Anyone is coming to WARM 2010?
The augmented reality society is coming out of its winter hibernation, and we have quite a few links to AR related stories this week:
QderoPateo are developing an AR dedicated device. GigaOM asks why (‘hich is a good reason to plug my “The Kindle Test” post)
BoingBoing featured a very strange artsy video about augmented dating.
Having problems getting your kids dressed in the morning? Brights&Stripes created a magic tee to help out.
And if you have a couple of hours to burn, ComputerWorld has a long, long review of AR.
And this week’s video is the perfect example of AR being misused. A couple of young Dutch guys calling themselves “Teletekst Is Dood” (teletext is dead) assisted by the Layar browser have terrorized non-suspecting citizens (and their neighbors) whose only fault was to tweet about banal things. Yeah, I guess you can call it art:
[Vimeo=8946012]
Have a nice week (but be careful about who is reading your boring tweets)!
It all started with this funny look at augmented reality by the Gaurdian’s Charlie Brooker. Among other things Brooker imagines a world where unpleasant sights (such as poor people – his words, not mine) are transformed by AR goggles.
Futurismic developed that basic idea. In “Re-skinning the city – the dark side of augmented reality” they suggest that spam could become a ray of hope, as a medium through which (unpleasant) reality can still confront us in our utopian augmented world.
Finally, Toby of augmented.org explains why there are several other issues we should worry about before concerning ourselves with invisible homeless people. (thanks Thomas)
The first commercial AR event will be held in Santa Clara in early June. Unless, you count this other conference. The former is organized by Ori Inbar, Tish Shute and whurley (William Hurley). The latter is not. Your choice.
If you weren’t there, you may find the following recording of ARNY January meet up interesting (I can’t get ustream to work properly on my computer, so I can’t tell).
Some info about the intriguing Mirascape and a chance to become an alpha tester.
We have a double feature for our weekly video. The next two clips bring AR to the big screen. The very big screen. First is Hungry Hungry Eat Head, an art installation commissioned by City of Edinburgh Council (more info, via Wooster Collective):
and next is another art installation called “A Someone Else’s Problem Field” commissioned for the Next Wave Festivals, which is mostly strange (more info):
Quite a busy week, and unfortunately I was knocked out by the cold to write about all that was happening in real time. Luckily, the weekly linkfest is here as a compensation of sorts.
Nokia Research Center Hollywood experiment with augmented story telling in the Westwood Experience.
Porter Novelli has uploaded many interviews and lectures held at the Web 2.0 Expo on November to Youtube. Here’s Ori Inbar’s famous presentation (now narrated by the man himself), look at the related videos for other interesting finds. (thanks goes to Augmented Pro).
Remember the fake iPhone app Nude It (yes, there’s a real app by this name, but it doesn’t have the same “capabilities”)? Well, forget about it. This fake app, named iNaked, is far better:
As a matter of fact, I have no clue how it was done. It seems to me that making this fake demo took more time than it took making some of the real AR applications out there. (via Gizmodo)
This week was dominated by the Parrot’s ARDrone, which is just about the coolest toy I’ve seen in a while, made even cooler by augmented reality from our friends at int13. Other AR news articles making the rounds this week:
Techcrunch (1) discovers the VR versus AR Google trends graph. I think just about every other AR blog featured it at some moment.
Techcrunch (2) covered yet another AR browser named Nomao.
And yet another brand of sugary cereals use AR to augmented its boxes.
Our weekly video comes from Techcrunch (3), and I’m quite sure most of you will find it non-AR. Yet, since it really makes you see things differently, exposing hidden information not available to most of us in any other way, I tend to call it AR. It’s called SnapTax, and it helps you fill up your taxes by taking a picture of your tax forms (if you are a US citizen).
The last week of 2009 was quite a slow one, and having Thomas K. Carpenter join Games Alfresco, diminishes my list of resources even further. Nevertheless, here are some AR related news-bits that we haven’t covered this week:
Just before moving to Games Alfresco, Thomas had the most exquisite, well researched review of 2009 in AR.
Augmented Planet on EyePly that are set to augment sport venues.
One niche of AR browsers that’s getting crowded very fast, is ski-related browsers. Resort Technology Partners’ REALSKI is yet another of this kind with a neat business plan – each mountain map costs you another 99 cents.
If you are living in Copenhagen, you can use Layar to see air pollution readings around you.
Now, if I get it right, Soho is a men magazine from Colombia that employed AR to boost its sales. Which is one step closer to my prediction about Playboy getting augmented. (via Design Memo for Ourselves)
This is the last linkfest for this year. Though there were many more Christmas spectacles this week, I’m going to keep this linkfest holiday-spirit free (broke my nose, not feeling very festive).
Robert Rice on 2010, the first year in the decade of ubiquity – “The point though, is that all of these things calling themselves augmented reality now are just the start. Everyone is getting their feet wet, experimenting, exploring, and beginning to innovate. We can argue about what is or isn’t augmented reality, but it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is the continual push for advancing the technology, the industry, and getting people to start using it“.
