site’s front page. When people are first exposed to augmented reality, most are impressed, as evident from the numerous videos on Youtube showing folks trying GE’s AR application.
But novelty wears off, and in the case of the film industry it wasn’t a new technology that rekindle the fire, it was content. Talking films only became popular in the late 1920’s, and films in color came 10 years later. Yet, some early film makers have successfully created black and white, silentmasterpieces. As a matter of fact, when Chaplin started to work on Modern Times, which some consider to be his greatest creation, he imagined it as a talkie, but soon decided to make it silent (with some sound effects), because he found it better suits the story’s atmosphere.
Now, I know there are some major differences between the realm of cinema and the realm of augmented reality, and the world itself changed in a significant way in the last 100 years. Yet, there are some striking similarities, and though no one will run away from an augmented train these days, many are still excited about the novelty of this new medium. And maybe, just maybe, when the time comes and people will get bored sticking markers in front of their web cameras (and this time will come soon enough), an artist, not an engineer, a modern Charlie Chaplin, will rise and create exciting content for us to explore.
Another week has passed by, and it’s time again for our weekly linkfest. I kept this one short by skipping some of the more redundant links I’ve collected along the week. Hope it makes the linkfest more readable:
ReadWriteWeb also had a poll this week, asking its readers whether augmented reality is important or just hype (or maybe both). Apart from the poll it’s a fun read, with a comparison between voice-recognition and AR.
What would I write about when AR becomes mainstream? Good chances I’ll focus on the next stage of augmentation – direct computer-brain interfaces, thanks to the intersting “Augmented Reality Meets Brain-Computer Interface”
This week’s video comes from Ogmento. It’s a spelling game that features an augmented panda to entice kids into playing. Since it would feel a bit incestuous to write a full post about it (and Ori was apparently too shy to mentioned it himself on Games Alfresco), this really charming video was relegated to the weekly linkfest, but it deserves better. Luckily, Thomas wrote about it, here.
2009 will be remembered as the year augmented reality apps made the news. That was finally possible thanks to a new bread of mobile devices (Google phone, iPhone) that enable the new experience. These new devices pack the gear you need for AR: from cameras to GPS and compasses; they offer both power AND affordability. And the best part is that you already have them in your pocket.
However the fact that these devices are held in your hand is a double edge sword: yes, it’s accessible and intuitive – but at least one hand will always be tied up. Moreover, it offers a very narrow view into the Augmented world. I have dubbed this generation of AR hardware as the “HAND BAG” generation. A necessary stepping stone on the path towards the broader AR vision.
But what we really want is “NO BAG”. Hands free.
We want augmented reality directly in our field of view. Goggles.
Or better yet, cool sun glasses that BEHAVE like goggles.
So, what’s new in AR Goggles?
Vuzix is still the media darling and probably sells more goggles (Video iWear) to consumers than anyone else.
We can’t wait for the leaves on the trees in New England to turn red; that will signal the launch of Vuzix WRAP 920AV – the first commercial see-thru goggles for AR that don’t break your neck OR your wallet – scheduled for fall 2009.
As a reminder, my poll on the GDC post (which showcases yours truly donning the gizmo) shows a ratio of 47%-33% (Dork vs. Cool). We’re not quit there yet…
What else is out there?
I recently talked with Zvi Lapidot, CEO of Lumus, based in Israel and a major contender in the race to deliver your dream AR glasses.
Here’s what I captured from our discussion while wiping tasty humus with a pita bread:
Ori : Hi Zvi, you have significant experience in building optical solutions for Augmented Reality for military use; what was your goal when you embarked on designing a product for the consumer market?
Zvi: The goal was to deliver light weight, cool looking, see-thru glasses that overlay computer graphics on the screen – minus the head ache. We also needed to ensure that the brightness would be high enough for full outdoor, daylight use. We built a working prototype (see image from last year) which got closer to these objectives more than anyone before, plus it made a great impression on the market.
Ori: It does look better than the HMDs I tried in the 90’s. What are the specs of the prototype?
Zvi: From the website:
Display format is VGA 640 x 480 pixels;
Field of View 27.5°
Virtual screen size Equivalent of 60″ screen at 10 ft away; 600″ at 100 ft away
Eye motion box 10 x 10 mm
Displays full color
Transparency >70%
Brightness >400 FtL
Contrast ratio >100:1
Eye relief 22 mm
Input signal Composite video (NTSC or PAL)
Weight <100g
LOE thickness 2 mm
Ori: That’s impressive. And how did you enable AR tracking?
Zvi: By collaborating with AR specialists and Chinese partners we integrated a web camera and a compass (with 3DOF) into the prototype; and connected it to a phone with GPS. AR algorithms analyzed the video from the camera and overlaid graphics while tracking the real world. Several units of the prototype were even sold. Our eyewear has also been demonstrated for interactive gaming. Here is a game KDDI (a major Japanese telecommunications service provider) built with it employing a mobile phone (with built-in motion sensors) as a controller for AR bowling (watch at 0:47):
Ori: Cool. So when can we expect this to hit the market?
