Augmented Reality at the Mobile World Congress

Posted on February 10, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter

Next week, February 15-18th, will be the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.  There will be a variety of AR related events during the MWC.

AR Showcase

Christine Perey has organized an AR Showcase on Wednesday, February 17th from 5:00-7:00, so AR companies can demonstrate their services and products to customers.  Designers will also have a chance to compare and contrast their products versus the competition.  The following companies have confirmed their attendance:

You can find the Showcase in the northeast corner of the courtyard.  Announcements for the AR showcase can be tweeted to #arshow (changed for length.)

The Mobile AR Summit is an invitation only event.  If you’re interested in joining, please contact Christine Perey at cperey@perey.com.    More information can be found here.

Other Related Events

Navteq Challenge
Sunday, 14.2.2010
Poble Espanyol, City Hall.
Wikitude Drive is an Augmented Reality navigation system. They are one of the 10 finalists at this years Navteq Challenge.
http://www.nn4d.com/site/global/market/lbs_challenge/about/emea/home/p_home.jsp
Mobile Premier Award in Innovation
Monday, 15.2., 2010 15:00 to 20:00
Petit Palau of Palau de la Musica
Mobilizy is with Wikitude one of the 20 finalists of the “Mobile Premier Award in Innovation”.
http://www.mobilepremierawards.com/
Martin Lechner, CTO Mobilizy, will present.

AR Summit

Wednesday, 17.2. 13:00 to 19:00
Location: to be announced.
Mobilizy CTO Martin Lechner presents a position paper “ARML an Augmented Reality Standard”. ARML is currently being reviewed by W3C (World Wide Web Consortium). At 17:00 there will be a Wikitude Showcase presentation.

We won’t be able to attend – so if you’re there – keep us updated about your experience.


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Who Should Attend The Augmented Reality Event in Santa Clara, CA June 2nd & 3rd, 2010

Posted on February 4, 2010 by Ori Inbar

Over the last 2 years we have seen growing interest in Augmented Reality in various events – panels, dev camps, meetups – and many more. Due to growing demand for knowledge and expertise in augmented reality (AR), a group of AR industry insiders, backed by the AR Consortium have put together the first commercial event dedicated to advance the business of augmented reality.

How is are2010 different from ISMAR…

…previously touted here as the “World’s best Augmented Reality event”?

Well, ISMAR is still the best AR event for the scientific community. If you want to learn about (or present) the latest advancements in AR research – you should be in Seoul this October for ISMAR 2010. However, for the rest of us, who wish to take advantage of AR in practice, in the commercial world, and build a business around it – there was a gaping hole.

That is, until now.

Meet the Augmented Reality Event.

Who’s this event for?

For established and start up AR companies –

For established and start up AR companies (such as Total Immersion, Metaio, Acrossair, Ogmento, Circ.us, Mobilizy, Layar, Zugara, Neogence, whurleyvision, Chaotic Moon Studios, and many more) – are2010 is a stage to showcase their products and services; a venue to form partnerships, learn about latest innovations, and most importantly speak with clients. Bruno Uzzan, CEO of Total Immersion will wow the audience with a cutting edge augmented reality show; Peter Meier, CTO of Metaio, will speak about his companies latest products. Early stage startups and individual developers will receive guidance from Cole Van Nice (Chart Venture Partners) for how to build a successful company in the AR space, including raising funding (from VCs that actually invest in AR), licensing technology and IP, legal aspects, forging partnerships, etc. Christine Perey will speak about the scope of the mobile AR industry today and it’s growth trajectory.

For Developers –

For developers, are2010 is a window into the latest AR algorithms, engines and programming tools. Learn from case studies and post mortems delivered by experienced developers from the leading companies in the space. Blair MacIntyre, director of the GVU Center’s Augmented Environments Lab at Georgia Tech, will speak about his experience with tools and technologies while developing augmented reality games. Daniel Wagner, one of the leading mobile AR researchers in the world, will bring developers into the wonderful world of mobile AR. Patrick O’Shaughnessey, which has lead the development of more webcam-based AR campaigns than anyone else I know – will share his knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. Mike Liebhold, Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for the Future , will speak about Technology foundations of an Open ARweb. Gene Becker, co-founder of AR DevCamp, will dive into augmented reality and ubiquitous computing, and Sean White, a pioneer in Green Tech AR will suggest concrete examples of how AR can help save the planet

For Mobile, Hardware, and Platform Companies

For Mobile, Hardware, and Platform companies (such as Vuzix, Nokia, Qualcomm, Intel, QderoPateo, Microsoft, Google, Apple etc.) are2010 consists of a captive audience to launch and showcase their latest devices, processors, AR glasses, sensors, etc. The best collective minds of the AR commercial world will be onsite to articulate the market demand characteristics and help influence the design of future hardware.

