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 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

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!

Here are a few AR news stories to make the wait seem shorter (btw - have a link to share? contact me on Twitter @augmented):

• 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."
• Sending text messages while driving is a risky behavior, is augmenting reality while driving doubly so?
• Much have changed, even more stayed the same - virtual reality and augmented reality in 1990, a lot of potential limited by available technology
• Cyborgs and the augmented reality they Inhabit - I must confess that although this discussion seems interesting it's too much philosophical for me
• What's better than a phone with a 3d display? A phone with a 3d display used to augment reality, a collaboration between LG and Wikitude
• If you are a Junaio user and live in Ireland, you can win a Mazda.

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:



Have a great week!

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

It's time again for the weekly linkfest, a collection of augmented reality news stories that I didn't find the time to blog about during the past week:

• Things start to get interesting as Vuzix announces partnership with Metaio. This only a few days after we learned that Vuzix will provide DARPA with their glasses.
• If you are still debating whether to go to Augmented Reality Event 2011, Tish Shute has a good writeup on what you can expect to see there (and a $100 coupon).
• Augmented reality sketch-a-race demo for iPad2 by Ogmento
• Brazilian police to use "Robocop" glasses to recognize criminals and terrorists in crowds? Sounds like a hoax, but this article, and the one on which it is based, were written after April fools.
• GoldRun raises one million dollars.
• Augmented reality from the perspective of a creative director is it a gold mine or black hole?

This week's video comes to us from Nokia Research, showing their indoor navigation solution. Coming from Nokia Research, one of the first bodies to look into mobile AR, this should be considered as no more than a teaser. It's very cool and alluring with its 30cm accuracy, and its "where I put my keys" functionality, but not likely to be adopted anytime soon. Five years from now, Apple/Google will probably come with inferior solution which will be hugely successful. You can read more about the technology on GSM Arena.



Have a great week!

Augmented Reality On iPad 2

Augmented Reality On iPad 2

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):

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

As always, here the augmented reality news stories and tidbits, I didn't have the time (or will) to cover this week:

• ISMAR11 call for papers is online, abstracts due May 11th
• The Guardian asks what is mobile AR for, and whether we should look for an augmented reality killer application.
• Georgia Tech's Argon, "the first augmented reality web browser" is now on the Appstore.
  
• Qualcomm announced their AR challenge (and $125,000 ) winner.
• Metaio and Ericsson are optimizing tracking capabilities in the Mobile World Congress.
  
• Route 66: A new twist on augmented reality navigation aid - you just need to follow the virtual car ahead of you.
• AC130 is an AR shooting game that uses dollar bills as markers. What was once an innovative idea, is quickly becoming a standard.

This week's video is a neat meshup between the insanely successful indie computer game Minecraft and augmented reality, by one Scott Kronick (or at least I think that is his name). Kronick, an artist by trade, came to the realization that it would be great "to hack away at and modify your city or school made of cubes". The result is "RealCraft":



Have a nice week!

Valentine's Weekly Linkfest

Valentine's Weekly Linkfest

You can't find a date using augmented reality yet (?), but you can sure do other things with it:

• You can control lights around your home with this very nice use of Qualcomm's AR SDK.
• See ultrasound imaging of your body, overlaid on your skin.
  
• Install a new ink cartridge in your printer, without printing any markers, using Junaio.
  
• Find a new job with kooaba's Paperboy.
• Or you can do nothing and wait for machine learning to change AR to the better.
  

This week's video is a must see. Being in German, I can't tell you much about it, but it seems to be a concept design for in car head up display done as a university assignment. It looks very realistic and compelling - I can't wait to have such a display in my car:



Have an excellent week!

Super Weekly Linkbowl

Super Weekly Linkbowl

links, who wants some links?

• Metaio & USA Today launched an AR Super Bowl application that puts you in the middle of the Cowboy's stadium.
• Virtual fishing with an augmented reel (via @yoav85)
• If fishing is too peaceful for you, the AR gun makes augmented reality shooting games more realistic than ever.
• Russian AR Door demo a neat science project - combining Total Immersion's D'Fusion, Vuzix glasses and multitouch screens.
  
• Is LiveStache the world first live video AR iPhone app to put a mustache on your face?
  
• Most QR code scans are now taking place in the US (as long as you don't consider Japan)

I found this week's video on Toby's weekend "linkfest". It's one more example how augmented reality can upgrade almost any old board game, this time making "battleships" more interactive. As Toby rightfully states, there's no need for two boards when AR is deployed, as the two players can be shown different views of the same board. Still, it's a cool demo:



Have a great week!

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!

New Yearly Linkfest

New Yearly Linkfest

As you may have guessed this passing week was very slow in augmented reality news (or any news for that matter). Nevertheless, I scoured the web and bring you this weekly linkfest.

