Augmentizer, a free app for the iPhone, has the most amazing image recogn=ition algorithm. It can identify places, people, food and random object with little to no latency.
Alas, the algorithm works only on April fools day, since it requires the iPhone owner to press on one of six hidden buttons for it to work.
I'm usually not in the habit of posting press releases, but I imagine that some of our readers will find the next news byte from Metaio interesting:
Attention Developers: win $5,000!
With junaio’s open API, developers can create state of the art augmented reality applications. You don’t need any experience in programming for embedded systems. Challenge your imagination and contribute to junaio’s exciting world with AR Mashups, multiplayer games and scavenger hunts, interactive, indoor and outdoor exhibitions, tours with animated 3D characters or location independent gaming. All you need to do as a developer is to register for an API key and start challenging your creativity.
You can not only win $5,000 but we will also invite the winner to our metaio Technology Fair to visit with us and to attend the world-famous Oktoberfest in Munich.
Anybody feels like sponsoring an AR blogger trip to an AR event? There were plenty of interesting AR links to share this week, but only seven won a place in this week's linkfest:
If you are celebrating either Passover or April fools day - the augmented matza is for you.
And since they requested me so nicely, I have to mention Seac02's "LinceoVR for all" plan - you can now use LinceoVR for as low as 25 euro per year. (they don't pay me for this plug, but they should!).
This week's quote comes from that talk with Paige Sez:
As we’ve talked about it before, it’s amazing that marketing and advertising are helping push forward AR, and it’s great. It’s fantastic. But it’s also the worst possible thing that could ever happen because it is such a singular way of looking at an overall ubiquitous computing experience. There are other ways.
And as promised, this week's video is a demo of LookTel, it looks fantastic, and shows that there are some things that an old Windows phone still does better than a new shiny iPhone (well, at least till June):
Well yes, looking back at it, this was quite a dry week. Anyway, here's a couple of weeks old video I just waited for the opportunity to put up in the weekly linkfest. It's AR in a shoebox, created by Kenneth Bogert, aPhD student from Georgia. You can read more about it over here.
Avez vous une joyeuse semaine de la langue française! (yeah, probably screwed the translation up, sorry int13 guys!)
Simple, useful and probably feasible (though not on the iPhone) AR application in the following concept video by Tate Strickland an American graphic design student:
Augmatic the British company founded by James Alliban (you may remember him from that augmented reality business card) has launched a new tool, called LearnAR.
It is a pack of ten curriculum resources for teachers and students to explore by combining the real world with virtual content using a web cam.
Some of those demos are brilliant. The Geiger counter and physiology ones seem to provide real value when coming to teach such subjects. On the other hand, I really don't find any benefit of using the English application over a computer game. In a sense LearnAR is showing how gimmicky and how useful AR can be at the same time.
For another perspective on using AR for educational purposes, you should really check out Gail Carmichael's blog. Since she's doing her PhD on this subject, she has blogged about some very interesting concepts.
Editor note: OOPS! Originally this post was scheduled for early December, but somehow I forgot to publish it. Sorry Locatory guys! -------
As veteran readers of this blog surely know, official development of Gamaray, an AR browser for Android was terminated, and its code has been open-sourced. Recently I've learned about an interesting project by a team from the Open University of the Netherlands, named Locatory, based on Gamaray's code.
The game's premise is admittedly not that exciting -
The concept of game is rather easy. Players can compete with each other and gather cards that are hidden in augmented reality. Once a card is taken, it can be dropped at a physical location (figure 3, B). When a card is dropped at the correct location, the player receives a point. (source)
but it's exciting to see that one can create (semi) augmented reality games in relative ease (especially since Locatory's own code is freely available). After all, how far is a game such as Locatory from a geo-caching game? If I were a student these days, I would have a go at it (adult life is full of compromises :/).
We, at Augmented Times, believe that augmented reality (AR) is the next big paradigm shift. Connecting the world wide web with the physical world and the many objects, places and humans it contains, AR is both a disruptive technology and an exciting vision of the future.
This blog's goal is to document AR taking over our lives, but it needs your help. Have an augmented reality related news or story? Published an interesting paper about AR? Have something to say about this site or the AR community in genereal? Tell us about it, at rouli.net ~at~ gmail.com
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