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.
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!)
Mario, probably the best known (fictional) plumber has already appeared in more than 200 games. No surprise that fans imagine an augmented reality game starring him. For example, here's Youtube user Kain the heartbreaker's vision of a Mario game on iPhone 10:
I don't usually consider projection on buildings augmented reality, but this video from Madrid has a fine twist. Instead of scaling a virtual construction site, Mario fights Donkey Kong on a real building:
Finally, here's another video coming to us from Madrid, this time from Espada y Santa Cruz Studio. A bit more information can be found here (in Spanish).
If you have been reading this blog for a while, you might remember Albert Hwang's concept videos titled "Spatial Computing", discussing futuristic augmented user interfaces. I was fairly impressed with them, that's for sure. Turns out Hwang worked on each one for six months, which might explain why he never got to producing a third installment in this series. Now, however, he's ready for the commitment, and wants our help. Hwang is raising money on kickstarter.com to create "Spatial Computing III: The Home Theater System". He's looking for $1600, and though $1064 were already pledged, he has only 11 days to get the rest.
[Games Alfresco readers - please follow this link to see the video]
I know some of you already seen the following clip on other blogs, but when I contacted Keiichi Matsuda two weeks ago, he asked me to wait till the final version is ready. Luckily, the wait was shorter than expected.
Keiichi Matsuda, the creator of the now famous dystopian short clip Domestic Robocop, is at it again. In "Augmented City", a project that got him nominated for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Silver Medal award (and no, there's no golden one), Matsuda pushes forward his belief that modern cities are more than concrete, metal and glass occupying a physical space but also the digital information that is produced and consumed by the city's residents.
Or, in Matsuda's own words:
Augmented City explores the social and spatial implications of an AR-supported future. 'Users' of the city can browse through channels of the augmented city, creating aggregated customised environments. Identity is constructed and broadcast, while local records and coupons litter the streets. The augmented city is an architectural construct modulated by the user, a liquid city of stratified layers that perceptually exists in the space between the self and the built environment. This subjective space allows us to re-evaluate current trends, and examine our future occupation of the augmented city.
AR coupons may be littering the streets in Matsuda's vision, but it still looks amazing -
I crossed my eyes to see this clip, but if you go on and watch the clip on Youtube you'll be able to pick a red-cyan version and use your favorite 3d glasses. Want to learn more? Check out Keiichi Matsuda's thesis.
I don't much to say about the following video except that it's named "Logged In" and I wish it was in English. On the other hand, it shows that AR can be an excellent tool for learning new languages. And I know it doesn't meant to portray AR, but it sure looks like it:
Recently two concept designs illustrating the use of augmented reality in order to enhance the plain old tv set, had come to my attention. The first is a prototype from KDDI lab, presented at the NAB 2010 conference a couple of months ago. I couldn't dig much information about it (here is some), though it seems to have the goal of personalizing advertisements in mind.
The other design is no where near reaching a prototype stage. Called the Meta-Mirror and imagined by Irish design studio Notion, it has less commercial agenda than the one by KDDI. It really strives to improve television. And with all the reality-tv shows out there, maybe augmented reality is the best way to do so. See more images of Meta-Mirror on Yanko Design.
I have very little experience with people on the Autistic spectrum, but designer Timothy Byrne of Western Washington University has a brother with an autistic disorder, a fact the propelled him to invent "Sixthsense for Autism". Building upon MIT's Pranav Mistry's SixthSense technology, this conceptual project tries to provide its user social cues for everyday situations. Here's for example standing in line while using the device:
In the following video Byrne explains the motivations behind his design and show some other uses:
Visit the West Washington University's channel on Youtube for more possible uses of Sixthsense, such as aiding those with impaired memory, in the classroom, for construction, and while driving or traveling.
Simple, useful and probably feasible (though not on the iPhone) AR application in the following concept video by Tate Strickland an American graphic design student:
I'm a bit late with this - Toby already wrote a post about it last week, and I meant to do the same, but was too sick to write a post this wonderful next concept video deserves. It reminds me of a short story by Asimov where people grew so reliant on computers they forgot how to do basic arithmetic.
Created by Keiichi Matsuda of the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. You might wonder what does an architect have to do with augmented reality (and the art of making tea). Kei tried to explain:
The question of the connection with architecture comes up a lot, but its not necessary to think of it in the context of buildings etc. Architecture as a study is about spatial design, encompassing a lot of social, philosophical, economic and technological theory; more interesting than placing beams! Im currently working in a lot of media, so its kind of unlikely that ill go on to be an architect, but it makes a lot of sense for architects to be interested in VR, AR, game design etc., even without having a technical background as they touch fundamentally on how we operate in space. AR particularly is a really exciting technology, as it interacts directly with the built environment. The film (domestic robocop) is pessimistic in a way; I believe that AR could become essential to us very quickly, once certain standards and economic models are in place. Becoming incapable of making a cup of tea and navigating your own house is obviously quite far fetched, but is maybe part of a broader comment about our reliance on technology and the all-infiltrating nature of consumer culture. With all the hype around AR at the moment, I think its a good thing to speculate as to what effect it might have on our lives, positive or negative, in the long term.