For Clients and Agencies –

For clients and agencies in entertainment, media, publishing, education, healthcare, government, tourism, and many more – are2010 offers everything you need to know about AR: how to leverage augmented reality to advance your brand, attract and keep your customers, and how to build successful campaigns and products that will delight users, including postmortems of landmark augmented reality projects.

Jarrell Pair, CTO and a founder of LP33.tv, will speak about “Augmented Reality in Music Entertainment: Then and Now”, Brian Selzer, co-founder and President of Ogmento, will deliver a crash course for clients and agencies about how to leverage AR in marketing campaigns. Marshal Kirkpatrick, lead blogger for ReadWriteWeb, will share the results of his AR survey collecting feedback from dozens of AR developers and their experience in delivering AR campaigns and apps. Kent Demain, designer of the visual effects in Minority Report, will open our minds with the talk: “Taking Hollywood visual effects spectacle out of the theatre and into your world”. And of course…

For any AR Enthusiast –

Are you an AR Enthusiast? If so, you’re going to feel like a kid in a candy store at ARE, with a soon-to-be unforgettable keynote by Bruce Sterling, demo gallery, exhibitors from leading companies, artists installations from AR artists such as Eric Gradman and Helen Papagiannis, and many more surprises.

If you are into Augmented Reality – are2010 is the one event you should attend this year.

Want to join the event? Early registration is now open!

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Weekly Linkfest

Posted on January 31, 2010 by rouli

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:

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)!

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Spatial Computing Concept Video for Shopping

Posted on January 24, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter

This summer, Phedhex, posted a concept video showcasing what augmented reality, or spatial computing, could do.  The video was well thought out and I enjoyed it.

In the second video, he uses hand gestures to show how we can use augmented reality to purchase furniture in our homes and verify it for decor and size.  The idea has been around with smartphone apps from Metaio, but Phedhex supersizes the idea and gives us a glimpse into an immersive version we’d see with a HMD.  The production value of the video makes me think Phedhex should be doing a regular series on AR because it shows a tangible business case for increased investment into the fledgling technology. 

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Real-Time 3D Modeling for Augmented Reality

Posted on January 22, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter

I’m a big geek when it comes to the behind-the-scenes number crunching stuff that makes augmented reality happen. How it all works is a fascinating look at dynamic systems in concert. The two videos below show how on the fly modeling of objects can help create a fully interactive world with occlusion, shadows and other 3D illusions needed to created reality out of pixels.

The first comes from the Australian Center for Visual Technologies (ACVT) with a program called Jiim.  It allows in-situ modeling of the enviroment by picking up points and then allowing the user, in real-time, to draw in the world with those points as reference.   The resulting physics demonstration is quite impressive from throwing balls to killing moles.

The second video shows use of the MRToolKit to model a Chinese dragon figure in real-time and then interact with it.  The results aren’t as impressive as the Jimm ACVT video, but still, it’s nice to have options.

Having played around with a few AR systems like Metaio’s Unifeye, I can say that the programs in these videos look easier to interact with than what I’ve used before.  Instead of programming numbers and coordinate systems, the user can mouse click the world into existence.  Imagine if groups of people collectively worked on drawing in a city to create a general playground for augmented reality.  Just add some sweet HMDs and a SDK to create games and AR would be unleashed.

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What I Want For Augmented Reality in 2010

Posted on January 2, 2010 by thomaskcarpenter

I was going to expand on my predictions that Rouli had posted on Games Alfresco because, frankly, they were pretty lame (mine and not the other nine, those were good.)  But decided that there have been enough predictions for 2010.  So instead, I want to go over the things I want to happen in 2010 in regards to augmented reality.   

1. I want the Nexus One phone from Google to be untethered, cheap and make AR apps fun.

2. I want to be surprised by an AR ready HMD.

3. I want to see fun, creative AR games that are across all platforms and come at an affordable price. 

4. I want the AR inspection assist project I’m working on with Metaio to go flawlessly and for it to revolutionize the way we do difficult inspection job at Toyota and make it easier on our team members. 

