USATODAY 360 Stadium Tour from Junaio

Posted on February 3, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

** Cool experience with the smartphone and seeing into another location.  Would love to be able to walk around or zoom in.  Next step is to offer a live feed from various locations of the Superbowl during the game.  Maybe next year.

Steelers and Packers Magically Come to Life in USA TODAY

Super Bowl Coverage to Include Augmented Reality

SAN FRANCISCO, MUNICH, (February 3rd, 2011) – When the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Green Bay Packers meet on Sunday at the Dallas Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas, to go head to head at this year’s Super Bowl, fans will be able to enrich their experience with augmented reality tidbits, courtesy of USA TODAY and junaio, the most advanced Augmented Reality browser. For smartphone users, the Friday, February 4th edition of USA TODAY will include a 360 degree tour of the Dallas Cowboys stadium, presented by Jerry Jones, stadium and Cowboys owner, along with interior and exterior highlights. The Monday, February 7th edition will give readers a 3D view of the “Play of the Game” in an animated sequence and an option to receive player stats. Pepsi and Papa John’s are sponsoring the two augmented reality experiences.

The new Cowboys Stadium, opened in May 2009, is the largest domed stadium in the world and a marvel of architecture and technology. How suiting of USA TODAY to employ the leading edge technology of Augmented Reality to allow the Cowboys’ owner Jerry Jones to introduce his impressive sports palace to football fans nationwide. All that is required is to download the free app junaio from Apple’s iPhone App Store or the Android Market Place.

With the junaio channel “USATODAY 360 Stadium Tour”, the viewer finds himself right in the middle of the Cowboys Stadium enjoying a 360 degree view as he moves the camera around his own position. Clicking on the screen lets the user jump to where the players enter the stadium, down into the locker rooms or to view some of the famous murals of contemporary art decorating the interior of this fabulous stadium.

For people reading about the game in USA TODAY’s Monday February 7th edition, junaio’s image recognition technology brings to life the Super Bowl “Play of the Game” in the junaio channel “USATODAY SuperBowl Key Play”. This is presented not as a video, but as a 3D animation, created within hours of the game, whereby the viewer’s camera angle is determined by the smartphone’s position relative to the newspaper picture so that every player’s move can be studied from different angles.

“This cooperation between USA TODAY and junaio”, says Peter Meier, the developer of junaio, “is another great example of our vision of the ‘Augmented City’ and how augmented reality is able to bring additional value to everyday life. Just as junaio lets the viewer look inside the Cowboys Stadium, it can also assist buyers, looking for office space on the real estate market, to get a first glimpse of a vacant office by simply clicking on the building. And the second example of the 3D game play animation demonstrates how print editorials and even news can be augmented with digital displays, thereby enriching the reader’s experience.”

For details of the experience visit http://biggame3d.usatoday.com

About junaio®
junaio is the world’s most advanced mobile Augmented Reality browser and growing daily with interesting content relevant to a viewer’s location or triggered through images and objects the camera is pointing at. The unmatched ease of use, great choice of content and superior features make junaio everybody’s daily companion, an instant source of information about places, events, bargains or objects in the world around us. Features are:  location based services using onboard GPS and compass, highly accurate positioning, even inside buildings or exhibition sites, object recognition and natural feature tracking useful for scaling and integrating graphic overlays or 3D models into the real world. Two-way interaction between the user and the displayed AR overlays allow gaming and other virtual experiences. And of course the full range of multimedia displays, including text, image, sound, video. junaio was created by metaio GmbH, the worldwide leader in Augmented Reality.

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Dragons Invade Your Home With Metaio

Posted on February 2, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

Robert Scoble, the interviewer of the geek-stars and employee of Rackspace, recorded this video at Metaio in Munich.  The gang at Metaio shows off a virtual dragon clinging to a building and talks about their AR browser Junaio.  If the only thing you want to know about is dragons invading your home, fast forward to 3:15 in the video to get your fix.

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Galaxy Tab – Now With Augmented Reality

Posted on January 31, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

Good to see AR being bandied about as a marketing term without much explanation.  Sadly, I still have to explain AR to most people I talk to outside the tech arena, so for now it’s just one of those flashy words that make our brain want to buy it and not an actual logical factor in purchasing a product.

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5 Things I Want Kinect To Do

Posted on January 27, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

The Kinect has become an indie revolution, open sourced and hacked to provide a wealth of effects we haven’t had access to for augmented reality.  The Kinect Hacks site is doing a terrific job covering the revolution, but I want to make my bid for what I want the Kinect to do outside its comfort zone.

The Kinect so far has been wedded to the TV, mostly because it’s a gaming device.  But the company behind the technology, PrimeSense, recently raised $50 million.  We can only suspect they’re going to turn their hot new commodity into a device that can work with more than just the PC or an Xbox.

When that product hits the market, understanding the world will be much easier for computers and therefore, will make augmented reality more advanced.  Now I know most of these ideas aren’t AR in the strictest terms (I know my friend Rouli wouldn’t deem them AR,) but they exist in the same spectrum and they’re important for the overall development of the technology.  Without better sensors, AR is doomed to stay stuck in the smartphone.  Plus, sensing the world is one-half the AR equation (see the RIM scale for more details.)

Here are five things I want the Kinect to do:

1) I want the Kinect to drive my car, at least on the highway, while I’m busy doing something else.  Google wants to do the same thing and I think the Kinect could help them.
2) Conveyance in a factory setting takes a lot of manpower and is woefully wasteful.  Utilizing cheap sensors that can see people and sense their environment would make getting widgets from one place to another easy.
3) Mapping indoor locations would allow building AR environments in your local Walmart so mapping out your shopping route can be done with a simple app.
4) Telepresence robot, 3D glasses, and a computer screen could give people with massive physical disabilities a way to explore the world around them.
5) Sensing system for the blind that could give them clues to what was happening around them.  The system could use facial recognition and whisper what it saw in your ear.

These are just a few possibilities with the Kinect sensor as it gives computers a window into our world.

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Augmented Scavenger Hunt At Sundance Film Festival

Posted on January 25, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

** These AR scavenger hunt games are fantastic.  I just wish they would make them where us common folk could play.

GoldRun, an augmented reality mobile application, is working with Sorel, a premium footwear brand, to turn Park City into a rewarding social media experience during the Sundance Film Festival. Consumers can embark on a virtual scavenger hunt through augmented reality, QR codes and Facebook to win some of the most popular boots from Sorel’s Fall 2010 collection, hats and more, including access to VIP areas in Park City during the Sundance Film Festival, January 20 -25.

Sorel has an exclusive partnership with GoldRun that will host the virtual scavenger hunt during the first six days of the festival. Ten virtual Sorel bears will be placed in high traffic areas around Park City. The GoldRun app, available free from the Apple iTunes store, lets people track down, interact with and collect the virtual Sorel bears. People who pose with the Sorel bear can email a picture via the GoldRun app for a chance to win Sorel boots, like the popular Joan of Arctic, for women, and the 1964 Premium, for men, access to VIP-only events, including Sorel happy hours, and cool prizes. Participants are encouraged to upload their photos from the festival to the Sorel Facebook page.

“In the past, our boots have been on the feet of celebrities and festival-goers, but this year we wanted to do something innovative and unexpected,” said Linda Reese, Sorel’s director of brand and marketing communications. “Working with GoldRun to place our virtual Sorel bear logo around town is a new and exciting way for us to interact with consumers.”

“Sponsorships are an essential part of effectively marketing a brand. It’s exciting to partner with Sorel to extend their promotional reach throughout Park City during the festival,” says GoldRun’s vice president of business development, Shai Rao. “GoldRun isn’t simply about bringing people to products. It’s just as effective in bringing products to people.”

Sorel has a dedicated Facebook tab with information about all of its activities during the festival, including opportunities for consumers who aren’t attending to get in on the action and win prizes. The virtual Sorel bear scavenger hunt and QR code contest runs from Jan. 20 through Jan. 25. For the official Sorel at Sundance contest rules, please visit http://sorelatsundance.com/contest_rules/.

About Sorel
For 50 years, Sorel boots have been engineered to provide outstanding warmth, comfort and durability in the most extreme cold-weather conditions. They have accompanied explorers to the North Pole and earned a legendary reputation among winter outdoor enthusiasts as well as those who work outdoors in harsh winter conditions. While the brand’s Caribou style remains a winter classic, Sorel now offers an exciting range of comfortable, luxurious, all-weather products that merge high-quality materials with outstanding design to produce durable, fashionable warmth. Sorel boots can be found in specialty outdoor stores, as well as upscale department and footwear stores around the world, reflecting growing appeal among discerning consumers who trek the most demanding urban jungles year-round. Sorel is a wholly owned subsidiary of Columbia Sportswear Company, based in Portland, Ore. For more information about Sorel, please visit http://www.sorel.com, on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/sorel or @SorelFootwear on Twitter.

About GOLDRUN
Download the App: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/goldrun/id396800792?mt=8
GoldRun is a new augmented reality app that enables users to locate, interact with and take photos of GPS-linked virtual objects positioned in the real world. A powerful promotional tool tailored for the mobile environment, the app hosts AR-driven social media games, guides, virtual photo booths and loyalty programs designed to drive traffic to physical and online destinations, increase product sales, enhance brand engagement and bolster viral impact.

GoldRun users take pictures alongside virtual objects and can immediately post these photos to Facebook. By helping brands tap into this image sharing impulse, the app turns social networks into even more effective distribution channels as GoldRunners share images of themselves interacting with everything from scenes in blockbuster films, to iconic sports figures and the season’s must have fashion items.