On the same theme, Edo Segal writes for Techcrunch about the dawn of ambient streams – “Increasingly, we will be sensing the world with this sixth sense and that will change the way we collectively experience the world. Going back to the point made earlier, the watershed event is when we will be experiencing this “ambient sense” without being in a retrieval mode (i.e. not when we go to the computer or our mobile device“
Whisper Deck is a cool voice operated AR interface
Point your sneakers to your webcam in order to feel silly. Which should be on Mashable’s 10 awesome uses of AR in marketing list (what, only one car campaign? seriously, where’s that GE ad that started the fad?)
This week’s video is of a projected AR system coming to us from the University of Magdeburg, Germany. Though we have seen quite a few systems like that over the past years (even one coming out from Microsoft), I don’t think we have seen any as slick as that. You can read how it works (magic! infra-red markers) at New Scientist (via Augmented Engineering).
The conclusion of our little project, collecting augmented reality predictions for the new year.
Christmas
Although the former event is much more important, for some strange reason, I was swamped this week with links relating to the latter. A short list of holiday related AR application that caught my eye since my last post “it’s the season to be augmented“:
Rosetta wants you to catch virtual snow flakes with your (real) tongue. Augmented planet reviewed that application.
Layar lets you place a virtual Santa wherever you want.
Whoof!
Oh right, there were other news this week. Augmented Planet published their results for the first AR people-choice awards. Wikitude won the browsers category, but which participitant won the Chumby? Layar had to withdraw Layar 3.0 from the appstore. Thomas Carpenter has a listing of the worst AR uses this year. A good use is to encourage people to donate blood, like they do in Japan. Total Immersion created Avatar related AR apps for McDonalds and Coke. Wallpaper magazine fancies an AR edition. And another week, another car gets an AR campaign (though it’s technically from June).
The weekly video shows Total Immersion’s implementation of a haunted house in Japan. Thomas wrote a full post about it, while I just tweeted that it looks really scarry:
Have a great week and merry augmented Christmas, if that concerns you!
Before the linkfest, let me share some exciting news. Starting from tomorrow, and throughout the week, I’ll be posting augmented reality predictions for 2010 from top AR luminaries. But wait, there’s more – I’m hoping to harness wisdom of the very smart crowds reading this blog, by putting on a survey were you can vote for your favorite predictions. Hope to see you tomorrow!
And now, as usual, the weekly linkfest:
The first AR DevCamp was held yesterday. Thomas Wrobel (can I say our very own Thomas Wrobel?) had an FAQ prepared for the occasion, about the AR wave initiative.
On the mobile browsers front – Layar 3.0 is out (also see AugmentedPlanet’s review). I should have really dedicated a post for it. In a nutshell, this latest version, and the presented use-cases are really making Layar much more than just a “browser”. You can create augmented tours, games, and city scapes which is a huge step over just showing the “closest” x.
Augment Pro review of Presselite’s Twitter-360, a browser like app that shows you nearby tweets from your friends
And AcrossAir is behind “Le Bar Guide” an application created for beer label Stella Artois that lets you find closest bars (serving that beer).
Sarnoff presents an augmented reality training system for the US military with virtual baddies. I really want to see a video of that.
Laboratory4 is offering the joys of a fashion show right in your own home.
Pandemica is another fast paced pseudo AR shooting game for the iPhone.
Weekly quote comes from OneZeroThrice’s piece “Who Is, and Who Isn’t Augmented Reality“(yeah, I gave you the punchline, but you should read the whole article)
if only we, who know the difference between good and crap AR, can be more vocal – if we can start saying what we mean and not be afraid of pissing off the people who make this garbage … maybe we’ll actually save this industry from what happened to Virtual Reality.
Another week passed by, and here we are again, at the weekly linkfest. Today on the linkfest:
Juniper research is predicting that mobile augmented reality will by a $750 million industry by 2014, which is a lot more than the previous $350 million estimate by ABI research. Just a quick reminder – Twitter is valued at one billion dollars.
This week’s video is of a photo booth at Las Vegas that lets you try different hats. I just find this guy’s reactions really funny (and the augmentation is quite good) [via DMfO]
A group of students from the National University of Singapore have created a Simcity like (or rather Farmville like) augmented reality game. I’ll stick with the non-augmented version for now.
“I started chatting with a very nice man in line with me at the deli near by office,” said Chicago resident Sue Spiches. “I was waiting for information about him to pop up on my contact lenses, but it never came. For all I know, he was a registered sex offender or a Mormon.”
And this week’s video comes to us from MindSpace Solutions a spinout company from Hit Lab NZ, which created a device called the Digital Binocular Station. Using extra sensitive sensors in the base station, this pair of binoculars can augmented a museum display (or any other room) in a way unmatched by any of their competitors, or at least that’s what the video suggests. I’ll have to visit New Zealand to try it out (here’s my vote for holding ISMAR 2011 in New Zealand).
Games Alfresco 