Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

It's been a busy summer for me, sorry for not posting the weekly linkfest in, well, a weekly manner. If you want more frequent updates from me, you should follow me on twitter

• Change your perspective with MirrorMap - an augmented reality application that lets you tap to near by CCTV cameras. I think they had a similar thing in Rainbows End.
• Interesting case study from Zugara on the ROI of e-commerce AR software: uniques up 841%, conversion rate rose by 4.2%!
• What AR can learn from the days of early cinema and the fine line between magical and gimmicky by Helen Papagiannis.
• Chauncey is the guy to follow on YouTube, here he is demoing his very own AR helmet. In other videos you can see him reviewing Vuzix gear.
• A revealing interview with Dr. Marco Feuerstein of TU Munich about AR surgery, and why it's still not a viable option.
• Speaking of interviews, Toby held one about augmented reality for cultural institutions.
• Augmented Planet on AR and NFC. The wave of the future?
• A sneak peek to Layar Vision's analytics tool

This week's video comes to us via Etsuji Kameyama's blog. I often complained about not having the AR equivalent of Angry Birds (ARAB). Well, we are not there yet, but Junaio now features a channel with the boids, enabling users to take picture with them. Even though it's a wholly new media, still nobody likes the boomerang bird.

 

 Have a great week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

I'm a bit sleepy today, so please excuse any increase in grammar mistakes.

• The augmented reality Korean unification project is an interesting little art/political project leveraging the power of erasAR. What other sights would you like to erase using augmented reality?
• Congrats to the guys at Zugara for being the first (afaik) AR clothing application provider to fully integrate with their product with a retailer's website: Banana Flame puts Zugara's Webcam Social Shopper app on every product page.
• iOS based Gakufu Camera scans printed music notes and play them in real time.
  
• ISMAR 2011 AR tracking competition is now open for registration!
  
• QR Hobo Codes, for those hobos carrying a smartphone (via @bruces).

before I fall to sleep, here's a very short video illustrating Minecraft brought to the real world using augmented reality (more specifically, using Kudan's Qoncept engine). 

enjoy your week!

Weekly Sunny Linkfest

Weekly Sunny Linkfest

Before we begin with our weekly pile of links, here's a message from Christine Perey on behalf of "the program committee of the Third International AR Standards meeting":

The committee has decided to extend the deadline for position papers to June 6th (5 PM UK). Please find more information and guidelines for the position papers: http://www.perey.com/ARStandards/third-meeting-position-papers/

Now, back to our regular programming:

• The community is still abuzz with the Augmented Reality Event:
• Microsoft's ARE Read Write World talk courtesy of @MetaverseOne (who worked hard to edit this video together) - check out his site for more clips from ARE.
  
Very nice ARE2011 roundup at TechZulu
• ARE2011 keynote by Blaise Aguera y Arcas. As usual, computer vision wizardry is to be expected
  
• But lest us forget about the European counterparts: Augmented Planet 2011 and the AR Summit (which ironically falls for me on a trip to the United States)
• Latest Windows Phone version, Mango, discovers GPS and compass based augmented reality two years too late. We want "strong" photosynth based AR, and we want it now!
  
• Zombie Room is an augmented reality puzzle game that looks kinda interesting http://omy.gd/0ojvF but in what way does AR makes it any better?
  
• Zugara shares data from their usability testing about augmented reality For ecommerce

This week's video goes to you Dr. Who fans - I'll never understand your ways. Sean McCracken apparently does, and thus created this Android app, available on the Android market to display an augmented version of the TARDIS. Everlasting glory to the first fan who will create a video of Daleks shouting "augment! augment!"

Have a nice week, and good luck Noora

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

Weekly Augmented Reality Linkfest

To my many readers coming from Japan - my heart goes to you, and I hope your families are safe. It's difficult to discuss "augmented reality" in the face of "tragic reality", but I'll do my best with this week's linkfest.

• Technology Review: Turning augmented reality into an open standard - on Georgia Tech's Argon.
• 2011 is the year of the tablets. yawn. 2012, though, may be the year of facial recognition.
  
• Zugara wins DEMOGod award for AR webcam social shopper
• Feng Shui made easy with mobile an augmented reality app.
• Sims creator Will Wright dipping into augmented reality?
• Drums lesson using projected AR.

This week's video is a call for help to create the first crowed sourced AR music video. Led by students of Tokyo's Temple University, fans of the British band Songdog are invited to contribute their own clips featuring an AR marker. According to their site (where you can find more details) "Augmented Reality is used to symbolize all that one can remember, but that is lost forever - you can see it, but you can't touch it". A beautiful idea that I hope will come true in spite of the unexpected challenges facing it.


Have a good 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!

ARWire - Your AR News on the Move

ARWire - Your AR News on the Move

Normally, I'll wait with this kind of news till the weekly linkfest. But, hey, then I'll miss on this scoop (and I'm really hoping this will get me a Pulitzer!). Zugara, makers of the Fashionista application and ZugSTAR, have just released an iPhone application aimed at providing you with the latest augmented reality news.

Named ARWire, this app gives you access to major augmented reality blogs and AR related twitter users (yes, I'm there :)), as well as to zugara's AR group over at Facebook.



They offer an ad supported free version, and a premium version that I can't quite locate on the appstore. Now, where are my royalties?

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!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

A slow news week, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Nevertheless, here are some augmented reality related news from around the web:

• The future digital life has a nice round up of augmented reality used for entertainment.
  