• Last week I reported on the winter crop of augmented reality games coming from Qualcomm AR Game Studio. The videos of three more games were recently uploaded, so be sure to check them up.
• Layar and int13's ARDefender selected as apps of the year on SamsungApps.
  
• DOMO, Tonchidot's newest project, aspires to enable transparent society, where you could see everyone's thoughts and interests.
• Open question on Quora - What will be the most important developments in augmented reality in 2011? I tried giving my best answer, though you may disagree with me. (via @TishShute)
  
• On the same topic, Metaio give their own 2011 predictions. You can also find some AR predictions for the next decade on Joe Ludwig's blog.

What a better way to start the new year than playing a round of augmented golf? That's exactly what the students at Rochester Institute of Technology thought when they came up with this game that doesn't require an entire fairway.



have a happy new yeAR!

Post Christmas Linkfest

Post Christmas Linkfest

I hope you've all have been nice kids during the last year, because here's a bag of links for you:

• Congrats to Thomas for getting his first book, "The Digital Sea", published!
  
• AR over hyped? Most augmented reality companies not doing augmented reality? Yes, according to Forrester, but there's some hope for the future.
• You might have heard that there's a hidden AR mode in mobile Safari. I called BS on that, and I believe I was right - having access to the accelerometer doesn't constitute AR capabilities.
  
• Did Google reveal a top secret AR application coming in Android 3.0, in a conference in Jordan, of all places? (via the excellent, but French based augmented-reality.fr)
  
• A bit too late with this one, but you can use it next year - prove your kids that Santa exists using augmented reality. Any one wants a similar app featuring the tooth fairy?
• While I was away, Mobilizy (Wikitude) has appointed a new CEO.
  

I have frequently lashed out at gimmicky usage of augmented reality in ad campaigns. However, the next campaign by German agency brand.david powered by Junaio gets only praises from me. First, it's for a good cause - bringing the subject of domestic violence to light. It also seems to use AR very effectively:





happy new year!

Snowy Weekly Linkfest

Snowy Weekly Linkfest

Back. It seems that I escaped London on the very last minute before the airports closed down. Here's a rundown of augmented reality links for the last couple of weeks:

• PrimeSense, Willow Garage, and Side-Kick Games join hands to create to OpenNI an organization whose goal is to promote natural interaction. First step was releasing 'official' drivers for Kinect.
  
• DanKam, an AR application for the color blind, is simple and brilliant in the same time, and at least according to my twitter feed, it actually works.
• Here we go again. The Augmented Reality Summit to be held in London on June 16th is the first of 2011 crop of commercial AR events.
• Metaio have some cool augmented magic tricks to celebrate Christmas.
• Follow this link to see a video of bad acting and terrible music. Oh, and some clever eye tracking based augmented reality UI from Helsinki university of technology.
• A nice piece on Neatorama, which went QR crazy lately, on surprising mediums for QR codes, including a sand castle and a M&Ms.

The biggest news these days is Word Lens. I'm sure you have all seen it already, and I plan to write full post on it next week, but for the oft chance you haven't yet encountered it - it's augmented reality based translation app for the iPhone. Or in other words, magic:




Have a great week, winter/summer solstice and merry Christmas!

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!

Highlights from Metaio's insideAR

Highlights from Metaio's insideAR

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) :

• Peter Meier, Metaio's CTO on some future directions the company may pursuit (part 2 is even more relevant)
• Fabian Doil, a researcher from Volkswagen, on how AR is used (in some surprising ways) in Volkswagen.
  
  
  

• Intel's Horst Haussecker, director of interactions & experiences research on optimizing visual search algorithms.
• Selim Ben Himane, gave a talk on Metaio's research, which he's heading:
  
  
  

• It wasn't just a "Junaiofest". Layar got the center stage when Remco Vroom, Johanes La Poutre of TAB Worldmedia gave a talk on how they used Layar to create exciting AR games and applications.
• Ken Blakeslee of Web Mobility Ventures on why he finds AR exciting as a business.
  

Sadly, no videos of Metaio folks drinking excessive amounts of beer in the Oktoberfest, but I keep my hopes high for next year.

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

Lots of exciting news this week!

• This past week, Metaio held their first insideAR conference and thankfully have uploaded all the videos from the event within a few days. Some interesting stuff there, which I'll cover tomorrow.
• Speaking of Metaio, Tish Shute held another of her in depth interviews, this time with Metaio's CEO, Thomas Alt
• int13's ARDefender, which Ori described as the first fun AR game for the iPhone, is finally available on the appstore.
  
• Tonchidot lands $12 million in second round funding. Wow.
• Following this fund raising, the Wall Street Journal had a piece on what we can learn from Japan about the future of AR.
• I believe this is one of the most effective campaigns utilizing AR - protesting against the hunt of Siberian tigers.
• The virtual dressing room concept put into good use - augmented reality app lets women try on swimsuits virtually (via @ayaLAN).

