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

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!

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.

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

First, and foremost, I owe an apology to Total Immersion which I criticized for having an invitation only event (AR-Immersion). They have kindly reminded me that their event is free of charge, unlike other similar events. Anyway, you can ask for an invitation here.

Now that this is behind us, here are other things that happened in the AR-sphere:

• Congrats to Mobilizy, makers of Wikitude for taking their first funding round.
• Augmented reality almost at the peak of inflated expectations, according to Gartner.
• And if AR is almost at the peak, is it ready for the trough of disillusionment? Chris Arkenberg covers offers some survival tactics for the fledgling industry.
  
• More advice come from O'Reilly Radar: "how augmented reality apps can catch on". Skip the video, but do read the interesting comments.
• Pope Benedict goes against augmented reality, "risk of indifference towards real life" (via @sergecell)

This week's video proves that augmented reality can be annoying at times, like a virtual fly you can shake off. Created by Michele Cirulli, this was apparently a video installation at the Live Performers Meeting this year.



Have an excellent 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

I'm back! (but not for long, following the augmented reality event I'll be mostly offline for three weeks). Speaking of augmented reality events, this week's linkfest is full of talks from other events that took place recently:

• Total Immersion's presentation on the augmented reality business event in Germany. You can skip the first part of TI's COO Eric Gehl talk (he's mostly demoing TI products), but on the second part he talks about making money of AR.
• Gene Becker's slides from the Web2Expo conference, where he analyzes Roku's Reward as a good example of augmented reality experience.
• Tish Shute on whether Nokia's N8 is the perfect AR device. Nokia should pay me for this link text.
  
• Toby reports from RTT Excite conference.
• Wikitude has a world cup competition (that's the world cup in soccer) where you could win one of ten LG smartphones.
  
• Zugara explains why augmented reality may have a Jan Brady's complex. They also gave a talk about the potential of AR to GSD&M Ideacity (an advertisement agency). Here are the slides.

This week's video demonstrates cooking with AR, a video showcasing some of Yoo Kyoung Noh's concepts presented in her Object 2.0 project - a concept proposal for the system of the near future, where the Internet is integrated into physical objects and spaces. Via Beyond The Beyond:

networked smart objects from Yoo Kyoung Noh on Vimeo.

Have a great week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

Today, I'm limiting myself to six bullet points or less, let's see how it goes:

• Augmented Planet have a short tutorial on how to build an AR application in one hour using the Wikitude API.
• Metaio had a grate week, launching a treasure hunt game at SXSW, entering the "nearest x" market, and demoing this museum guide (plus, I have a crush on Noora).
• Toby claims that in order to get a real haptic feedback, you need real objects.
• StickyBits is yet another company that tries to barcode the world. Maybe they'll have more success than Microsoft.
• An interesting 3d projected AR demo (via @chrisgrayson).
• Should we design augmented reality apps for sloths? I don't know, and I can't say I fully understood this Ignite talk (via Development Memo for Ourselves)

I made it! (though I've cheated with that second bullet point, and left Total Immersion's AR Luke Skywalker out (oh, I've cheated again!). Anyway, here's a nice interview with Robert Scoble about Junaio and AR in general. Apparently Scoble doesn't think AR is disruptive but fancy it a lot.



Have a great week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

Quite a busy week, and unfortunately I was knocked out by the cold to write about all that was happening in real time. Luckily, the weekly linkfest is here as a compensation of sorts.

• Nokia Research Center Hollywood experiment with augmented story telling in the Westwood Experience.
• Porter Novelli has uploaded many interviews and lectures held at the Web 2.0 Expo on November to Youtube. Here's Ori Inbar's famous presentation (now narrated by the man himself), look at the related videos for other interesting finds. (thanks goes to Augmented Pro).
• Wikitude 4 is out.
  
• Is AR leading the way to the Matrix?
  
• Nike's True City is an iPhone app that combines local recommendations,QR codes and augmented reality (oh, and some shoe ads)
• A virtual version of Shaquille O’Neal augments power-drinks.
  

Remember the fake iPhone app Nude It (yes, there's a real app by this name, but it doesn't have the same "capabilities")? Well, forget about it. This fake app, named iNaked, is far better:



As a matter of fact, I have no clue how it was done. It seems to me that making this fake demo took more time than it took making some of the real AR applications out there. (via Gizmodo)

Anyway, have a great week!

Merry Weekly Linkfest

Merry Weekly Linkfest

Two important events are coming this week -

1. The conclusion of our little project, collecting augmented reality predictions for the new year.
2. Christmas

Although the former event is much more important, for some strange reason, I was swamped this week with links relating to the latter. A short list of holiday related AR application that caught my eye since my last post "it's the season to be augmented":

• Rosetta wants you to catch virtual snow flakes with your (real) tongue. Augmented planet reviewed that application.
• Layar lets you place a virtual Santa wherever you want.
• Metaio has a skiing Santa game.
• Blair MacIntyre's newly formed company Aura Interactive released Santa Vision, an iPhone app that lets you create Christmas scenes via AR.
  
