Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

Before the linkfest, let me share some exciting news. Starting from tomorrow, and throughout the week, I'll be posting augmented reality predictions for 2010 from top AR luminaries. But wait, there's more - I'm hoping to harness wisdom of the very smart crowds reading this blog, by putting on a survey were you can vote for your favorite predictions. Hope to see you tomorrow!

And now, as usual, the weekly linkfest:

• The first AR DevCamp was held yesterday. Thomas Wrobel (can I say our very own Thomas Wrobel?) had an FAQ prepared for the occasion, about the AR wave initiative.
  
• On the mobile browsers front - Layar 3.0 is out (also see AugmentedPlanet's review). I should have really dedicated a post for it. In a nutshell, this latest version, and the presented use-cases are really making Layar much more than just a "browser". You can create augmented tours, games, and city scapes which is a huge step over just showing the "closest" x.
• Augment Pro review of Presselite's Twitter-360, a browser like app that shows you nearby tweets from your friends
• And AcrossAir is behind "Le Bar Guide" an application created for beer label Stella Artois that lets you find closest bars (serving that beer).
• Sarnoff presents an augmented reality training system for the US military with virtual baddies. I really want to see a video of that.
• Augmented reality via Silverlight (Microsoft response to Adobe's Flash).
• Laboratory4 is offering the joys of a fashion show right in your own home.
• Pandemica is another fast paced pseudo AR shooting game for the iPhone.
  

Weekly quote comes from OneZeroThrice's piece "Who Is, and Who Isn't Augmented Reality"(yeah, I gave you the punchline, but you should read the whole article)

if only we, who know the difference between good and crap AR, can be more vocal - if we can start saying what we mean and not be afraid of pissing off the people who make this garbage ... maybe we'll actually save this industry from what happened to Virtual Reality.

And the weekly video is another "augmented" magic trick from Marco Tempest (see the first one here) (via The Future Digital Life):



Have a nice week, and don't forget to come back tomorrow for a peak at 2010.

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

Let's try to make this week's linkfest as concise as possible:

• Tish Shute interviews Bruno Uzzan, CEO of Total Immersion for UgoTrade.
• Blair Mcintyre: "Has AR taken off? Is it finally here?", check out the quote below.
  
• Augmented reality tested on board the international space station, to help astronauts in maintenance tasks.
• Another pseudo-AR game whose goal is to catch ethereal creatures - Fairy Trails.
• Intel looks into augmented reality devices.
• Total Immersion (those from the first bullet) created a bumping-cars game for Six Flags.
• You know that AR is really hot when (French) politicians start to use it in their press conferences (powered again by Total Immersion).
  

AR Browsers:

• Presselite's application is now named Bionic Eye.
• AcrossAir's Nearest Wiki overlays reality with relevant Wikipedia articles (video).
  
• The NorwegianYellow Pages lets you find a plumber via augmented reality.
  
• Insqribe offers a mobile AR platform for sale
• And RobotVision was featured on TechCrunch.
  

Ad campaigns of the week:

• Healthy Choice
• MTS (a mobile operator in Russia) (video)
• Malwee Brazil uses Augmented Reality to sell clothes, I think (video)
  
• Michael Jackson Opus book comes with augmented reality, I have so many nasty jokes to tell, but I'll spare you (via Augmented Planet)
  

This week's quote comes from Blair's post I've mentioned above (and yes, I took it out of context, because I'm a blogger!):

Now that the time is here, now that the promised AR apps can be published in the iTunes store, will they be able to live up to their claims, or will they (and their claims) fade away? I suspect things will die down for a little while. At least, I hope things die down for a while

And this week's video comes from YDreams, and you have probably seen it before. It's called Flyar, and it's an interactive screen saver that shows you Twitter updates with birds that respond to your hand-gestures, a la EyeToy. Yeah, the video makes it clearer:

Flyar: Augmented Reality Twitter Visualization App from YDreams on Vimeo.

Have a nice week!

Augmented Times in Paris

Augmented Times in Paris

Just a short tweet, to show you I'm still alive (actually, it was a tweet a few hours ago). Unfortunately, I'm not in Paris, but working hard at the moment. However, this next video presents an iPhone app that augments Paris (and looks suspiciously like acrossair applications).



It's called Métro Paris, and the augmented reality is actually a new feature for an old application (which apparently is the top non-free application on the French iTunes). More details, here.