Weekly Linkfest

Quite an interesting batch of links we have today:

• Aurasma took DEMO by a storm, winning both DEMOgod and people's choice award, a $1M prize (not in cash), and showcasing their new gesture feature. Congrats!
• New Scientist reports on a mobile app that harnesses machine vision to detect crosswalks and help the blind safely cross streets.
• Not one but two augmented fitting rooms - one in China that helps you find the perfect wedding dress, the other from Russia, that neatly tracks your joints.
• Business Insider on the three issues augmented reality has to resolve in order to become the next big thing. No surprises there, but isn't AR already the next big thing, and it should rather try to become the current big thing?
• Par-Tee - care for some augmented reality golf game?

It seems that I have never posted here about Greg Tran's work on augmented architecture. Which is a pity. I had the following video opened as a tab in my browser for a long time, just waiting to be published, and somehow I forgot about it. Luckily, Yanko Design posted another video of Tran's work, which served as a necessary reminder:

Mediating Mediums - The Digital 3d from Greg Tran on Vimeo.

Have an excellent week!

Weekly Linkfest

It's been a busy summer for me, sorry for not posting the weekly linkfest in, well, a weekly manner. If you want more frequent updates from me, you should follow me on twitter

• Change your perspective with MirrorMap - an augmented reality application that lets you tap to near by CCTV cameras. I think they had a similar thing in Rainbows End.
• Interesting case study from Zugara on the ROI of e-commerce AR software: uniques up 841%, conversion rate rose by 4.2%!
• What AR can learn from the days of early cinema and the fine line between magical and gimmicky by Helen Papagiannis.
• Chauncey is the guy to follow on YouTube, here he is demoing his very own AR helmet. In other videos you can see him reviewing Vuzix gear.
• A revealing interview with Dr. Marco Feuerstein of TU Munich about AR surgery, and why it's still not a viable option.
• Speaking of interviews, Toby held one about augmented reality for cultural institutions.
• Augmented Planet on AR and NFC. The wave of the future?
• A sneak peek to Layar Vision's analytics tool

This week's video comes to us via Etsuji Kameyama's blog. I often complained about not having the AR equivalent of Angry Birds (ARAB). Well, we are not there yet, but Junaio now features a channel with the boids, enabling users to take picture with them. Even though it's a wholly new media, still nobody likes the boomerang bird.

 

 Have a great week!

Request for Comments - Augmented Reality Benchmark

Here is a crazy thought - is the industry mature enough for an AR benchmark? Specifically I thought such a benchmark should cover the following two topics:

• Comparing the performance of AR frameworks (such as Qualcomm's AR SDK, Samsung SARI, etc.) using a given set of tests. 
• Comparing the performance of devices using a given set of AR tests.

Which leads to the following questions, I'll be glad hearing your thoughts about them (in the comments, on twitter, or via email, whatever!):

• Will such a benchmark be beneficial to any one? Interesting?
• What tests should the benchmark include? The main problem here is that test should be easily recreated and yet meaningful. We can test "tracking success" by tracking an on screen marker that is transformed by code (to account for change in lights, motion blur, noise and other effects, which can be hard to accurately recreate using a real physical marker).
• Would any one of you volunteer to run those tests? I don't have access to lots of AR capable devices, so unless you would like to sponsor me (i.e. buy me an iPad2), I count on the volunteers to run the actual tests and report back.
• How about benchmarking AR applications? Does it make sense?