Weekly Linkfest

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!

Weekly Linkfest

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".

Dobu Dobu from Zooproot on Vimeo.

Have a Dobu Dobu week!

Vision Based Layar is Coming

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

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 Plus

Weekly Linkfest Plus

I think that's one of the best linkfests in a while. Judge for yourself:

• A long and illustrated (by Youtube videos, of course) survey by The Next Web: Augmented reality: The past, present and future (via @yoav85)
• 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.
• Early bird tickets to Metaio's insideAR conference (still they are quite costly, I think :/)
• Artists corner:
• Helen Papagiannis hopes to treat phobias with a pop-up book with augmented reality extensions, full of creepy crawlies (powered by Junaio).
• Sander Veenhof once again checks the boundries of AR with 3D2D3D (powered by Layar). I could have tried to explain it, but would surely fail.
• Brian Wassom has an interesting interview with daqri's CEO, Brian Mullins on how to create a Youtube of AR content.

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?

Have an excellent week!

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

It's a link apocalypse!

• Many of the AR community went to the second annual Augmented Reality Event. Sadly, I wasn't able to be there, but luckily, Augmented Citizen share some thoughts and presentations from the event, Locative Media have some "pirated videos" of the keynotes and Layar uploaded videos of a couple of their presentations to Youtube. If you have a video or a blog post about the event - send me an email or give me a tweet.
  
• Sander Veenhof is a genius (there, I said it!) and Layar should be paying him money for choosing their platform if they don't already do so. This time he came up with a way to use augmented reality to create a world wide synchronized dancing routine. It's an augmented macarena!
  
• With Disney's mobile phone projector you can play games on walls and interact with real life objects.
  
• Tablets and democratization: Metaio & Layar pinpoint next steps for augmented reality (via @bruces).
  
• Sony SmartAR delivers high-speed markerless augmented reality and according to Engadget, it also blows minds.
• Scott Blake creates art using QR codes.
  

This week's video is of a simple augmented reality game, called Tapcloud with an interesting premise. By chasing virtual cloud (and looking a little bit foolish), the game forces you to get some exercise, and even counts the number of calories you burned once it's game over. The game is available for free on the app store, so you have nothing to lose (except, again, calories).

Have a tremendous week!

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

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.
• AR games in real life, a photoshop contest at Kotaku. AR remake of 'They Live' won first place.
• From now on Wikitude will come preloaded on millions of BlackBerry devices
• The augmented version of the lowly doorbell is a nice use of Junaio
• Guy has an AR marker tattoo done, going to regret it when AR goes completely marker less.

This week's video is just cute rendition of a possible augmented future, featuring Super Mario Bros villains in real life (via Neatorama):

Have a splendid week!

Weekly Belated Linkfest

Weekly Belated Linkfest

Sorry for not posting the weekly linkfest yesterday; Don't worry though, the links are still fresh:

• A preliminary schedule for the second Augmented Reality Event has been posted, lots of interesting sessions await you.
• Sander Veenhof created the first one-dimensional art piece using Layar, aptly named 1px (math geeks, calm down! a pixel is indeed not 1 dimensional, but as close as one can get). You can also see an interview with Veenhof about art in AR.
• Toby has a nice roundup of non-visual augmented reality projects and applications.
• If you have any programming in the last year, you surely know of StackOverflow.com. Now there's an attempt to create a similar Q&A site for augmented reality. If you think this idea has any merit then show your support.
• Marketing with Augmented Reality - an Infographic (via @comogard).
  
• Mavericks have teamed with Qualcomm to add augmented reality to this year’s playoff tickets.
• April fools: AdBlock Freedom - augmented reality eyewear that detects and removes ads from the world in realtime. Probably the guys at AdBlock never heard of Artvertiser.

I love videos done by students to show off their work. This week we are lucky to have Predator, a very impressive video (though I haven't tried it myself) tracking algorithm resulting from Zdenek Kalal's phd thesis at the University of Surrey, UK. You can try it yourself by downloading a compiled application to your pc, and read more about it here. Though desktop bound right now, Kalal claims that "implementation for mobile devices is feasible".



have a great week!

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Wow, this is my 400th post. Can't believe I kept on blogging for so long.

• Whats the ROI of AR, and other questions in Zugara's guide to augmented reality for marketers.
  
• According to Fast Company, augmented reality may be the killer app for iPad2 (via @Layar).
  
• Cool ad for Axe/Lynx body spray puts a scantily clad angel next to you in a London's train station.
• Augmented reality application helps to break the ice in parties, but what's wrong with the old name badges?
• Raimo van der Klein on the early history of Layar (as in 3 years ago!), and why context is the future of mobile applications.
  

This week's video is a fantastic demo of Seac02's Eligo SDK power to track 3d objects and overlay virtual layers on them. This gives the programmer the ability to "X-Ray" a model car:

Augmented reality Xray ARAY from Seac02 srl on Vimeo.

