I found this week’s video on Toby’s weekend “linkfest”. It’s one more example how augmented reality can upgrade almost any old board game, this time making “battleships” more interactive. As Toby rightfully states, there’s no need for two boards when AR is deployed, as the two players can be shown different views of the same board. Still, it’s a cool demo:
** 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.”
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.
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.
A bit of a busy week, here are just some of the augmented reality stories that happened in the past seven days:
Where can you find Metaio’s Peter Meier and Layar’s Maarten Lens-FitzGerald on the same panel? At the DLD conference. Video well worth worth watching if only for seeing Lens-FitzGerald’s face when Meier declares Junaio as the most advanced AR mobile application.
Pantomation is the late 70’s edition of Kinect and augmented reality. Makes me wonder what the people of 2040 will think about our current technology (via @String)
Sometimes, you don’t need enticing narrative to create a touching AR application. “Jack in the box” by the Spanish company Sensaa is an evidence to that. Just open a box, and an augmented surprise will pop out of it. Simple, but wonderful:
As you may have guessed this passing week was very slow in augmented reality news (or any news for that matter). Nevertheless, I scoured the web and bring you this weekly linkfest.
Last week I reported on the winter crop of augmented reality games coming from Qualcomm AR Game Studio. The videos of three more games were recently uploaded, so be sure to check them up.
DOMO, Tonchidot’s newest project, aspires to enable transparent society, where you could see everyone’s thoughts and interests.
Open question on Quora – What will be the most important developments in augmented reality in 2011? I tried giving my best answer, though you may disagree with me. (via @TishShute)
What a better way to start the new year than playing a round of augmented golf? That’s exactly what the students at Rochester Institute of Technology thought when they came up with this game that doesn’t require an entire fairway.
I have frequently lashed out at gimmicky usage of augmented reality in ad campaigns. However, the next campaign by German agency brand.david powered by Junaio gets only praises from me. First, it’s for a good cause – bringing the subject of domestic violence to light. It also seems to use AR very effectively:
Back. It seems that I escaped London on the very last minute before the airports closed down. Here’s a rundown of augmented reality links for the last couple of weeks:
PrimeSense, Willow Garage, and Side-Kick Games join hands to create to OpenNI an organization whose goal is to promote natural interaction. First step was releasing ‘official’ drivers for Kinect.
Follow this link to see a video of bad acting and terrible music. Oh, and some clever eye tracking based augmented reality UI from Helsinki university of technology.
A nice piece on Neatorama, which went QR crazy lately, on surprising mediums for QR codes, including a sand castle and a M&Ms.
The biggest news these days is Word Lens. I’m sure you have all seen it already, and I plan to write full post on it next week, but for the oft chance you haven’t yet encountered it – it’s augmented reality based translation app for the iPhone. Or in other words, magic:
Have a great week, winter/summer solstice and merry Christmas!
Lisa from Metaio wanted everyone to know that they will be announcing a partnership with eBay on Wednesday, and they created a teaser video to celebrate. At first thought, augmented reality and location based services could bring a Craig’s List functionality to the auction giant, but we’ll have to wait and see.
I’m going to London next week (where I’ll might be tempted to get a Kinect), so this is probably the last linkfest till mid-December. I’ll try to keep my twitter account updated with interesting links while I’m away. Anyway, here’s this week’s linkfest:
I never met the guys from Layar in person, but I think I would really enjoy a conversation with any one of the founders. I think the secret of their success is not luck or being first to market (which they weren’t), but being both highly intelligent, yet very nice folks. Here’s a short interview with Claire Boonstra on Layar’s past and future. Winning quote – Augmented reality is the next mass medium, the first unboxed medium:
Last year at ISMAR09, the keynote speech from Mark Mine of the Disney Imagineering group, really intrigued me. I had been a hardcore Disney hater before that, but Mark’s behinds-the-scenes look at the technology of Disney, specifically how they used augmented reality, softened my stance.
Cue forward almost one year exactly, in a strange twist of fate and of overenthusiastic grandparents, I find myself at Disney for a week. Since I was going to be at Disney, I decided to check out all the AR attractions that Mark Mine had talked about in his presentation. I got to see all the applications I wanted to see except one (Magic Sand) and this is what I learned from the experience:
1) True location based gaming can be a blast
The Kim Possible Adventure game in Epcot was my kids favorite event from the Disney properties. Each player receives a cellphone and then they follow the clues around until they solve the mystery. The game uses RFID tags to know when the player is in the right location. This game is as much an alternate reality game as AR, but either could do the job marvelously. There were about eight total missions in the various countries of Epcot and the kids did all of them. I did a few with them and then let them do the rest on their own.
Now that markerless AR is becoming more common with products like Junaio Glue and Google Goggles, I’d like to see someone make a few ARGames based on the Kim Possible model. It was truly a fun experience that the whole family enjoyed.
2) AR needs to be a product not a feature
In the Disney Downtown area, there’s a wonderful LEGO store with amazing statues made of LEGO bricks. In the back of the store, there’s a LEGO AR Kiosk. Since Metaio’s LEGO kiosk was one of the first applications of AR a few years ago, I won’t go into the details of what it is. But what I will talk about is the hour I stood in the back of the store and watched people interact with it.
Quite a number of parents and kids picked up boxes and held them in front of the camera. They seemed amused for a second and then quickly put them down and moved on. I asked a few people what they thought of it and they mostly shrugged without saying much.
The problem I see is that most usages of AR currently are add-on features that are cool in themselves, but don’t actually add to the experience of the product. For AR to be truly memorable it needs to be both conspicuous and integral to the product.
3) Projection based AR is the future of amusement parks
Projection based AR at Disney was everywhere. From Buzz Lightyear’s talking statue; to projected skins across landscapes or objects; or full fledged projected realities that came alive when the haptic chair you sat in moved with the reality. While this one isn’t going to do much for the average AR programmer, as their medium is the cell phone and not an amusement ride, the amusement parks are going to rely on AR more and more for their advanced special effects. I think my favorite example was the Forbidden Journey ride at the Harry Potter area of Universal. I honestly cannot tell you exactly what all was AR, or animatronics, or just smoke and mirrors, but it was truly awesome. It actually felt like you were there in a place that only exists in our collective minds and sprung from JK Rowling. That makes the far-future of AR both scary and exciting, and I’m glad to be along for the ride.
Games Alfresco 