Weekly Revolutionary Linkfest

Weekly Revolutionary Linkfest

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.
• Why so many AR apps fail in the real world (via @genebecker). I think that statistically speaking, AR apps are no worse than "normal" apps.
  
• The AR art manifesto, I'm not smart enough to get it. (via @genebecker)
• AR comes to the Classroom: a game-changer for children learning to read (via @jack_benoff)
• 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)
• Early signs of dystopia: Going to the outdoors and using your iphone to see augmented "live" butterflies

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:



Have a great week!

Why Sports Enthusiasts are the Future of AR

Why Sports Enthusiasts are the Future of AR

There are a few topics that I've been planning to write about for months (if not years). One of them is the role sports enthusiasts (joggers, swimmers, bicycles fanatics) may have in the adoption of augmented reality head up displays. The recent onslaught of hi-tech ski goggles was the push I needed to finally do something about it.



Instead of writing a long post (which many won't read), I'm trying something new here. I've created a short presentation with only a few words that describes my views. I would be very happy to hear your comments on this format. If you like it, I'll create more presentations on other subjects.

Why recreational sports are the

View more presentations from rouli.

What do you think? Am I completely off my mark here?

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

It's Sunday, and here are some links from around the augmented sphere:

• Videos of ISMAR 2010's keynotes were recently uploaded to Youtube:
• Ron Azuma: Beyond pop-ups and moving trains
• Hirokazu Kato: Return to the origin of Augmented Reality
• Boris Debackere: Better Then Reality
• Selim Benhimane: Imagine a generalized daily basis usage of AR/MR
  
• It's way too long for me to read, but it looks quite promising: PSFK's Future Of Mobile Tagging Report.
• Artist to use augmented reality to deface the Mona Lisa on Thursday (with Junaio).
• More AR goodness on the Nintendo 3ds (via @yoav85)
• MixAR, an augmented reality edtior for the iPhone is looking for your support on kickstarter.
• "Live Butterflies" allows you to go outside and see virtual butterflies around you. Now we can go on and push the real ones to extinction.

Ever played Duplo (the big blocks version of Lego) as a toddler? Worried that your kids will only want to play with things that have touch screens on them? Worry not, legoplatformer.com will turn your old bricks into a mobile augmented reality platform capable of running computer games. On a serious note, that's one example of the power of Qualcomm's AR SDK:

Happy Weekly Linkfest Day!

Happy Weekly Linkfest Day!

Like sands through the hourglass, so are the links of this week:

• Synchronize your markers - the second Augmented Reality Event to take place in May. Maybe this time my flight won't be canceled by Delta at the very last minute.
• Google Goggles enters the print ads recognition space (and now also solves Sudokus). There are a couple of very cool European companies that should be worried right now.
• Joe Ludwig on 7 requirements for an AR positioning system, and don't miss my lengthy comment (unless you want to get it as a whole blog post :)).
• Augmented reality is the 'trend for the future' at adult entertainment exhibition(via @AugmentedManc)
• Play golf with an augmented caddy (you still need to carry the cart yourself).

Augmented reality t-shirts are cool. Star Wars is cool (as determined by a poll of 500 AR fands). Thus, augmented reality t-shirts, featuring Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker fighting each other must be the epitome of coolness. I don't have a clue who made those or where can you get them, but you may enjoy the video:



have a great week!

Pac-Man Augmented Evolution

Pac-Man Augmented Evolution

1980, the Japanese Namco corporation develops Pac-Man, making arcade history




2004, researchers from National University of Singapore's Mixed Reality Lab, led by Adrian Cheok, create Human Pacman, a first person version of the classic game, that lets you play the classic game with an augmented reality twist. This twist also means that you have to carry a laptop on your back and wear a HMD on your head.







2011, now you can play a first person version of Pac-Man by just loading Layar on your iPhone, developed by GamePS

Weekly Consumer Linkfest Show

Weekly Consumer Linkfest Show

We have got plenty of augmented reality links this week, so enjoy the show:

• From CES:
• Recon's ski goggles with built in display, gps and other sensors, and as this video shows, you can even add a camera to it. Imagine what a talented hacker can do with this setup.
• Vuzix presented Raptyr, the first see through AR glasses poised for consumers (via @joeludwig)
• Tom's annual "augmented reality year in review" is once again the best summary of 2010 from the AR perspective. However, if you just can't get enough, here's Synthetic-Toys.com summary.
• While Nokia is trying to predict the future, and one of their trends for 2010 is AR and visual search. And the best way to predict the future, is making it, and for Nokia this means letting Point&Find evolve. (thanks @genebecker and @anthonyashbrook)
• The Second International AR Standards meeting is coming to Barcelona in mid February.
• Augmented reality in real 3d coming to Nintendo 3ds
  
• AR Monopoly. Not Layar, the board game.

Here's yet another amazing AR project utilizing the power of Kinect's sensor. Tobias Blum and Prof. Nassir Navab of TU Munich used a Kinect to overlay CT data on a person in real time, transforming a big screen into a magic mirror. It's also a good party trick for Halloween. More info here.



Have an excellent week!

Is Augmented Reality Under Hyped?

Is Augmented Reality Under Hyped?

Just playing around with Google Ngram viewer. If you didn't get to try it yet, it's a tool that shows the number of times a phrase appears in a big corpus of books that Google scanned.
So, "augmented reality" popularity is rising:



but, it still has a lot to go (at least when compared to virtual reality)

Unfortunately, Google's database stops at the critical point, two years ago, right before the big buzz around AR started. Still, one can appreciate how quickly VR moved from the scientific lecture to popular lecture, while AR is taking its time.

New Yearly Linkfest

New Yearly Linkfest

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.
• Layar and int13's ARDefender selected as apps of the year on SamsungApps.
  
• 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)
  
• On the same topic, Metaio give their own 2011 predictions. You can also find some AR predictions for the next decade on Joe Ludwig's blog.

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.



have a happy new yeAR!