Have a good week!

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

This tradition cannot be stopped, here's another weekly linkfest:

• Pocket Lint posted many articles about AR celebrating "AR Week", and I must admit that I haven't read any one of those yet for a lack of time. But they do seem interesting though!
  
• Sony follows Nintendo's lead, and demos augmented reality on the next gen PSP. Is this evidence of AR becoming a must have feature for mobile games platforms?
• Stealth AR startup Bubbli to make "the virtual and the real become indistinguishable", and they are looking for workers. If only I was living in California ...
• Join the army they said, train using augmented reality they said.
  
• Layar is now available on Symbian, joining old rival Wikitude.
• BTW, congrats to Layar for being one of MIT's Technology Review 50 most innovative companie, next to giants like Facebook, Apple and Google. Also there - PrimeSense of Kinect's fame.

This week's video comes from Robert Scoble's tour in SRI International, showing a handbag buying application, using Kinect to make it seem like a real handbag is actually dangling from the lady's arm. See more videos, including one aboud head mounted display based AR gaming, in this post, titled "A Look At How SRI Is Augmenting The Human Condition":



Have a great week!

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

You've been waiting for this the whole week - here's the weekly linkfest:

• Augmented Planet has a round up of all the coming AR events this year.
• Interesting piece on New Scientist - Augmented reality iPhone helps police track suspects.
• Chris Grayson published a very good presentation on face tracking and face recognition. Pity there's no video recording of him presenting it.
• Don't tell the secret services, but artists used Layar to virtually infiltrate the White House and the Pentagon.
  
• Blair MacIntyre discusses Georgia Tech's Argon, "the Augmented Reality Web Browser".
• Augmented reality used as a gravitational wave interferometer tool. I don't have a clue what that means, but it looks like a virtual pendulum.

Only a few weeks ago, we reported on Virtual Master Reel, an augmented reality game whose aim was catching virtual fish with an augmented fishing reel. Seems that augmented reality fishing games are trending right now, because Nintendo got one for its Nintendo 3ds platform. Video doesn't do it justice, because the whole 3d display thingy is lost, but it still looks good. You can read more about the planned AR games for 3ds on Wired.



have a fantastic week!

Augmented Reality U.S./Iraq War Memorial

Augmented Reality U.S./Iraq War Memorial

Here is another example of art activism where augmented reality is used to convey a message. Building upon Layar, artists Mark Skwarek and John Craig Freemand created was is probably the first virtual war memorial, commemorating each of the 52,036 deaths, both Iraqis and Allies, in the last gulf war.



The artists translated the place of death in Iraq to a location in the US and placed there a virtual casket, either "American" or "Middle eastern" in design. The result is disturbing:



More info on the project's blog, via Development Memo for Ourselves.

Weekly Revolutionary Linkfest

Weekly Revolutionary Linkfest

A bit of a busy week, here are just some of the augmented reality stories that happened in the past seven days:

• Where can you find Metaio's Peter Meier and Layar's Maarten Lens-FitzGerald on the same panel? At the DLD conference. Video well worth worth watching if only for seeing Lens-FitzGerald's face when Meier declares Junaio as the most advanced AR mobile application.
• Why so many AR apps fail in the real world (via @genebecker). I think that statistically speaking, AR apps are no worse than "normal" apps.
  
• The AR art manifesto, I'm not smart enough to get it. (via @genebecker)
• AR comes to the Classroom: a game-changer for children learning to read (via @jack_benoff)
• Pantomation is the late 70's edition of Kinect and augmented reality. Makes me wonder what the people of 2040 will think about our current technology (via @String)
• Early signs of dystopia: Going to the outdoors and using your iphone to see augmented "live" butterflies

Sometimes, you don't need enticing narrative to create a touching AR application. "Jack in the box" by the Spanish company Sensaa is an evidence to that. Just open a box, and an augmented surprise will pop out of it. Simple, but wonderful:



Have a great week!

Pac-Man Augmented Evolution

Pac-Man Augmented Evolution

1980, the Japanese Namco corporation develops Pac-Man, making arcade history




2004, researchers from National University of Singapore's Mixed Reality Lab, led by Adrian Cheok, create Human Pacman, a first person version of the classic game, that lets you play the classic game with an augmented reality twist. This twist also means that you have to carry a laptop on your back and wear a HMD on your head.







2011, now you can play a first person version of Pac-Man by just loading Layar on your iPhone, developed by GamePS

ARTags - The Sign of Apps to Come

ARTags - The Sign of Apps to Come

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.

More information here.

Biggâr - Bigger is Better?

Biggâr - Bigger is Better?

We have covered quite a few art projects using augmented reality as their canvas, but nothing of the scale of Biggâr. Created by Sander Veenhof, can best be described as a virtual sculpture composed of more than 7 billion blocks encompassing the whole world.



