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!

Augmented Reality, Meet Kinect

Augmented Reality, Meet Kinect

I know that envy is allegedly a deadly sin. But, common, what a man supposed to do when witnessing Oliver Kreylos amazing work with a hacked Kinect. If you were living under a rock for the last couple of days, Kreylos is the guy behind the 1 million views strong video, showing 3d video capture with Kinect:



Watching it, one can not avoid thinking about long we have to wait before someone creates an augmented reality application using Kinect. The answer - not that long, apparently Kreylos already made a tech demo:



If you are the lucky owner of Kinect (damn you!), you might want to try and compile this project on your own. Sources can be found here. Now that we have a proof of concept, what application or game would you want to see augmented that way?