5. I want Google Goggles to be a database that other programs can use for pattern recognition and markerless tracking.

6. I want to attend ISMAR10 even though its all the way over in South Korea.

7. I want the ISMAR09 presentations to be put up on YouTube so we can see all the great things that happened.

8. I want Apple to free their live video API for better AR on the iPhone.

9. I want to know what Neogence Enterprises has been working on all these years. 

10. I want to continue to make Games Alfresco the hands-down, defacto source for all your augmented reality news. 

So for all you programmers and entrepreneurs working on the latest in augmented reality tech, even though I may put up your YouTube video or link to your webpage and make semi-snarky comments about its usefulness or how its so-2009, I certainly appreciate your hard work.  Unless you were just mailing it in hoping to capitalize on the AR buzz, then you deserve it and then some.  For all of you in the former category, I leave you with my two favorite quotes to keep you going when things get tough:

All courses of action are risky, so prudence is no in avoiding danger (it’s impossible), but calculating risk and acting decisively.  Make mistakes of ambition and not mistakes of sloth.  Develop the strength to do bold things, not the strength to suffer. 

   — Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

IT IS NOT THE CRITIC WHO COUNTS: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.  The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again…who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly. 

   — Teddy Roosevelt

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Merry Weekly Linkfest

Posted on December 20, 2009 by rouli

Two important events are coming this week –

  1. The conclusion of our little project, collecting augmented reality predictions for the new year.
  2. 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“:

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!

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Weekly Linkfest

Posted on December 13, 2009 by rouli

Yes, the moment you were all waiting for, it’s time for another weekly linkfest –

Google Goggles Galore:

  • Google Goggles review at Augmented Planet. Nice overview, and a good video showing some of Goggles capabilities.
  • Google Goggles is the real thing, or so claims Blake Callens of Zugara. Nice video showing it identifying a dart board.
  • The Enkin guys announce that they were acquired by Google and hint about their involvement in Goggles. (I’m just a bit skeptic).

And in other mobile browsers news:

And finally:

This week’s video is of Ogmento’s Brian Selzer evangelistic talk at the Humanity+ conference “Reinventing Reality with AR” . Though most of his examples should be familiar to this blog’s patrons, he is a really good talker, and I’ve enjoyed the whole 15 minutes of his presentation (via GigantiCo):

[Games Alfresco readers, go to Gigantico to see the clip if it doesn’t work for you]

Have a nice week!

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Junaio is Available on the iPhone App Store – Can Social Augmented Reality be Fun?

Posted on November 11, 2009 by Ori Inbar

They made it:

metaio, Inc. is proud to announce that junaio – the world’s first social augmented reality platform is now available in the App Store. The application is free and available globally on all iPhones. Users without an iPhone can also edit and share 3D augmented reality images via the online platform on http://www.junaio.com.

junaio is a mobile and online platform that lets users create, explore and share information in a completely new way using augmented reality and location-based content. Users can place 3D objects, Twitter messages or websites into the real world and then share their creations with friends through social networks such as Facebook.

Download from the App Store or Visit the website

I participated in the beta and it was quiet fun.

I took pictures of interesting things in and around my house, and in a few minutes – folks from around the world (mostly Germany…) added creative fun stuff to it.

I like Junaio’s concept of You (stuff you created), Here (stuff people around you created), Now (stuff being created right now). However, it was a bit weak on the Here. I guess no one else in NYC participated in the beta. Hopefully that will change now that it’s on the store.

What I am missing in Junaio is the ability to see my creation (and others) truly overlaid on reality. That is quiet hard to achieve on the iPhone with just GPS and compass. This will get much more interesting when computer vision is used and objects are aligned with your real time view of reality.

In the meantime – congratulations to Metaio and all the best!

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Weekly Linkfest

Posted on November 1, 2009 by rouli

While reading this week’s linkfest you may find some links are missing – don’t worry, many ISMAR related links and videos will be posted later this week.

Although Halloween was yesterday, and I’ve dedicated a whole post to Halloween related AR, here’s another cute scarry example found by Bruce Sterling. Actually is part of a campaign to promote eco-friendly chargers and power managemant systems, and you can try it yourself here.

Have a nice week!

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