Using Layar, you can not only view Biggâr but also interact with its blocks. A single tap on your phone is all it takes to change the color of all 7 billion blocks (sadly only three colors are available to choose from). I failed to experience a live color change, but it should be quite a trip.
More info here.

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

I'm going to London next week (where I'll might be tempted to get a Kinect), so this is probably the last linkfest till mid-December. I'll try to keep my twitter account updated with interesting links while I'm away. Anyway, here's this week's linkfest:

• Where is the money in augmented reality? I've tried my best to answer this question on Quora, but you may have other ideas.
  
• Volkswagen Personnel Trained in Augmented Reality, the marker adorned Beetle never looked better (via @kurakura).
• Chris Grayson shares is overview of the current state of Kinect open source development.
• The guys at Metaio are also playing with Kinect.
  
• Going commando: take a shot at winning $10,000 by creating an AR video with Lindsay Lohan.

I never met the guys from Layar in person, but I think I would really enjoy a conversation with any one of the founders. I think the secret of their success is not luck or being first to market (which they weren't), but being both highly intelligent, yet very nice folks. Here's a short interview with Claire Boonstra on Layar's past and future. Winning quote - Augmented reality is the next mass medium, the first unboxed medium:

TEDxAmsterdam: Thought Leaders Series - Claire Boonstra from Klaas Kleiterp on Vimeo.

Have a great week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

No doubt about it, this week was under the sign of Kinect. Dozens of amateur programers used the OpenKinect drivers to create wonderful, many times AR related, demos. These and more in this week's linkfest:

• Kinect hacking is nice, but the biggest news of the week is coming from Layar which raised another $14M. Follow the link to read a letter from Layar's CEO Raimo van der Klein, on what it means and what's next for Layar.
• Ebay's iPhone app will let users try on virtual sunglasses (via Development memo for ourselves)
• Google testing Goggles enhanced advertisements. can't say I'm surprised
• A look Inside the $2000 Vuzix's Wrap920AR glasses
• Real time lightsaber tracking and rendering on the Kinect. And here's another video showing object recognition with Kinect.
  
• ARBasketball - shoot some hoops in the office without wasting paper (except for printing the marker)
• Last week we had a QR code in cross-stitch. This week, it's a QR coded pancake (because you need to quickly identify those).
• To infinity and beyond! Buzz Lightyear augmented reality game.

And here's yet another video showing the power of Kinect. Created by Theo Watson in a single day, this is a very impressive skeleton tracker. How long will we have to wait till someone finds a way to combile AR glasses with Kinect?

Interactive Puppet Prototype with Xbox Kinect from Theo Watson on Vimeo.

Have a great week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

Here are some of the stories you might have missed this passing week from around the AR-sphere:

• Total Immersion uploaded videos of the two keynotes given in their AR Immersion conference. I find the Adobe one is quite boring, but TI's CEO, Bruno Uzzan gives a very good talk on the past, present and future of AR.
  
• Did Layar hit the one million users mark, and if so, why was the Layar's original blog post removed?
• Now that Kinect was reverse engineered, and there's an open source driver for it, how long till someone creates an AR application for it?
  
• AirChalk, University of Illinois’ augmented reality drawing app wins Facebook’s Camp Hackathon competition.
• There's no gift more romantic that a QR code in cross-stitch.
  

This week's video is short and sweet, showing how a guitar lesson can be augmented. We have seen implementations of similar ideas before, but as far as I recall, it's the first with marker-less tracking of the guitar itself. Of course, it's nothing but a demo, and I'll be surprised if it tracks any guitar but the one in the video. It's cool, nonetheless:



Have an excellent week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

After a short break, here's another weekly linkfest:

• "AR is not going to work well for most things but it’s going to be very good for certain uses. Right now I’m very keen at trying to understand what those things might be". Tish Shute interviews Chris Arkenberg.
• Zugara: Defining Virtual Property Rights In an Augmented World.
• Layar is one of TechCrunch's top 30 applications for Android. Which is not surprising, since after all you can use it in order to see wild safari animals around the Netherlands.
• One of my favorite AR projects, the Artvertiser, is featured New Scientist, and here's a video interview with its creators.
• Dennō Coil to be adapted to a multiplayer online game? (via @kurakura)
• Small Screen / Big Story, another look at the possible future of augmented reality.

Just in time for Halloween, the French game company Momorprods released a new iPhone game called "Ghost Blasters", which puts you in the role of a ghost buster blaster. Writes Jerome Moreau:

I realize we've done nothing truly original so far. We have plenty of ideas for updates tough, but we tried to get a basic version out of the door in time for Halloween. This was really our first try at making an iPhone game and as you'll see in the credits there's definitely not too many of us on the team :p

In future updates, we plan to improve the monsters and weapons, etc., but more importantly add geolocation and social network-oriented multiplayer.

The game is free and available here, so why won't you give it a chance?



Have a treat of a week!