• Singing card from Kidovate
• And one from Epson Japan
  
• Damashek Consulting, True Digital, Chameleon Net, Rancon, GriDD, Der Punkt, re-lounge, The Gary Group and Pancentric Digital had the original idea of sending their clients augmented reality holiday cards (AR is the new "Social Networks")

Whoof!
Oh right, there were other news this week. Augmented Planet published their results for the first AR people-choice awards. Wikitude won the browsers category, but which participitant won the Chumby? Layar had to withdraw Layar 3.0 from the appstore. Thomas Carpenter has a listing of the worst AR uses this year. A good use is to encourage people to donate blood, like they do in Japan. Total Immersion created Avatar related AR apps for McDonalds and Coke. Wallpaper magazine fancies an AR edition. And another week, another car gets an AR campaign (though it's technically from June).

The weekly video shows Total Immersion's implementation of a haunted house in Japan. Thomas wrote a full post about it, while I just tweeted that it looks really scarry:



Have a great week and merry augmented Christmas, if that concerns you!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

Yes, the moment you were all waiting for, it's time for another weekly linkfest -

Google Goggles Galore:

• Google Goggles review at Augmented Planet. Nice overview, and a good video showing some of Goggles capabilities.
• Google Goggles is the real thing, or so claims Blake Callens of Zugara. Nice video showing it identifying a dart board.
  
• The Enkin guys announce that they were acquired by Google and hint about their involvement in Goggles. (I'm just a bit skeptic).

And in other mobile browsers news:

• Wikitude teams up with Lonely Planet to offer augmented city guides. Currently only 10 American cities are included, but more are to come.
• Wikitude is also now available for Symbian.
  
• Junaio opens up its API for developers.
• And Tonchidot, makers of the Sekai Camera, raised a whopping four million dollars.
  

And finally:

• AR Dev Camp New York Recap at 'sproke.
• Scout a portable pedestrian navigation device - a conceptual AR device.
• Zugara shares some stats about augmented reality, cannonballz and the popularity of webcams.
• And Mazda teamed up with Total Immersion to create augmented reality kiosks at the LA Auto Show for Mazda 2. What a bright idea!

This week's video is of Ogmento's Brian Selzer evangelistic talk at the Humanity+ conference "Reinventing Reality with AR" . Though most of his examples should be familiar to this blog's patrons, he is a really good talker, and I've enjoyed the whole 15 minutes of his presentation (via GigantiCo):



[Games Alfresco readers, go to Gigantico to see the clip if it doesn't work for you]

Have a nice week!

Three Comments on Wikitude's Augmented World Trade Center

Three Comments on Wikitude's Augmented World Trade Center

So, Mobilizy just released a new update for Wikitude, one that allows you to point your phone at ground zero and see a 3d virtual version of the Twin Towers on the phone's screen.

Wikitude Augmented Reality: WTC - Its not there but its there from Wikitude on Vimeo.

• First we should congratulate Mobilizy for intergrating 3d objects into Wikitude. That's only two weeks after Layar made a similar move. If I understand correctly, Wikitude doesn't let folks upload their own 3d models yet, but that's surely not that difficult.
• We should also congratulate Mobilizy for a smart marketing move. Yes, it's very respectful, and I actually think that there should be such a virtual memorial. However, one cannot deny that such videos as the above create buzz, something that Wikitude's competitors usually excel at. I can only imagine the impact of such application if they had released it last month, for 9/11.
• I'm fascianted by how the AR illusion is completly destroyed at around 00:18, when the buildings look very small just because there's a tree in the background. That's not Wikitude's fault, but it just shows us how much there's still to be done to make AR look good.
  

More details at TechCrunch.

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

As usual, here's a bunch of links to augmented reality related news bits that have accumulated in my inbox during the week:

• There's no end to the augmented reality browsers phenomenon. Cyclopedia is yet another browser that is based on Wikipedia, Bradesco is helping you find your way around Brazil, and AugmentThis! lets you upload kml files and share them with others.
• Peak.ar on the other hand is a specialized browser from Salzburg Research that only lets you see the names of mountain tops around the world.
• While Wikitude is finally available for the iPhone (but you wouldn't know that if you had visited www.wikitude.org as to the writing of this post).
  