• While Augmented Planet has a round up of educational augmented reality applications.
  
• A group of students from the National University of Singapore have created a Simcity like (or rather Farmville like) augmented reality game. I'll stick with the non-augmented version for now.
• An interview with Zugara's CEO Matt Symczyk on the launch of their Fashionista application.
• I'm not sure why, but I really like this simple terrain generator, it's use of AR just seems natural.
  

Weekly quote comes from the fantastic piece, Augmented Reality Network Crashes, Leaving Millions Dataless, imagining a news article from the future:

“I started chatting with a very nice man in line with me at the deli near by office,” said Chicago resident Sue Spiches. “I was waiting for information about him to pop up on my contact lenses, but it never came. For all I know, he was a registered sex offender or a Mormon.”

And this week's video comes to us from MindSpace Solutions a spinout company from Hit Lab NZ, which created a device called the Digital Binocular Station. Using extra sensitive sensors in the base station, this pair of binoculars can augmented a museum display (or any other room) in a way unmatched by any of their competitors, or at least that's what the video suggests. I'll have to visit New Zealand to try it out (here's my vote for holding ISMAR 2011 in New Zealand).



Have a great week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

Still waiting for Junaio.

In the meantime the backlash against augmented reality (and the hype bubble surrounding it) has begun, with PSFK's "Is Augmented Reality The Next Second Life?", Fast Company's "Put Your Phone Down: Augmented Reality Is Overblown" and Techdirt's critique of gimmicky AR applications. Even Zugara has called on bloggers to cool down the hype. The best of its kind is BusinessWeek's "Augmented Reality: Getting Beyond the Hype" (you should read this article):

The industry could battle the hype and mislabeling by establishing standards the rest of us can understand. Otherwise, augmented reality will quickly meet the same fate as "green" products: Marketers will advertise even the slightest of augments as "augmented reality," leaving consumers confused and bewildered.

On the other hand there's Robert Rice's reply to that Fast Company article.
Well, I don't think that anyone will deny there's a lot of of hype around augmented reality at the moment, and I'm sure most believe that augmented reality has a great potential. It is my humble opinion that really exciting AR is still a few years away and in order to get there, we need to keep the hype at bay. As Rice writes, there's a fine line between evangelizing and hyping, and we should be careful not to cross it. Not that it's going to help, as many startups are pumping air into the bubble, hoping for an exit before it bursts.

Oh, and in other news:

• YDreams's Antão Almada's impressions from ISMAR.
• Mobile application (videos for your pleasure): Browser for parks, finding your car with Car Finder, inserting UFOs and witches to photograph with MagiCam, and LocFinder a well designed "AR" version of a compass.
• And yet another augmented reality business card (YAARBC?), even two.
  
• Novelty, Gimmicky, AR app for the San Antonio Spurs, whatever.
  

This week's video is of an art performance named .txt , that features a tag cloud haunting a dancer. I'm not an art critique, so I can say anything about the performance itself, but technology wise, it's using YDreams' YVision for real time interaction between the dancer and words (via @YDreams):

.txt interactive digital performance - excerpt#1 from ponto txt on Vimeo.

Have a nice week!

Weekly Linkfest

Weekly Linkfest

Last week I published a poll, asking how do you define yourself - are you an engineer, an artist or maybe an Entrepreneur? As of writing this post, 75 readers have answered the poll, 34 of them (45%) identified themselves as engineers. I thought there would be more artists among you (15%), and was surprised by the percent of entrepreneurs (15%). The poll is still open, so you can still cast a vote.
Moving on to the weekly linkfest (it gets bigger every week!) -

• Metaio blitzed the airwaves with two podcasts - Noora Guldemond (head of sales and marketing) interviews here and Peter Meier, Metaio's CTO is giving an interview here. Sadly, I haven't found the time last week to hear them, but I plan to do so in the next few days.
• And it was a good week for SPRXMobile (Layar) as well. Aparently, Layar comes preinstalled on Samsung's new Android phone, they were featured on The Financial Times, and things are only going to get better, since they are holding their first Layar event.
• TweetWorld is Gamaray's attempt to have an augmented tweeter application, joinning the ranks of Layar and TwittAround.
  
• The BBC - Mobile phones get cyborg vision: "Not only could this form of rich, intuitive and easy to grasp data be the next killer app for the mobile, some see it changing our world view forever."
• ReadWriteWeb - Augmented Reality: A Human Interface for Ambient Intelligence: "Augmented reality (or AR) is fast becoming as ubiquitous a term as Web 2.0. The field is getting noisier by the day, and AR as a field of research now has to co-exist with its status as an industry buzzword"
• A short introduction to programming AR applications for the Android OS.
• Is this the first augmented shirt on Threadless?
• CrashCorp demos a rudimentry AR application for the iPhone.
• YDreams and Zugara join the AR consortium (can I join too?)
• And Zugara (covered previously here) also launched what must be the second augmented reality game on Facebook (since last week Total Immersion had the first), CannonBallz (video). Just four years ago, we would have called this kind of games "Eye Toy" like, but today we have new buzzwords. Still, it is a well produced game.

Our weekly video is of a game created by Circ.us, to promote Chris Angel's new show, "The five lives of Chris Angel". Since it's a puzzle game, and this summer turned me into a brain-dead blogger, I haven't tried it myself to give an educated review. You, on other hand, can play it here, or just watch the embedded video below:

Criss Angel Augmented Reality Game from Circ.us on Vimeo.

As always, have a nice week!