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.
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.
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.
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?
ARE2011 is only two days away, and I'm going to miss it (this time its my fault, and I can't blame Delta Airways). I'm a lame excuse for an AR blogger, I know. If you go there, please shoot some videos and share!
Tish Shute interviews Vernor Vinge on the promise, progress and threats of AR. "I see four or five concurrently active paths to the Singularity ... If we humans want to keep our hand in the game, AR is an important thing to pursue."
Our weekly video comes today from the Future Lions 2011 contest, where young advertising professionals are called to "Advertise a product from a global brand in a way that couldn’t have been done five years ago, to an audience of your choosing". Tom Houser and Victoria Trow came up a way to use augmented reality as an alternative source of income for record companies. I am a bit of a skeptic, but it's an interesting idea nonetheless:
Took a break last week (missed me? you should follow me on Twitter), back today with many AR links:
Happy Mother's Day! It can be even happier if you get your Mom an AR cake (via DMFO)
Tish Shute and Ori Inbar hold an interview with Bruce Sterling - it doesn't make sense to write fiction about augmented reality nowadays as AR is not fictional topic anymore.
As part of the ARE2011 media blitz, Sterling was also interviewed, together with Vernor Vinge on ReadWriteWeb about augmented reality in the workplace.
Plush toys on sale at a virtual store, existing only in the augmented world of Layar.
Personally, I find tablet devices boring (not that I will object getting one). They simply pale in comparison to some of Mac Funamizu's creations. But, as the iPad2 is all the rage right now, here are a few augmented reality demos running on it, making it a little bit cooler.
If you have a video of your AR app running on the iPad2, shoot me an email or leave a comment.
String on an iPad 2:
Metaio's Junaio on an iPad 2:
Total Immersion's Magic Mirror on an iPad 2 (first covered by Thomas):
MixAR, an augmented reality edtior for the iPhone is looking for your support on kickstarter.
"Live Butterflies" allows you to go outside and see virtual butterflies around you. Now we can go on and push the real ones to extinction.
Ever played Duplo (the big blocks version of Lego) as a toddler? Worried that your kids will only want to play with things that have touch screens on them? Worry not, legoplatformer.com will turn your old bricks into a mobile augmented reality platform capable of running computer games. On a serious note, that's one example of the power of Qualcomm's AR SDK:
I hate it when I'm scheduling a post just to find out that someone else (this time Augmented Planet) publish a post about it just a day before my goes up. Luckily ARTags is important enough to deserve two posts within 24 hours.
Coming to us from France, ARTags is an AR drawing application, that apparently makes it very easy to draw nice looking pictures on your mobile phone and add them to your current location. Though it's quite new, already more than 1500 pictures were drawn using this app all across the world.
But that doesn't make it special. What makes ARTags special is the fact that it's a cross platform app. That is, the pictures are visible using Wikitude, Layar and Junaio (though I had a bit of a problem finding the right channel on Wikitude). Instead of creating a new browser application, or integrating within only one of the above three, the folks behind ARTags decided to have a presence in all of them. That's absolutely the right decision, at least at this stage. I certainly hope that other app developers will follow.
Now, if only someone invented an app to make its user better artists.
So Metaio was nice enough to upload all of insideAR talks online (wish that the organizers of ISMAR10 will follow suit). However, most of us don't have a day to spend watching all the talks, so here are some of my favorites (note that I'm a tech head, so your mileage may vary) :
Flying drones, electronic musician and virtual girlfriends, all in this week's linkfest:
170 years after introducing the first postage stamp, Britain now introduces the first augmented stamp (though it requires German technology from Metaio)
For this week's video we've got yet another futuristic vision, this time by German designer Björn Matthes. In his diploma project, Araproject, Matthes adds an energetic urban twist to augmented reality:
Another bounty of delicious links awaits those who read the weekly linkfest:
A very early release of Robert Rice's Mirascape is online. For the moment it's Android only, but apparently the iPhone version is waiting approval, and once it hits the appstore I'll write a full review of it.
This week's video is of Junaio Glue. Nothing special, just a nice demonstration of marker less tracking on a non flat surface. Or in other words, the coolest coffee mug I've seen yet:
This week will go down in history as the week vision-based AR mobile applications made their first move on the iPhone platform, and you'll find plenty of those in the linkfest. Is this the (very welcomed) end for webcam based AR?
