Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

Slow week, or am I at fault for not paying attention to the augmentosphere?

• Qualcomm releases an iOS version of their AR SDK. I guess now I'm left out of excuses for not developing any AR app on my own.
• Face detection is coming in iOS5, but will be probably used only to make "funny" pictures.
• 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 on billboards: dance with virtual dancers in Kuala Lumpur.
  
• 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.

Augmented Reality Advertising Takeover in Times Square from Will Sherman on Vimeo.

Have a great week!

Weekly Consumer Linkfest Show

Weekly Consumer Linkfest Show

We have got plenty of augmented reality links this week, so enjoy the show:

• From CES:
• Recon's ski goggles with built in display, gps and other sensors, and as this video shows, you can even add a camera to it. Imagine what a talented hacker can do with this setup.
• Vuzix presented Raptyr, the first see through AR glasses poised for consumers (via @joeludwig)
• Tom's annual "augmented reality year in review" is once again the best summary of 2010 from the AR perspective. However, if you just can't get enough, here's Synthetic-Toys.com summary.
• While Nokia is trying to predict the future, and one of their trends for 2010 is AR and visual search. And the best way to predict the future, is making it, and for Nokia this means letting Point&Find evolve. (thanks @genebecker and @anthonyashbrook)
• The Second International AR Standards meeting is coming to Barcelona in mid February.
• Augmented reality in real 3d coming to Nintendo 3ds
  
• AR Monopoly. Not Layar, the board game.

Here's yet another amazing AR project utilizing the power of Kinect's sensor. Tobias Blum and Prof. Nassir Navab of TU Munich used a Kinect to overlay CT data on a person in real time, transforming a big screen into a magic mirror. It's also a good party trick for Halloween. More info here.



Have an excellent week!

Augmented Reality Farmville

Augmented Reality Farmville

Addicted to Farmville? Have a green thumb but no garden? Envy real farmers but got allergies?
The guys from TU Munich have the perfect solution for you:



Augmented Farmville could be one heck of a layer for Layar/Junaio/Wikitude once better positioning is available. Think of the gold rush to get a virtual plot in major cities, imagine Times Square as a flower bed! Using real meteorological data to those virtual farms would add another interesting and educational twist. It may be the most stupid idea I have ever featured in this blog, but then again, nobody would guess that a farm simulator will be one of the most successful games in 2010.

Freaky Friday - Cadavers and Skelator

Freaky Friday - Cadavers and Skelator

The following video comes as a comment for my previous post "X-Ray Vision via Augmented Reality", which dealt with using image processing techniques to make virtual projects look better situated within our reality (as opposed to floating-around). Denis Kalkofen wrote-in about the following project by TU Munich presented in ISMAR 2007 (watch out, first minute features the back of a cadaver, but the second part features a nice, lively, girl):



The more realistic integration of virtual objects is carried by blending them with the skin of the patient. The opacity of the skin is determined by several parameters, one of them is its local curvature (which makes the nose stand out). The registration of the scene is another feat of engineering, with three cameras (one of them infrared) on the head mounted device, and 6 more hanging from the room's ceiling. It's a far cry from what available for mobile-AR developers, but it shows that the industry has much to aspire to.

More details, here.