• So, with so many AR browser available, how are they all doing, buisness wise? Gene Becker collected some appstore statistics, that shows that AcrossAir's applications are leading in terms of downloads among the non-free applications available on the American appstore.
• Joe Lamantia on why creating AR content should be accessible to everyone, and how to make it so.
• What's that augmented reality that I mention so much? I guess most of this blog's patrons already know, but here's Scientific American explantion, though I think YDreams' post is far better.
• Campaigns of the week: One for a game named Operation Flashpoint, the other for Fox's Dollhouse (which looks extra sleazy).

This week's video is a lovely tour de force from Oxford's Active Vision Labratory's Robert Castle. Although Ori posted a sneak peak to ISMAR 09, he somehow missed this video. It shows an extension to the PTAMM system that allows "multiple objects to be recognized and localized within multiple maps."



Have a nice week!

Layar, Wikitude have News for You

Layar, Wikitude have News for You

Can I be an augmented reality blogger and have a full time (not AR related) job at the same time? Apparently not. I'm a lousy blogger, and I can only hope I do better at work.
So here's what happened today, in short tweet form:

• Mobilizy Proposes Augmented Reality Mark-up Language to The AR Consortium, see the specifications here.
  
• Layar Reality Browser adds 3D to its Platform, should Gamaray be affraid?

And here's Noah Zerkin's point of view on the news.

Wikitude Drive!

Wikitude Drive!

Just this Monday I was criticizing Mobilizy for having a very low-key release of their new Wikitude version. My main point was that a press release doesn't cut it these day, and augmented reality, being visually oriented, should be demonstrated using a video clip.
Come Friday, and Wikitude produces a new rabbit out of its head. Wikitude Drive is a natural extension to "AR browser" applications, providing on screen directions and augmented arrows you could follow to arrive to your destination. And this time, you don't have to understand my cumbersome description, since the press release was "augmented" with a Youtube clip:



I guess that it's not that useful when driving, but when it comes to walking directions, that's an application I would love to have at hand.
More details, here.

Dear Mobilizy, You Are Doing It All Wrong

Dear Mobilizy, You Are Doing It All Wrong

Dear Mobilizy,
Look, I'm not a PR person. I'm just an engineer like you guys; But let's be honest, that's not how you should launch a new version of Wikitude.
A press release is not a bad thing, but it pales in comparison to what Layar did just last week. I don't expect you to hold a conference, and invite Bruce Sterling to give a keynote, but there are some simple things you can do to let the world know that you are around.

• First and foremost, augmented reality is about seeing the world in a new way, yet a press release doesn't give us any visual stimuli. I know you know how to use Youtube, so go ahead, don't be shy.
  
• How come there's nothing about the new version on the front page of Wikitude.org, while there's only a small message about it on Mobilizy.com's front page (and should Wikitude.me return an error message)? You've got news, then let the world know!
• As a matter of fact, if it wasn't for Games Alfresco, I wouldn't have known about this new release. And I'm subscribed to your RSS feed (and to many other AR related RSS feeds).
  
• Oh, and there are some eager bloggers who would gladly spread the word for you, but at least this one didn't get the press release from you.

Don't think this post is just a result of some disgruntled blogger blowing off steam. You have a great product, it's a shame it doesn't get the appreciation it deserves.

Two More AR Browsers to Join the Party

Two More AR Browsers to Join the Party

Are you a Wikitude or Layar supporter? Maybe Sekai Camera fan? The battle for supremacy at the augmented reality browsers market is getting more complicated by the minute, with two new contenders joining the fight.
First, acrossair which brought us the Tube Finder, is now showing off a very slick "general purpose" AR browser for the iPhone 3GS:



Next, GraffitiGeo, a fresh new startup that wants to create a Digg like service for real places is working on an AR version of their application, also for the iPhone:



(more details about GraffitiGeo here).

So, now we are at five AR browsers. Anyone wants to bet how many browsers there will be by this time next year? (my guess - only three serious contenders, and one of them will be owned by Google).

Mobilizy Responds

Mobilizy Responds

I have been warmongering last week, with a couple of posts that mainly target Mobilizy of Wikitude fame ("Battle of the AR Browsers" and "Updates from the Front Line"). Mark A.M. Kramer of Mobilizy left the following response to my last post:

Dear Rouli,

Thank you for the round-up of what has happened in the AR world this week. A lot has happened as you are well aware.

First of all, we at Mobilizy do not see ourselves in an AR war. We are just tired of all the attention given to SPRXMobile and Layar when we are well aware that most users of Layar are only in the Netherlands and the whole world is giving its attention to Layar as if it was the first AR application/browser in the world. WIkitude is global and we have over 130,000+ users around the world.

Also, we have worked with SPRXMobile in the past and they are well aware of the outcomes of that working relationship. We are coders, developers, AR techies. WE love crafting software that is useful and makes people happy. What we do not do well is marketing, and that is one of the many strengths of SPRXMobile and Layar. In reality, we would make an amazing strategic alliance together with our combined strengths.