Ben&Jerry's though had gone full-monty and lets you see augmented version of their ice cream tubs (see video below) via their Moo Vision app. Created by Circ.us and Patched Reality, it's unfortunately only available in the US appstore so I'm unable to try it out.
However, I was able to try out ARSoccer but was fairly disappointed. This one, and a very similar minded Upsies (not yet available) let you kick a virtual ball. That's assuming you have white floor and dark trousers. I actually enjoyed it more to bounce the ball off random furniture, but it still not worth the buck.
As promised, here's Ben&Jerry's Moo Vision. Looking cool, but what's that thing about chickens being in my ice cream? I want my ice cream to be poultry free, if you don't mind!
This is a guest post written by Brian Patterson, consultant at Exhibit Edge, a trade show consultation and exhibit company serving the Maryland, Virginia, DC areas and beyond. Read on to find out how augmented reality helped Exhibit Edge's clients to attract more audience to their booth than ever before.
Since the beginning of the human race, customers and dealers have gathered in commonplaces to buy and sell their wares. In the most modern form of these gatherings, trade shows, you can now witness spectacles where elaborate product launches are the norm, zany inventions make the news, and buyers and customers still connect to make deals. I’ve been working in the trade show industry for many years now, but I recently worked with a new tool that I think could change the overall trade show experience more than anything I can recall.
The product we worked with is called Junaio. I have no affiliation or connection to them, I just recently used their product and thought it was a great topic for this blog. I’m into AR, and this is one of the more compelling business use cases I can remember. Before I go any further, check out the promo video below of the Junaio products:
Changes to the Trade Show Floor If you’ve ever experienced a trade show floor, you know how exciting, crazy, and informational they can be. Generally the doors burst open and you wander around aimlessly, stopping by booths here-and-there on a whim. With Junaio, however, this experience becomes interactive, streamlined, and organized without losing that same invigorating feeling that comes with the excitement of the floor.
Junaio provides visitors to the trade show floor with a map, interactive directions, and embeddable content that allows event organizers and exhibitors to really provide some context and organization to the floor. Finding specific booths, categories of booths, and general information with just a click is easy. And, for exhibitors, instead of printing large amounts of collateral, you can now ‘go green’ and allow users to scan your code in to download all of your digital media.
Changes to Product Demonstration Product demonstrations can also be greatly enhanced thanks to the downloadable app. Users can navigate to a booth using Junaio to guide them, and then watch a product literally come to life through the browser. In the demo you saw some Lego marketing managers showing how they built a virtual product demonstration that can be viewed on a monitor in their exhibit or via a booth visitor’s phone.
Over the years we’ve seen numerous different ways to demonstrate a product, from live demo’s at the center of the floor to outdoor demo’s where a booth will literally call exhibitors out of the hall…. But using augmented reality to demo a product on a trade show floor is the most effective method we’ve seen for catching people’s attention. Based on our tracking, we found that the client we worked with who used this virtual demo received 2.5x’s the foot traffic that their exhibit normally receives. So, although it may take some time and investment to implement AR in an effective way, a strong ROI can certainly be realized by the sheer amount of people that are brought into the exhibit by their curiosity.
Final Thoughts I’m very interested to see other companies jump into the AR + trade show space, as that will push everyone to innovate further. As that innovation occurs, everyone benefits from better exhibits and more organized events. At Exhibit Edge, we pride ourseleves in giving unparalleled service offerings in the trade show exhibit industry, from banner stands to rental exhibits. Augmented reality is the biggest change I’ve ever seen to how a trade show is run, a paradigm shift if you will, and I’m glad we have a front row ticket to watch it evolve and grow.
Coming back from my vacation, I had to catch up with a lot of AR related news. One topic though was so prevalent that I had to write about it in my coming back post. Obviously, I'm talking about the world cup in soccer. No other sports event gained such an attention from the AR community, and here are the results (don't worry the last few ones are quite good):
Zakumi in FLARToolkit The good: It seems to be created by a single programmer. Cheers for the initiative. The god-awful bad: The music. I rather hear vuvuzelas than this one hit wonder.
Kappa's "We Are One" The good: The music is better than the previous video. The bad: It's in Chinese, so it's hard for me to tell, but I think you need to download an application to play with it. Hello? This is 2010s, not prehistoric 2009! Where: http://2010.kappa.com.cn/
Sony Ericsson World Cup Game The good: You get to be a world famous soccer player while hitting soccer balls with your head in this game created by Total Immersion's partner CherryPicks. The bad: World famous soccer players are not necessarily handsome. Where: http://www.sonyericsson.com.hk/fifa-game/
The world cup in a shopping mall The good: Nice game, showing there are still some innovative things to do with a marker on a piece of paper. Made by another partner of TI - InterAct 3d. The bad: Couldn't they have the same application accessible through a webcam?
