Weekly Linkfest

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!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

This week saw the realization of two conferences dedicated to augmented reality - the AR Conference and the European AR Business Conference. Sadly, no videos from the two are currently available online. But here several other things that are available online:

• Augmented Planet on why mobile augmented reality is much like Marmite.
  
• Tish Shute gave a very short talk on AR and twitter in the 140conf.
  
• Last week I've mentioned the AR Flashmob, here's how it went
• LTU Technologies lets developers build Google Goggles-like mobile applications (via DMFO)
  
• Inglobe Technologies, the guys behind the augmented reality plugin to Google's sketchup, created an AR plugin to Autocad.
• RockstAR lets you and your friends dress like famous rock stars (the surprise!)
• And mark your calendars, HIT Lab NZ holds an open house this riday.
  

Quote of the week is taken from Chris Grayson well thought reply to my sensationalist post asking whether augmented reality has already peaked (follow link for full reply):

Think what a single hype cycle for "video" would look like. Then consider TV, online video, outdoor billboards, mobile phone displays, that is to say -- moving images are a very big idea. Different implementations are adopted in different ways at different rates… AR is also a very big idea that has many manifestations.

And this week's video is a commercial to augmented reality head up display called the "Stark HUD". Unfortunately you will not be able them anytime soon, since they are part of an elaborated campaign promoting the release of "Iron Man 2", which also includes a web application that lets you try on iron man's mask.



that's it for now, have a great week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

It will be a challenge cramming all of this week's links into seven bullet points and a video, but I'll try my best:

• This week featured a couple of augmented Easter eggs hunts, but only one, as far as I can tell, April fools prank - Kooaba sold for $50 million on eBay. Last year pranks were a bit more exciting.
• Layar launched on April 1st, an AR version of the game Splinter Cell, played on the streets of Amsterdam.
• ARWave at O'Reilly's Where 2.0 conference.
• HIT Lab NZ released a new version of their AR platform for Android.
• Mixare reports on the accuracy of smart phones compasses
• On the one hand, there's an app to get Londoners read more books (via DMFO).
  
• On the other hand, there's an app that helps you locate the nearest Pizza Hut parlor.

This weeks video shows the work coming from the University of Ulster. At first, those may look like very simple games - and they are, for a very good reason. Intended to aid in upper-limb stroke rehabilitation, these let patients practice some of the finer movements such as reach, grasp, manipulation and release of objects. You can read more about it here.




Have a grand week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

A slow news week, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Nevertheless, here are some augmented reality related news from around the web:

• The future digital life has a nice round up of augmented reality used for entertainment.
  
• While Augmented Planet has a round up of educational augmented reality applications.
  
• A group of students from the National University of Singapore have created a Simcity like (or rather Farmville like) augmented reality game. I'll stick with the non-augmented version for now.
• An interview with Zugara's CEO Matt Symczyk on the launch of their Fashionista application.
• I'm not sure why, but I really like this simple terrain generator, it's use of AR just seems natural.
  

Weekly quote comes from the fantastic piece, Augmented Reality Network Crashes, Leaving Millions Dataless, imagining a news article from the future:

“I started chatting with a very nice man in line with me at the deli near by office,” said Chicago resident Sue Spiches. “I was waiting for information about him to pop up on my contact lenses, but it never came. For all I know, he was a registered sex offender or a Mormon.”

And this week's video comes to us from MindSpace Solutions a spinout company from Hit Lab NZ, which created a device called the Digital Binocular Station. Using extra sensitive sensors in the base station, this pair of binoculars can augmented a museum display (or any other room) in a way unmatched by any of their competitors, or at least that's what the video suggests. I'll have to visit New Zealand to try it out (here's my vote for holding ISMAR 2011 in New Zealand).



Have a great week!

Halloween Augmented Reality Special

Halloween Augmented Reality Special

Following are some AR tricks and treats I've collected over the last month, which make me think this Halloween should be declared as the first augmented holiday. Judge for yourself.

First we have the interactive Halloween mirror from Instructables. This little do-it-yourself project will let you and your party guests try out gory and scary masks without spending money or buying makeup. Just remember to turn-off the screen saver before installing it in your living room. (Note, you can stop watching this video after the 1 minute mark, it just repeats itself)



Taking the same face detection approach, Disney lets you become one of the villains from their animated movies. However, their Halloween Time application spice things up by including a mini-game, so kids may find it interesting:




While that Instructables project used OpenCV for face detection, HIT Lab NZ has opted for a simpler solution - just wear a marker on your forehead and turn yourself into a skeleton. On the upside, it's in 3d. Quite a memento mori moment:



Last but not least, Meijer, an American retail chain from the mid-west bring us what is probably the most attractive Halloween application. Meijer chose to promote its line of products for Halloween by letting visitors to this site try on 3d masks without the need of wearing markers, though you do have to install a plugin from Total Immersion. They even let you record yourself wearing the virtual mask, and make it possible to alter your voice (which according to them is an AR first). Sadly, they don't let you upload videos to Youtbue, fearing inappropriate videos, and they don't have a public gallery of user-made videos (which didn't prevent users to upload about 1300 videos) so I'm left with putting a screenshot:



Here's a direct link for one of the upload videos, to get a better idea.

Know of any other Halloween related augmented reality project? Tell us about it in the comments.

2d Sketches Become 3d Reality

2d Sketches Become 3d Reality

The guys at Hit Lab New Zealand and the Visual Media Lab at the Ben Gurion University, Israel, have uploaded a new video presenting the results of their ISMAR09 paper "In-Place 3D Sketching for Authoring and Augmenting Mechanical Systems". Since the paper is not online yet, I can't really tell how much of it is really automatic, and how robust is it, but the video is nothing less than magical:



I really envy those future physics high-school students...