Augmented Reality U.S./Iraq War Memorial

Posted on February 21, 2011 by rouli

Here is another example of art activism where augmented reality is used to convey a message. Building upon Layar, artists Mark Skwarek and John Craig Freemand created was is probably the first virtual war memorial, commemorating each of the 52,036 deaths, both Iraqis and Allies, in the last gulf war.

The artists translated the place of death in Iraq to a location in the US and placed there a virtual casket, either “American” or “Middle eastern” in design. The result is disturbing:

More info on the project’s blog, via Development Memo for Ourselves.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: , , | 3 Comments »

Augmented Reality in the Fight Against Car Accidents

Posted on February 17, 2011 by rouli

Safe for Humans is a really smart mobile app concept that harness augmented reality to make people more aware of car accidents involving pedestrians. As you can see in the video below, it will use “natural” markers and probably GPS. However the big challenge here, I suspect, would not be pinpointing the user’s location, but rather matching the video to the user’s orientation.

Safe for Humans from Hey, on Vimeo.

What other “public service announcements” can be reinvented using augmented reality?
(previously covered AR activism: bringing BP’s oil leak to your hometown, fighting domestic violence and going against the hunt of Siberian tigers)

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: | 2 Comments »