Junaio's virtual soccer field overlay The good: A brave attempt by Metaio to show game statistics for fans in the stadium in an unconventional way. The bad: You have to be in South Africa to see it, and no videos are available. I'm a bit skeptic. More info: http://augmentedblog.wordpress.com/2010/06/24/kick-it-like-augmented-reality/ where you can read about another application assisting you to find a good joint to see the next soccer match.
Zugara's AR game in a banner The good: Really cool creative, you need to "head in" corner kicks in this AD for AT&T. The bad: AT&T. And people looking at you from behind while you're jerking your head around. Where: http://www.espn.com
KickBall AR The good: Much better than AR Boomerang, this is the only mobile application on this list. The bad: Only available for Samsung's Bada operating system and the fact that Tom already wrote about it.
If I've missed anything (surely there's a Layar layer for the games, no?), please feel free to add a comment. So how AR is changing the world cup? Well it's not, but for my first post in nearly three weeks, I had to try a title inspired by the linkbait generator. Anyhow, the usual "Weekly Linkfest" will return next week and as usual be sure to follow me on Twitter.
This week's video is of a kid playing air AR guitar, a promotion to some Disney product, I think. On the bright side, it's the first time I see augmentation of the torso (and not the head). Via Development Memo For Ourselves
I'm usually not in the habit of posting press releases, but I imagine that some of our readers will find the next news byte from Metaio interesting:
Attention Developers: win $5,000!
With junaio’s open API, developers can create state of the art augmented reality applications. You don’t need any experience in programming for embedded systems. Challenge your imagination and contribute to junaio’s exciting world with AR Mashups, multiplayer games and scavenger hunts, interactive, indoor and outdoor exhibitions, tours with animated 3D characters or location independent gaming. All you need to do as a developer is to register for an API key and start challenging your creativity.
You can not only win $5,000 but we will also invite the winner to our metaio Technology Fair to visit with us and to attend the world-famous Oktoberfest in Munich.
I made it! (though I've cheated with that second bullet point, and left Total Immersion's AR Luke Skywalker out (oh, I've cheated again!). Anyway, here's a nice interview with Robert Scoble about Junaio and AR in general. Apparently Scoble doesn't think AR is disruptive but fancy it a lot.
This week's video is of Ogmento's Brian Selzer evangelistic talk at the Humanity+ conference "Reinventing Reality with AR" . Though most of his examples should be familiar to this blog's patrons, he is a really good talker, and I've enjoyed the whole 15 minutes of his presentation (via GigantiCo):
[Games Alfresco readers, go to Gigantico to see the clip if it doesn't work for you]
Metaio's Junaio is out. Since I still don't have an iPhone 3gs (damn you job-place, you've promised me one for the past six months!), I can't tell much more than what have already been said:
While reading this week's linkfest you may find some links are missing - don't worry, many ISMAR related links and videos will be posted later this week.
"There will be at least one terrorist attack that has used mobile augmented reality for planning, practice, and execution.", this is just one of many predicitons by Robert Rice for the augmented world of 2012.
Read Write Web theorize on why VCs aren't backing AR startups, and Robert Rice shares his experience. Well, according to ABI Research augmented reality will be a 350$ million market in 2014. That's actually a pretty small figure (especially for a technology that aims to change the world), so maybe VCs just don't see the next Youtube in it.
Of course, this coming week will see the appearance of the highly anticipated Junaio from Metaio. Metaio has realeased a new video for the occasion and we get to read Gene Becker's impressions.
It always looks like the guys at YDreams are having lots of fun. This time they are playing soccer. Without a real ball.
Campaigns: Esquire made Robert Downey Junior sit on a very big marker, SAP shows its line of products with an augmented rubik cube (warning! a very annoying narrator), there's a street fighter like augmented reality game to promote the G.I.Joe DVD (what's a summer blockbuster without some augmented love) and you can become an elephant in this British campaign to ban the use of wild animals from circuses.
Although Halloween was yesterday, and I've dedicated a whole post to Halloween related AR, here's another cute scarry example found by Bruce Sterling. Actually is part of a campaign to promote eco-friendly chargers and power managemant systems, and you can try it yourself here.
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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