Raving Rabbids Alive & Kicking (Some AR)

Posted on June 6, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

Yes, I still exist.  Sorry, I’ve been out of the country for the last few weeks.  But my travels did give me a glimpse into a fantastic game sporting the A and the R — Raving Rabbids.  If you’re not familiar with the series, Raving Rabbids are the insanity pills of the gaming industry.  Nothing like jerking your carrot juice in front of a bar full of people, laughing and pointing the whole time (yes, this is a game, not an obscene act.)

The game is for the Microsoft Kinect only and utilizes the characters to immerse you into their insanity.  What I love about the Rabbids and AR is that it gets you out of the gimmick and into AR.  Right now what holds most applications of AR back is that they’re focused on the trick and not telling a good story.  Rabbids are weird and at times, unexplainable, but playing their games helps you forget there’s a thing called AR at all.  And that’s a good thing.

Looking forward to when this game comes out.

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Georgia Tech’s Spring 2011 Crop of Games – Nerds, Puppies and Asteroids

Posted on May 31, 2011 by rouli

It was only five months ago when we reported about the first set of mobile augmented reality games coming out of Qualcomm Augmented Reality Game Studio. The studio, a partnership between Qualcomm and Georgia Tech’s Augmented Environments Lab, gives students the tools to create AR games and gives us a peek their crazy ideas. Now, a new crop of games is out of the studio’s doors, and here are my favorites:

Dodger Dodger is a simple game where you are tasked with escaping falling asteroids. This game smartly harnesses the mobile platform to add another dimension to the game. Not only does the player needs to move left and right, he also needs to move the phone back and forth in order to avoid the asteroids:

Nerdherder is obviously the bastard step child of last semaster’s Nerdferno. Instead of dodging asteroids, you need to avoid eye contact with girls in this one:

The goal of Puppy Plus is to teach your child basic math skills using a cute puppy living on a deserted island, surrounded by pirate ships. It makes perfect sense, trust me:

You can read more about these games and others coming out this spring on Qualcomm AR game studio site; Don’t miss the narwal safe sex guide.

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Weekly Sunny Linkfest

Posted on May 29, 2011 by rouli

Before we begin with our weekly pile of links, here’s a message from Christine Perey on behalf of “the program committee of the Third International AR Standards meeting”:

The committee has decided to extend the deadline for position papers to June 6th (5 PM UK). Please find more information and guidelines for the position papers: http://www.perey.com/ARStandards/third-meeting-position-papers/

Now, back to our regular programming:

This week’s video goes to you Dr. Who fans – I’ll never understand your ways. Sean McCracken apparently does, and thus created this Android app, available on the Android market to display an augmented version of the TARDIS. Everlasting glory to the first fan who will create a video of Daleks shouting “augment! augment!”
Have a nice week, and good luck Noora

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Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Posted on May 22, 2011 by rouli

It’s a link apocalypse!

  • Many of the AR community went to the second annual Augmented Reality Event. Sadly, I wasn’t able to be there, but luckily, Augmented Citizen share some thoughts and presentations from the event, Locative Media have some “pirated videos” of the keynotes and Layar uploaded videos of a couple of their presentations to Youtube. If you have a video or a blog post about the event – send me an email or give me a tweet.
  • Sander Veenhof is a genius (there, I said it!) and Layar should be paying him money for choosing their platform if they don’t already do so. This time he came up with a way to use augmented reality to create a world wide synchronized dancing routine. It’s an augmented macarena!
  • With Disney’s mobile phone projector you can play games on walls and interact with real life objects.
  • Tablets and democratization: Metaio & Layar pinpoint next steps for augmented reality (via @bruces).
  • Sony SmartAR delivers high-speed markerless augmented reality and according to Engadget, it also blows minds.
  • Scott Blake creates art using QR codes.

This week’s video is of a simple augmented reality game, called Tapcloud with an interesting premise. By chasing virtual cloud (and looking a little bit foolish), the game forces you to get some exercise, and even counts the number of calories you burned once it’s game over. The game is available for free on the app store, so you have nothing to lose (except, again, calories).

Have a tremendous week!

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Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Posted on May 15, 2011 by rouli

ARE2011 is only two days away, and I’m going to miss it (this time its my fault, and I can’t blame Delta Airways). I’m a lame excuse for an AR blogger, I know. If you go there, please shoot some videos and share!

Here are a few AR news stories to make the wait seem shorter (btw – have a link to share? contact me on Twitter @augmented):

Our weekly video comes today from the Future Lions 2011 contest, where young advertising professionals are called to “Advertise a product from a global brand in a way that couldn’t have been done five years ago, to an audience of your choosing”. Tom Houser and Victoria Trow came up a way to use augmented reality as an alternative source of income for record companies. I am a bit of a skeptic, but it’s an interesting idea nonetheless:

Have a great week!

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Virtual Fitting Room for Topshop

Posted on May 10, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

** Nice to see the Kinect out in the working world, rather than just slaving away in hacker space.  The video is instructive as it shows real customers using the product.  Personally, I wouldn’t look good in any of those dresses, but that’s just me.  *cough*

Virtual Fitting Room for Topshop

AR Door, a Russian agency specialized in Augmented Reality solutions, teamed up with Topshop, a woman and man clothes retailer, to create a virtual fitting room for a new collection of dresses Dress up.

A special kiosk for the fitting room was installed at the flagman Topshop store in Moscow at the shopping centre European, 5-8 May 2011.

The virtual fitting room is built on the most sophisticated technologies: augmented reality and Microsoft Kinect. Augmented reality allows the customers to select a garment off the rack without having to try it on physically.  As a customer, you see yourself onscreen with a 3D copy of a dress. Kinect allows the user to control the program by simple gestures pushing virtual buttons right in the air.

To activate the program you don’t need special markers: the built-in camera tracks a person’s body and superimposes over it a 3D model of the dress.

A unique feature that allows the customers to watch both the front and the back parts of the dress was deployed in the Topshop fitting room for the first time in the world practice.

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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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