Kei currently works on a thesis titled 'Pluralism and Identity in Augmented Reality', and I bet we will see many other interesting concepts and ideas out of him.
AgroTech, a Danish institute that provides consultancy and technological services for the agricultural industry, has created a rather interesting conceptual video, showing AR in an unconventional niche. The video below shows a farmer running a farm (milking cows, moving manor) aided by a pair of AR glasses. Though the text bubble are in Danish, you'll probably understand the jist of things
You're probably wondering what's the last bubble says. It's "Remember wedding anniversary tomorrow". So there you have it, a single system that reminds you when to milk your cow and when to buy a gift to your wife. Perfect!
However, futuristic concepts still excite me. Check out Matthew Buckland's latest post. With the help of designer Philip Langley, Buckland has conjured a series of illustrations giving us a peak into social network turbo-charged with augmented reality. Below is one such illustration, showing you what's going on in the neighborhood.
Can be quite useful when looking for a new home. You can find the other illustrations (and this one in far higher resolution) here.
Another interesting concept that popped today is PlayboxAR, which is a glimpse to what can become the future of augmented reality games:
This is actually a new video of a rather old concept by one Soho Marky.
The disparity between these concepts and reality reminds us that we are still at the very beginning of a long road. Maybe AR is hot right now, but in the future it's going to be fabulous.
Good magazine has apparently asked some interviewees to imagine that will improve their daily life. The two ladies in the video below, Freya Estreller and Natasha Case, came up with Photoshop Glasses. A first step to improving the world may be seeing how much better it could be:
If you happen to think that's a far fetched idea, you are probably right. However, we already saw head tracking software that puts on virtual masks on faces. So maybe in your next job interview, if the interviewer just looks a tad like your ex-boyfriend, all you'll need to do is wear some dorky glasses, and see him as Optimus Prime.
One of the oldest concepts in the mobile AR community is using augmented reality to match a person with his/her identity. The Swedish software and design company TAT just unveiled their own take on this "augmented id" with the aptly named Augmented ID. Using face recognition and tracking technology from Polar Rose, TAT enables you to check up one's web identity by looking at him through your mobile's camera, as the following concept shows:
It's very pretty, but just be sure that before pointing your mobile at some beautiful girl on the street, you could out-run her boyfriend. (via engadget)
Here's a cute French short film bringing us another vision of augmented reality. Don't worry about the French at the few first seconds (saying that in the near future we are always connected through "cerebral chips" and "retina screens"), the visuals are self explanatory.
Future Lions is a yearly competition that allows student to show off innovative concepts in the world of advertisement. Winners are honored at the Cannes Festival but all participants get free exposure to leading agencies. This year's concept was to "develop an idea for advertising a global brand in a way that would not have been possible five years ago". Naturally, many students picked augmented reality. Here's a quick scan of some of them (as surely more will surface in the coming days). You do have to remember that all videos featured below are just concepts, and no "real" augmented reality was involved. It does show how young advertisers (or at least some of them) are trying to go beyond Novelty-AR, and look for true ways to complement their campaigns via augmented reality (unlike say, the guys behind the Papa Johns campaign).
Geepseed - an augmented reality Tamaguchi for Greenpeace It's like int13's Kweekies with an environmental saying behind it.
Try out IKEA furniture before you buy When Meaio created their iLiving application, I was a bit skeptical, but somehow this next clip makes me see what a great idea this is after all, especially for a company like IKEA. If I were IKEA, investing in such technology would be the first item on my schedule. Update: It's alive!
Here's an interesting interview held this February with Tim O'Reilly, the man behind O'Reilly Media, who is most associated with the Web 2.0 movement.
Jump ahead to 17:50, where he briefly speaks on his vision for the web in the coming years. For O'Reilly, augmented reality is the natural next step from web 2.0, while semantic web is a dead-end. Here are some (not-precise) excerpts:
RFID is an evolutionary dead-end ... semantic web or RFID is things "wearing name-tags", and web 2.0 is learning to recognize things ... We're getting to that kind of augmented reality, where our computers will have senses that are as good as ours or better ... they are going to recognize faces, they are going to recognize objects, they gonna have immediate recall. If you ask me "what's the UI in five years", it's a pair of glasses ... I'm gonna have some kind of little heads up display because I'm gonna look at something, I'm gonna walk around at a meeting and it will go "that's Joe, you met him three years ago".
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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