Augmented Reality Metal Slug on Wii U?
If it's real, then wow, just wowBut it's probably a fake, uploaded to youtube by a user who has joined the video sharing site just yesterday, and have managed to upload leaked videos of Mario Galaxy DS and Star Craft 2. The F word at the end of the clip above is also a telling clue. But, an AR fan can be hopeful, no?As a bonus, in case this really turns out to be a fake, here's how an AR version Metal Slug should look like:
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?
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
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?
AR YOU - Like Denno Coil in Real Life
For his graduation project for the HKU (Utrecht School of the Arts), Cor Baauw created a really compelling vision of the augmented future where virtual pets are common and one can change reality with few restrictions.Obviously, we are not likely to see this vision come to life in the next ten years (and possibly not in our lifetime), but it's a nice reminder of how cool augmented reality can be once we overcome the limitations of the current hardware and algorithms.
More information can be found on Baauw's site, Local Androids.
Weekly Linkfest
A downpour of augmented reality links for you today:- Brother's AiRScouter see-through head mounted display is coming out this fall? One thing's for sure, they Brother stresses the AR use cases of that device.
- The future of firefighting may be augmented according to Tanagram. As Toby points out, a firefighter wants 100% reliability which doesn't go well with computer vision dependence on heuristic algorithms.
- Not too happy with the shape of your nose? Researchers at the University of London are working on an AR mirror that will let you tweak it (and other features) in real time.
- Russian government tries to improve road safety using augmented reality (via @bdwassom).
- Wall art stickers come to life with a hidden augmented layer, powered by Layard Vision.
- Lovely design concept - Fujitsu Iris - the transparent tablet which "amplifies reality".
- QR codes are here to stay?
- And this may be the most innovative use of QR codes in an ad campaign ever - reveal the secrets of Victoria's Secret girls.
In the last week Bruce Sterling has posted several demo videos of AR projects done by Art Center College of Design (Pasadena) students. The class, which is sponsored by Layar (very wise move!) and guided by Sterling, resulted with some interesting ideas, from AR religion to Bitcoin treasure hunt, but I liked most Dobu Dobu, an "augmented reality app to create love, companionship and friendship through adoption of virtual pets".
Have a Dobu Dobu week!
Dobu Dobu from Zooproot on Vimeo.
Have a Dobu Dobu week!
Leaf++ : A Social Network Based on Leaves
Well, I guess the title says it all. Leaf++ is the brain child of Italian artist Salvatore Iaconesi that couples together visual search and social networks to augment (you guessed it) leaves. A user can leave (no pun intended) a message on a leaf, to be seen later by other users scanning the same leaf type.Watching the above video, it seems that some people get high on leaves.
More details can be found on Iaconesi's site.
Osterhout's Amazing HUD: Dreamware or Vaporware?
A few months ago Ralph Osterhout had a chance to present his vision for the future of HUDs at the e.g. conference. If you had to some his vision into one word it would be amazing. The list of features is endless, from night vision to high definition 3d display. Even more amazing, Osterhout claims that a militarized version of this HUD would be available this summer, and a consumer product will come "sooner than what you may think".
Osterhout is far from a quack, but I'll believe it when I see it. In the meantime, if you consider yourself a fan of AR, you must watch the following talk (and share what you think about it in the comments!)
(via @cdpatnoe)
Weekly Linkfest
I'm a bit sleepy today, so please excuse any increase in grammar mistakes.- The augmented reality Korean unification project is an interesting little art/political project leveraging the power of erasAR. What other sights would you like to erase using augmented reality?
- Congrats to the guys at Zugara for being the first (afaik) AR clothing application provider to fully integrate with their product with a retailer's website: Banana Flame puts Zugara's Webcam Social Shopper app on every product page.
- iOS based Gakufu Camera scans printed music notes and play them in real time.
- ISMAR 2011 AR tracking competition is now open for registration!
- QR Hobo Codes, for those hobos carrying a smartphone (via @bruces).
before I fall to sleep, here's a very short video illustrating Minecraft brought to the real world using augmented reality (more specifically, using Kudan's Qoncept engine).
enjoy your week!
Reality is Plenty, Thanks
I watched this talk by Kevin Slavin at Mobile Monday Amsterdam three times already (which explains why it took me so long to post it here), and I still can't understand what are his issues with augmented reality. One claim is obvious, and I tend to agree, that immersion is neither necessary nor sufficient for an exciting experience. His other claims may be confusing (or misdirected), yet Slavin is a master of weaving together anecdotes from history and his own personal life into a compelling story, which makes the following video interesting to watch.(via Rhizome.org)
Vision Based Layar is Coming
And since it's pretty big news (and Layar is a darling of the tech press) you probably already read about it somewhere else.Here's what you need to know:
- Documentation is here.
- Android Beta version is coming in a few weeks. iPhone and Android full versions are coming by the end of Q3.
- Seems like a "basic" (nothing is basic in this field) image recognition and tracking. Image recognition is done on the device, so augmentation should be relatively snappy.
- They are going to charge money for this, unless your layer gets less than 1000 matches per month, or if it's a non-profit, artistic or educational layer and the powers to be like it enough. Pricing seems really fair to me.
- You can win up to $15K by creating a vision based layer.
I think the "share it now" button has a potential to become a huge hit (think Instagram). What do you think?
Update - misunderstood the documentation. You can have different augmentations depending on both location and image.
Weekly Linkfest
Slow week, or am I at fault for not paying attention to the augmentosphere?- Qualcomm releases an iOS version of their AR SDK. I guess now I'm left out of excuses for not developing any AR app on my own.
- Face detection is coming in iOS5, but will be probably used only to make "funny" pictures.
- 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 on billboards: dance with virtual dancers in Kuala Lumpur.
- 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.
Have a great week!
Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest
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.
- Smokers can get an augmented reality look at their dirty lungs (again via @GaryPHayes).
- And not exactly in AR this week: 16 creative QR codes, projection mapping on a face, Microsoft pays users to create a 3d reconstruction database.
Have a splendid week!
Hyper(reality) - Who Needs Eyes When Kinect is Around
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 anymoreHyper(reality) - The Last Tuesday Society from Maxence on Vimeo.
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)
Is 13th Lab the Layar of Indoors?
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:
If you buy into their vision, you can sign up to their developers network. Better yet, if you live in Sweden, they are hiring - I bet it's going to be worthwhile to join them.
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.
Weekly Linkfest
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.
- Vuzix and German research institute Fraunhofer announced strategic alliance for development of display technology. Vuzix's CEO is optimistic (as am I) - "We have already seen results that we feel will provide a paradigm shift in the style, performance and cost of wearable displays".
- 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.
- PrimeSense's (Kinect) competitor, Omek raises $7 million from Intel Capital.
- Someone (well, Beck's) augmented the Statue of Liberty.
- Is the hype around AR disappeared altogether? That's at least what this article, named "What happened to augmented reality?" claims.
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 Promoted to the Premier League
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.
More details on football-marketing.com
Weekly Linkfest
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:- Augmented reality glasses decipher emotional cues from other people, increase emotional intelligence. While other, concept, glasses strive to make those cues more visible (but since it's not AR, it's cheating).
- Kraft is one conglomerate which is openly skeptical about augmented reality (via @bdwassom).
- 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.
- Terracotta warriors come alive - not another zombie movie, but rather an AR iPhone game.
This week's video is just strange.
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.Have a grand week!
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