With regards to Acrossair: We have respect for their new application even if we did say we thought the demonstration was a mock-up. It still is hard to tell really. We do know that the camera api is not officially open for development on the iPhone from other applications (we are developing onthe iPhone too!) This means that Acrossair is using a hack to accomplish what they have done. Hopefully Apple will change its mind and open the api up for develoment.

This is what we wrote about Acrossair:
@Kjeld @oheckmann The people at acrossair made a wonderful MOCK- Video: http://bit.ly/Vd37Y you can tell it is fake if you look closely.

This is a mock-up of our iPhone prototyping. We have the compass and GPS functioning, no camera API yet! http://twitpic.com/9o7or

We are excited that the field of mobile AR is taking off! We are happy to work with anyone and everyone to advance this nascent field.

Cheers,

Mark of Mobilizy / WIkitude

Updates from the Frontline

Updates from the Frontline

Continuing my coverage of the augmented reality browser wars, here are the latest news (well, some of them are a few days old, excuse me for procrastinating a bit):

AcrossAir is not satisfied with letting you find the closest subway station in London (where it's called The Tube), it also has its sights on the NY subway system:



If you remember correctly, Mobilizy, makers of Wikitude, claimed AcrossAir's application demo is nothing but a mock-up. Seems real to me.
Anyway, Mobilizy is working hard to remind people that Wikitude augmented the world way before SPRXMobile's Layar. Moreover, one of their tweets suggests that Layar was based on Wikitude's technology. Indeed, SPRXMobile did cooperate with Mobilizy once, when creating their ATM finder, but it doesn't prove that Layar is Wikitude in disguise.
Mobilizy also released this video demoing their Wikitude API, and did not miss the opportunity to include some sarcastic remark towards its end:



And in the Eastern front, TechCrunch reports on the almost final version of Tonchidot's Sekai Camera. Compared this video -



With what we have been promised a year ago:



Well, at least they still have something to aspire to.

Battle of the AR Browsers

Battle of the AR Browsers

See update at the end of this post (if only I've waited ten more minutes!)

Three weeks after its launch, SPRXMobile's Layar partially opens up its layer creation API to developers. It's not freely available online (bad decision?), however, interested developers can register here, and may be among the lucky 50 to get access keys to the API. The press release is here.
Meanwhile, Mobilizy (creator of Wikitude) is not keeping silent. They congratulated SPRXMobile on their twitter account, and placed a comment on Layar's press release:

On behalf of Mobilizy GmbH the developers of the original Wikitude AR Travel Guide we would like to congratulate SPRX Mobile in their efforts to help shape the Mobile augmented reality landscape.

Good Job!

Mobilizy also put this picture depicting Wikitude on the iPhone 3GS, and released the following advertisement video



and commented about AcrossAir's Tube Locator application, saying "you can tell it is fake if you look closely".

All this while both SPRXMobile and Mobilizy are founding members in the new AR Consortium. So, am I making a lot of noise out of nothing? Probably, after all I'm a blogger!

Update: Mobilizy just announced that they will let user add their own tags to the world via Wikitude.me and that they open up their API in a closed beta. And thus begins the battle to control the mobile AR world!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

This week on the linkfest, it's trains, snails and mobile phones:

• Mobilizy released a new Wikitude version. I will use this opportunity to update my earlier post on IBM Wimbledon Seer application. Apparently, it was a joint work with Mobilizy and Ogilvy.
  
• ReadWriteWeb: "Augmented Reality: Here's Our Wishlist of Apps, What's On Yours?", scans through future and current uses of AR, and is one more sign that AR is becoming mainstream.
  
• Total Immersion creates an augmented reality application for Nike, though I can't find it over here.
• And Total Immersion is also behind this AR web/kiosks application for France's SNCF train system (via Developement memo for ourselves).
• What AR devs want from smartphones? A survey at the Future Digital Life.
  
• Two of my favorite things, augmented reality and artificial life are combined to create SimSnails, an educational demo about natural selection.
• Google's has it's own version of Photosynth (and I guess they are not developing it for the sake of pure research).
  
• AR around the world: A German ad for Samsung mobile phones is using AR, and that's about all I can tell you since I don't speak German; Augmented Vision is a design project from the Netherlands that resembles Snaptell; A Japanese augmented Olympic game (via DMFO); And when it comes to this Indonesian application, I can't tell you anything at all.
  

In last week's linkfest I reported about the strange event named "The World Series Of 'Tubing", where two players play card war with Youtube videos render via augmented reality. Surely, such description doesn't make the event any clearer, but luckily the guys behind it have put the following video on Youtube to explain it all: