Does this ad mark the transformation of augmented reality from being a term used by the tech-elite to one used by the commons?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Handhelds and Cellphones, Samsung | 4 Comments »
Does this ad mark the transformation of augmented reality from being a term used by the tech-elite to one used by the commons?
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Handhelds and Cellphones, Samsung | 4 Comments »
Mobile, image recognition based, augmented reality is very cool, as evident from the Popcode’s demos we posted yesterday. However, creation of a model used by the mobile phone to recognize a new image still requires a desktop, hindering realtime creation and sharing of AR content.
Thanks to the work of researchers from the Korean Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology and the Swiss EPFL, this needn’t be the case anymore. In a paper titled “Point-and-Shoot for Ubiquitous Tagging on Mobile Phones” accepted to ISMAR 2010, they present a method to scan surfaces and create “recognition-models” by using your phone (no data is sent to a remote server).
You don’t even need to take the perfect straight-on picture. As the video below shows, this means you can augment hard to reach surfaces. Best of all, you can share those models with your friends.
A little bit more detail over Wonwoo Lee’s blog.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: EPFL, GIST Korea, Handhelds and Cellphones, ISMAR, Markerless, Research | Leave a comment »
The young British company, Extra Reality Ltd. (founded this June) has posted a couple of very impressive demos of its first product Popcode. With the goal of commercializing AR research done in the University of Cambridge, Popcode is a combination of marker based and marker less approaches. First the user needs to scan an easily identifiable code which causes her mobile to download a model used to register and augment a marker-less image. The registration seems quite robust:
The best thing is that Extra Reality provide an SDK to develop your own AR models, which can then be uploaded to their servers to be identified by clients worldwide. And it’s free for non-commercial use.
I’m a bit worried about their marker code, though, as it seems to contain a very limited number of bits. If Popcode becomes hugely successful (and I really hope so), they’ll have to come up with another scheme.
Sadly, it’s only available for Android right now, so I can’t really test it (hey, benevolent sponsors to be, this is a call for help!).
See more demos at Popcode’s website.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Cambridge, Extra Reality, Handhelds and Cellphones, Popcode | 6 Comments »
This post can be summarized by three magic terms:
Yes, it seems that the Japanese branch of Yahoo is much cooler than its American counter part. They have recently announced the coming release of a free iPhone application set to display a virual Zaku II mecha from the animated series Gundam (and sorry if I get this wrong, I’ve never seen it).
Interestingly enough the application is both image-recognition based and GPS/compass based. It will show the mecha when the iPhone camera will be directed at the (real) 18-meter tall Gundam statue in Shizuoka, Japan, and when the camera is pointed at a special marker.
For more details check out Anime News Network. Via Development Memo for Ourselves.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: GPS and Compass, Handhelds and Cellphones, Visible Markers, Yahoo | Leave a comment »
Augmented reality. Once used to improve the construction of jet planes. Now it improves your chances of finding a ripe watermelon.
Available on the appstore and costs only a buck.
(and yes, I find it more augmented reality than many visual applications we have seen this last year. Although lacking a visual integration, it does extend your senses, and it has more interaction with reality than that firefighter game)
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Handhelds and Cellphones | 2 Comments »
Simple, useful and probably feasible (though not on the iPhone) AR application in the following concept video by Tate Strickland an American graphic design student:
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Futuristic Visions, Handhelds and Cellphones, Museums and Exhibitions | Leave a comment »
Editor note: OOPS!
Originally this post was scheduled for early December, but somehow I forgot to publish it. Sorry Locatory guys!
——-
As veteran readers of this blog surely know, official development of Gamaray, an AR browser for Android was terminated, and its code has been open-sourced. Recently I’ve learned about an interesting project by a team from the Open University of the Netherlands, named Locatory, based on Gamaray’s code.
The game’s premise is admittedly not that exciting –
The concept of game is rather easy. Players can compete with each other and gather cards that are hidden in augmented reality. Once a card is taken, it can be dropped at a physical location (figure 3, B). When a card is dropped at the correct location, the player receives a point. (source)
but it’s exciting to see that one can create (semi) augmented reality games in relative ease (especially since Locatory’s own code is freely available). After all, how far is a game such as Locatory from a geo-caching game? If I were a student these days, I would have a go at it (adult life is full of compromises :/).
Learn more here.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Gamaray, Games, Handhelds and Cellphones, Locatory, Tourism and Outdoors | Leave a comment »
I really fancy this next iPhone app. It’s called iButterfly and it transforms the habit of collecting coupons into a fun little game. Created by Japan’s Mobile Art Lab, the app tasks its users with catching virtual butterflies , each representing one or more coupons. You can even share
“butterflies” with your friends via Bluetooth.
Though the technology is not overwhelming (GPS based), the overall execution looks great, see for yourself:
Via MobileBehavior
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: GPS and Compass, Handhelds and Cellphones, iButterfly, Marketing and Advertisement, Mobile Art Lab, Shopping | 3 Comments »
We all know the future looks quite bleak for newspapers and journals. Many publications have already fallen victims to the predatory internet with its free, easily accessible and real time reports. Some have speculated that newspapers must either over-specialize or abandon their offline presence in order to survive the coming decade.
However, there’s another option – forming a merger between an online and an offline presence, via augmented reality. We’ve already seen Esquire toying with such a concept, but now a daily newspaper in Switzerland has made a giant leap ahead.
Since this Wednesday, every page of the Swiss Blick newspaper can be scanned using Kooaba, an iPhone/Android application. Once scanned and identified, the user can see additional information about the articles or ads visible in the page, add them to her online library, and share with friends. Remember, this is not a single issue being augmented, but rather every issue from now on will have this extra layer of information.
Follow the link to see a video of Blick being augmented, but since that video can’t be embeded, here’s another one, showcasing Kooaba’s technology:
More information here.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Handhelds and Cellphones, Kooaba, Markerless | 1 Comment »