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Goldrun Augmented Window Shopping

Posted on January 17, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

This article is a contribution from Arvind Ramachandran, a second year MBA student at the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta.

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The World Wide Web has become passé. Now I know that’s a big statement to make, but just hear me out. Nowadays, marketers around the world are tuned into the World Wide Web on an unprecedented scale. Most brands today have a website and significant presence on social media forums. The brands which don’t are fast playing a game of catch-up, with ever increasing contests, events and other forms of consumer engagement online. So, if most of the competition has already started occupying the digital space, then what next for marketers?

In steps augmented reality. Augmented reality (AR) platforms offer marketers the unique opportunity to enrich and enhance the consumer’s brand experience. It helps integrate the potential benefits offered by the internet with the consumer’s real environment. Sounds confusing? Let me explore this in a bit more detail.

Augmented reality, as the name suggests, attempts to augment or enhance your physical environment by adding computer generated input and content to the world around you. It would allow marketers to place virtual products, markers and other forms of brand promotion in the consumer’s environment. How would the consumer be able view this content? Generally, augmented reality projections can be viewed through head mounted displays, spatial displays or using handheld devices. Handheld devices are certainly the most convenient of the lot.

Now imagine being able to use the most ubiquitous handheld device of all, the mobile phone, to view augmented reality content. A host of AR platforms and mobile apps are now available which allow you to do just that. And going by how they are being used today, they may just be the next big thing in promotional campaigns.

One such campaign that I came across recently was carried out by fashion-retailer H&M in partnership with GoldRun (http://www.goldrungo.com), an AR platform startup. The mobile app allowed people to view and take pictures with virtual garments placed in their environment and in return, they were awarded with discounts and offers. A promotion of this nature holds immense potential as it takes consumer engagement to a new level and makes participation more exciting and enjoyable. And by allowing you to share your pictures and gifts on Facebook, these apps hold the potential to integrate your World Wide Web experience with your real environment and transform your world into one hyper-connected experience. Basically, you would be able to interact with virtual goods in real surroundings and then share your experience online in the digital space. Sounds cool, right?

The best part is, you can now become part of this experience, just at the touch of a button, by using these apps on your smart phone. Why is this important? For the same reason the World Wide Web and mobile phones have now become integral parts of your everyday life. Augmented reality platforms hold the potential to extend the benefits accrued from the internet to the user’s real world. With marketers cashing in on the opportunities presented by AR platforms, consumers would be provided with better options and thus benefit from promotional activities carried out in this space. Also, becoming part of this exciting new space would provide common folk like you and me with a chance to explore and become part of a truly unique augmented reality experience.

The possibilities and opportunities which the Augmented Reality space offers are limitless. And the fact that this unique experience is now available at the touch of a button, thanks to mobile AR apps like GoldRun, provides a truly compelling reason for you to engage and become part of the AR experience.

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Kinect: Ultra-Seven Code

Posted on January 12, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

I’m not familiar with the superhero Ultra-Seven, but wearing a boomerang on the back of your head seems like a bad idea.  The Kinect porn superheros can’t be far behind.  Go here for the code.

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Kinect Makes Green Screens Easy

Posted on January 5, 2011 by thomaskcarpenter

As we saw by the recent poll on Games Alfresco, the Kinect is the biggest thing in augmented reality right now.  Even since my last review of Kinect, there have been many new innovations.  Using Kinect as a real time green screen is becoming an easy reality and fast.  Dustin O’Connor has transformed his room into a smoky psychedelic head space.  I can only imagine that this setup will become the norm in tripped out raves.

The Kinect also has possibilities as an indie movie special effects tool.  Dustin alludes to this possibility:

I could see a bunch of indie type cg / video movie and effects being made with this camera. the kinect may not be as cheap as a can of green paint but defiantly does produce a similar result without the mess.

 

kinect volumetric fluid occlusion from dustin o’connor on Vimeo.

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Homunculus: The Vehicle as Augmented Clothes

Posted on December 31, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter

Never in the definition of mixed reality did I imagine that anyone would slap moving eyeballs onto a car so you could tell which way the driver was looking (or not, in this age of cellphones).  Yet, here it is, in all its strange and thoroughly Japanese-way.  In mother Japan, we don’t augment you into the car, we augmented the car onto you.

Now let’s see them shed some gear by applying a Kinect sensor.  Something tells me they’re probably already moving that way.

Congrats Yoichi Ochiai and Keisuke Toyoshima from the University of Tsukuba for helping us end the burgeoning year of AR with a grandiloquent example of what this technology has in store for us in the future.

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Poll – What Was The Most Significant Happening For AR In 2010?

Posted on December 28, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter

The year 2010 was marked by many important milestones and events for the nascent technology.  Which one was more important?  If I missed one that you thought was important, just add it to the comment section.

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