As for this week's video, we have Sky Canvas, an iPhone application with a brilliant concept behind it, from Shiodome Innovation Studio, Japan. A part of their PaPaCo Design Project, Shiodome tried to create an application that can be played together by a father and his son. With Sky Canvas, the two can form clouds in the shape of animals by tapping and blowing air to the microphone. Unfortunately, the app is not available outside of Japan, so I can't really test it, but as you surely have understood by now, I dig the concept:



Have a great week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

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)
• If you are thinking about taking your AR girlfriend to a real hotel room, consider going to therapy first (unless, of course, you live in Japan).
• BabelFisk is designer Mads Hindhede's vision of speech-to-text glasses.
  
• Ever seen one of Aphex Twin's videos where all the characters have the same grinning face? Now his live audience gets the same treatment.
• Virtual public art comes to Philadelphia (via @TalkingDogAR)
• I'm still mad at the Parrot AR.Drone folks for not giving me a model to play with. For some reason they decided to give one to the a blogger at touchArcade.com which posted a review.
• Apparently Layar are big enough to have a fan site http://www.layarnews.com/

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:

Araproject - Diploma Project 2008 from bmatthes on Vimeo.

Have a beautiful week, happy Eid-ul-Fitr and Rosh Hashanah.

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

I hate August. It's too darn hot over here. Luckily there a few cool and refreshing augmented reality stories this week:

• Lester of Augmented Planet on why augmented reality glasses are 20 years away. I sadly have to agree. It's another reason why people should consider publicly-installed AR projectors has a viable option.
• Augmented Planet also bring us the story of one gigantic marker and the world's largest AR project.
  
• Damon Hernandez continues with his video interviews series, this time with the "AR magician", Marco Tempest (with some behind the scenes at some of his magics).
• In Indonesia, even a celery can be sexy with the aid of augmented reality (via @TalkingDogAR)
• Real-time OCR/translation of Chinese text through iPhone video camera from Pleco Software is coming soon.
• Change your eye color, look like you have been possessed by a deamon , all via augmented reality - Angel Eyes.
• There was a lot of buzz around Metaio's iPhone-augmented magazine (it's a first under some assumptions).
  

This week's video is of a year old, yet cool project by Karolina Sobecka with software development by Jim George. Sniff is a projected virtual dog that interacts with people passing it on the street. You can find lots more detail over Sobecka's site (where you can watch other fun projector based projects, like Chase). [via Augmentology]

Sniff from karolina sobecka on Vimeo.

Have a good week!

Weekly Linkfest - The Lady Gaga Edition

Weekly Linkfest - The Lady Gaga Edition

This linkfest has nothing to do with Lady Gaga, and everything to do with augmented reality news bites from the last week. I'm just checking if the mere inclusion of miss Gaga in the title will generate more hits.

• Christopher Mitchell hacked together a Vuzix VR920 HUD and eeePC to create a basic facial recognition AR device for his master thesis.
• Augmented Planet posted their monthly report on AR application for the iPhone.
• I'm terribly late on this, but apparently on ARE 2010, Georgia Tech previewed their open source and open standards Kamra Mobile AR Browser. Have to thank Chris Grayson for bringing it to my attention.
• Twenty five of Lonely Planet’s travel guides get a dose of augmented reality, powered by Wikitude.
• Samsung's Bada mobile OS seems to be the hip place for AR games development. This time it's our pals at int13 with their release of ARDefender game.
• Metaio is holding a one day long conference called insideAR. I usually don't promote such events, but they got me when they bundled it with Oktoberfest. Augmented reality and Beer, a match made in heaven?
  

This week's video is a promotion video for Sekai Camera. Tonchidot, the company behind this veteran AR browser recently got a $5M from Japan's telecom giant KDDI (though some claim that KDDI actually bought Tonchidot). And if that's not enough, Tonchidot announced the creation of social AR game. The future looks bright for those guys:


Have a great (and cool) week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

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.
  
• Augmented Planet offers some marketing tips for augmented reality developers.
• And while we are at it, 6 Tips for your augmented reality projects (via @bretgiles).
  
• A Playboy augmented reality application? Apparently there is one, in Argentina.
• BlackBerry funds Viewdle, a visual recognition company and marks augmented reality as a goal.
• Ever wanted your profile picture on facebook would look like an AR marker? there's an app for that.
• On the other hand, if you wanted a Godzilla t-shirt that puffs virtual smoke, there were a couple of those on last week's Comic-Con.
• And finally, on a personal note, the Parrot AR drone is now available for pre-order. Why personal note? Because they don't offer any price reduction for stingy bloggers.

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:



Have a lovely week!