Cool augmented dressing room, powered by Kinect, which makes the clothes look a little bit more realistic and less pasted on your body. (via augmented.org)
AR Dodge Ball from TU Munich. Is it a HUD on your face or are you just a weirdo?
This week's video is without a doubt this one from The Heavy Projects - I never got so many retweets as I did after tweeting about it (if you don't follow me I'm @augmented). Harnessing the power of Junaio, the billboards of Times Square are repainted with original street art. I think the guys from Artvertiser had this idea first, but it's pretty neat to see it actually implemented. I just wonder whether it's ok with Junaio's terms of use.
If you missed it, we've got it, in this week's linkfest:
Users not waking up to augmented reality mobile apps (via @jack_benott). Here's an interesting quote: Augmented reality "needs to move away from the "pull" model of using the camera to pull AR data to a "push" model where consumers can receive AR data in a seamless fashion". This theoretically will happen with the introduction of head up displays, but maybe we can't wait till then ...
The augmented reality pitch that made Justin Timberlake invest in stealth startup Dekko (via @GaryPHayes). I really hope there's something more to it than this. I do love their chosen company name, though.
I think Layar already did it, but 110 Stories is a Kickstarter project aiming to create an AR (and later physical) memorial the World Trade Center towers.
Daqri's CEO Brain Mullins gives a keynote talk on San Diego's ARDevCamp titled "The state of augmented reality". I may or may not link to it just because I got quoted (but thanks!).
"Inch High Stunt Guy" is not just a game, it also beautifully shows the power of Qualcomm's AR SDK.
This week's video comes from Toyota Motor Europe and the Copenhagen Institute of Interaction Design, which re-imagined a car's window for an excibition, and named it "Window to the World". The result is very attractive, as is evident by the half a million views this video got in the past last week. You probably have already seen it, but if not, here's a good place to read more about it.
Imagine for a moment how would it be like to replace your sense of vision with the point cloud generated by Kinect, which in turn is controlled by your arduino glove. Thanks to designer Maxence Parache you don't need to imagine such a scenario anymore
I'm not sure if this project can be catalogued as augmented reality, and if so, it is surely on the fringes of AR (since it seems to me to increase the latency between atoms and bits). Is the term alternative reality taken yet?
via Yanko Design (where you can see some more videos)
Well, I'm pretty sure the guys at 13th Lab will get mad at me for comparing them to Layar. Most importantly, they don't consider themselves as an augmented reality company. They view themselves as a computer vision company, and AR only serves as a cool proof of concept for their technology. And what exactly is their tech? For now it's implementing SLAM algorithm on iPad2, as can be seen in the video below. Next they plan to implement more computer vision algorithms for mobile platforms.
SLAM, if you are too lazy to read the wikipedia article and prefer to learn this kind of stuff from a blogger, enables the device to locate its position in a pre-scanned room while continuously update its stored map of the room, all this without using markers. Here's a cool demo from Oxford, showing SLAM assisted augmentation of a museum, which suggests one way this technology can be used. Another scenario may be something like an ikea store where using an iPad you could change the color of the sofa which is right in front of you (or locate the exit).
This lead me believe that with some luck 13th Lab may become a force to be reckoned with in indoors AR. Moreover, 13th Lab aims to be a platform provider, like, well, Layar (and admittedly, many other companies in the AR space).
Writes Petter Ivmark, one of the founders:
The ambition of this company is not just to make a game though, but rather to take this pretty complicated technology, that requires a lot of specific math and low level programming skills, meaning that very few developers work with it today, and make it available to developers as a platform that doesn't require these skills at all. Hopefully, this will spur a lot more innovation in computer vision. We strongly believes that, as computer vision and artificial intelligence evolves, the camera will take over from the GPS as the device's most important sensor to understand, interpret and navigate the world.
We have had the idea that the camera has the potential to be the most important sensor for a long time.
A few years ago when we started talking about doing something in this area, the devices where not powerful enough to do SLAM and other advanced computer vision work. When we started looking at this, the iPhone 3GS had not yet been released (let alone a dual core device like the iPad 2 or some of the newer Android devices). iOS didn't even have a public camera API. But we made a bet on the exponential growth in computing power on devices, that if we started working on this, the devices would catch up quickly. This turned our to be true. Apple released the camera APIs for iOS, they put gyros in their devices, and finally released the iPad 2 which had a camera, gyro and a fast dual core processor. This was around the time we had a first working prototype of our platform, so the timing was great.