Zvi: bringing such a prototype to mass market production requires significant funding which we don’t have yet (so far we had a small funding round by angel investors including myself)
Ori: yes, I know what you mean. VCs still can’t see the huge potential of the augmented reality industry. There aren’t any commercial proof points. It’s the chicken and the egg problem once again: to invest in hardware you want to see demand for apps. Application developers can’t show demand because they rely on hardware…which is not there yet…
So what next?
Zvi: We actually weren’t satisfied with the above achievements. We thought we could do even better. So we have been designing a more ambitious version that further reduces the weight (well below 100g) and significantly increases the brightness (a must for outdoor operation). We’re using smaller-smarter electronics and focusing on aesthetics as well. This one will be really look cool.
Ori: will it include the gear required for tracking?
Zvi: Tracking will come as a plug-in component, like a “goody box” including camera, gyros, compasses etc.
Ori: And how long until we can lay our hands (and eyes) on the new beauty?
Zvi: We are currently in debug mode; planning to have the prototype ready by mid 2010. Mass market will come later.
Ori: So we might need to wait until 2011 until you offer a mass market product…well, at least it could change the ratio of Dork vs. Cool in favor of the latter…
What about cost?
Zvi: In mass market production it will be around a couple of hundred dollars.
Ori: That’s certainly reasonable. How do you plan to compete with Vuzix which reportedly plans to release see-thru goggles for the mass market as early as this fall?
Zvi: We welcome Vuzix to succeed and open the market.
What’s unique about our product is the optics. Our main advantage is the ultra-thin transparent optics that we offer and the high brightness of our display. As a result, we provide the optimal solution for outdoor AR scenarios, while maintaining a natural look and wearing comfort.
Games alfresco: Awesome. You got to demo your goggle at ISMAR this year – you know?
Zvi: We have been there a few years ago and were missing the commercial prospects. We run a business after all.
Games alfresco: oh, you are in for a great surprise this year – ISMAR will expand beyond the academia focus and will introduce new tracks dedicated to interactive media, humanities, arts and a stronger commercial focus.
Mobile augmented reality becomes a crowded space really quickly, and I’m about to give up reporting about every application that pops into the lime light.
Anyway, Robotvision is another iPhone “augmented reality browser” developed by Portland based Tim Sears. To be released in September (once iPhone OS 3.1 is out), Robotvision boasts some unique features like using Bing rather than Google for local listings (which some would say is a wise decision), and being offered as a white-label infrastructure for other application creators (though, if you are looking to create an AR application for the iPhone you may also want to consider creating a layer for Layar, or using the open source iphonearkit).
While I’m quite a skeptic whether Presslite’s Metro Paris application for the iPhone has “AR capabilities” in the version available on the appstore, there’s no denying Yelp’s application does.
Found by Robert Scoble (I’m pretty sure it was leaked to Scoble), and brought to my awareness my ReadWriteWeb, shaking your iPhone while on Yelp’s main menu three times, will open up an hidden feature named monocle. Monocle is nothing but an augmented reality view of Yelp’s listing, as shown in the next video (many thanks to Tom Carpenter for finding this one):
It only works on the iPhone 3gs, but unlike Metro Paris, it’s free, so don’t hesitate to tr y it out. Now, I don’t think that in the long run it matters whether Apple knew or not about this feature. Obviously, mobile augmented reality is here, and we are only about see more of it in the coming months. What should matter is what’s next? Where will innovation come from, if everyone is using the same compass and GPS combo?
I for one think that we are in the middle of the “AR browsers” season, but the next big thing, which better suits the technology at hand (imprecise compasses), is mobile AR games. What are your thoughts?
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?
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
Planning to attend ISMAR 09 the world’s best augmented reality event?
If you are…read on.
Not planning to attend? Visit our ISMAR page. Change your mind…and then read on.
Here is a message from Steve Stapleton – the general co-chair of ISMAR 2009 and the mastermind behind the plan to expand this year’s event beyond academia to the commercial world:
We want to capture the ISMAR 2009 experience in as many ways a possible and increase dialogue and discourse. We are planning to incorporate different social networking programs. What social networking tools do you use or prefer? Twitter, Yammer, YouTube, Flikr, DokoDare, Kooaba?
As part of our mobile guide, we will be using DokoDare as an experiment for wayfinding and networking at ISMAR 2009. We will be marking all the exhibits and providing markers for each attendees to help connect during the conference and after hours.
All ISMAR participants can sign up for the special ISMAR Mobile Social Network and Local Search service, called “DokoDare” and operated by Kaywa. We strongly recommend going to the below link and completing the short registration process to receive your personal QR code for use of this no cost ISMAR special feature. It is available to all registered attendees before, during and after ISMAR 09.
Just a short tweet, to show you I’m still alive (actually, it was a tweet a few hours ago). Unfortunately, I’m not in Paris, but working hard at the moment. However, this next video presents an iPhone app that augments Paris (and looks suspiciously like acrossair applications).
It’s called Métro Paris, and the augmented reality is actually a new feature for an old application (which apparently is the top non-free application on the French iTunes). More details, here.
Games Alfresco 