Oh my, what an interesting week for augmented reality, especially in the business front:
Nokia Beta Labs revealed Live View, a revolutionary mobile augmented reality application. Well, unless you consider Wikitude, Layar, Junaio and many other "AR browsers" that came out in the last three years. Nokia was once a leader in AR research, it's a sad day to see them show off a product like that.
Microsoft licenses GeoVector's tech. Slashgear says the goal of this move is to challenge Google Goggles. Patent war against Google (like the current one against Android) can be another reason.
This week's video features a cool street art by SWEZA named QRadio. Graffiti boom-boxes around Berlin start to play music when the QR code drawn on them is scanned. Via Wooster Collective.
Augmented reality is to be promoted to the premier league. The English premier league that is.
Tottenham Hotspur will sport the logo of AR platform Aurasma during the 2011-2012 season, starting next month. Which is quite an interesting development, you must admit, especially considering that the company behind Aurasma, Autonomy, has decided to forgo its own name on the shirts. A bold, and probably costly move.
How are terracotta warriors, billiard, a coloring book and the city of Basel all related to each other? Well... they are featured in this week's linkfest:
Developers, rejoice! Our old friends at YDreams have released a beta version of YVision, a natural user interface SDK that has computer vision and a physics engine baked into it.
HitLab NZ introduces first(?) coloring book that comes to life with a bit of augmented reality.
If you are a Layar developer, AR-4-Basel may be the contest for you (via @genebecker).
Two years ago I wrote about Deep Green the robotic, augmented reality pool player from Canada. Now a student from Germany created a mini version.
An augmented reality artwork created by John Goto and Matthew Leach using the Layar platform, Gilt City confronts the banking crisis in an unusual way. Famous beggars appear on your mobile's screen, and you choose whether to help them, or make them explode. Art - I'll never understand it, but maybe you will, by reading more about this project here.
The second, and surely much more exciting is simply titled "Transparent electronic devices" and concerns "A method and system for displaying images on a transparent display of an electronic device ... the display screens may allow for overlaying of images over real world viewable objects"
. Or in other words - transparent iPads are coming!!!11221!. Seriously though here's quoting again from the patent:
These overlays whether in handheld or other electronic devices 10, may provide an "augmented reality" interface in which the overlays virtually interact with real-world objects. For example, the overlays may be transmitted onto a display screen that overlays a museum exhibit, such as a painting. The overlay may include information relating to the painting that may be useful or interesting to viewers of the exhibit. Additionally, overlays may be utilized on displays in front of, for example, landmarks, historic sites, or other scenic locations. The overlays may again provide information relating to real-world objects as they are being viewed by a user. These overlays may additionally be utilized on, for example, vehicles utilized by tourists. For example, a tour bus may include one or more displays as windows for users. These displays may present overlays that impart information about locations viewable from the bus
Interesting stuff, don't you think? More information at Apple Insider.
A couple of weeks ago Qualcomm held its Uplinq conference. Xconomy has a nice review of Qualcomm's AR vision and the five application categories it is trying to promote.
Qualcomm's Jay Wright however thinks that AR glasses are a long way off - both due to technology challenges and adoption issues.
Since Friday was Canada Day, and tomorrow is the 4th of July, let us celebrate with a double feature in this week's video. Two first person shooter games caught my eye this week, the first ShootAR has a surprisingly sleek teaser video, while the other Uwar seems a little bit more feasible, and features cool shirts (well, cool is in the eye of the beholder). Is this new generation of AR games going to heat things up?
We, at Augmented Times, believe that augmented reality (AR) is the next big paradigm shift. Connecting the world wide web with the physical world and the many objects, places and humans it contains, AR is both a disruptive technology and an exciting vision of the future.
This blog's goal is to document AR taking over our lives, but it needs your help. Have an augmented reality related news or story? Published an interesting paper about AR? Have something to say about this site or the AR community in genereal? Tell us about it, at rouli.net ~at~ gmail.com
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