Augmented Planet » Technology

Cool AR Concept for Xbox Kinect

lester — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 15:42:40 +0000

Immersive gameplay where you become the character in a game is an interesting concept and one that I think the Xbox Kinect will do pretty well at. Below is an interesting video from a developer experimenting with augmented reality and the Kinect. There are some nice touches in there such as body mapping to paint the characters costume, object detection for the particle beams. Also watch out for the example of diminishing reality thrown in at the end.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTV9kDtzi1U

Ice Cream Sandwich Face Recognition

lester — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 15:04:15 +0000

Sometime last year I said 2011 would be the year of face recognition. I thought come December we’d be knee deep in people waiving their phones in our faces that it would almost be second nature. It seems I jumped the gun a little. Not much mind, but a little.

iOS 5 added some new face tracking APIs but overall it was a little disappointing that we didn’t see any of the technology from the recently acquired Polar Rose implemented in a bigger way. If you happened to have been following the launch of the new Galaxy Nexus from Samsung, running the about to be released Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android, you may have spotted that face recognition is also part of the OS.

In the teaser video below its difficult to see how deep face recognition goes and how else it can be used, but we do know you’ll be able to unlock your phone by looking at the camera.

Samsung Galaxy Nexus

www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F_ke3rxopc

AR Drone + Vuzix Wrap 920 = Serious Fun

lester — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 19:37:37 +0000

The Parrot AR Drone is a seriously fun piece of kit. I also most had my hands on a review unit a few weeks ago. Unfortunately the reviewer before me broke it so I am still waiting for the replacement to arrive. AR glasses are also fun with Vuzix being among the leader in the field of AR vision.

So with two serious fun piece of hardware we have to ask the ultimate question; just how much fun is connecting a pair of AR glasses to an AR Drone? The answer if the video is anything to go by, tons.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sm7R7i3yKfI

Both the AR Drone and the Vuzix Wrap 920 should be on your AR shopping list this Christmas.

Ball Invasion – AR Gaming Using SLAM Technology

lester — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 10:37:27 +0000

The trouble with mobile augmented reality games that use the camera feed for the background is the camera usage is entirely superficial. If you’re fighting aliens, watching them appear from the TV or in front of the cat doesn’t really add any value to the game. Until now that is. 13^th Lab from Stockholm, Sweden are the first company to release an augmented reality game that uses the NASA created SLAM (Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) technology used by robotic explorers.

What is SLAM technology and what does it add to the gaming experience? SLAM lets you very accurately position a mobile device (in this case the iPad 2) in a 3D space and overlay computer data without the need for any printed visual markers. In other words, if you are playing an augmented reality game the application is aware of its surroundings enabling advanced game play such as enemy’s taking cover behind objects (your sofa) or bullets bouncing off walls.

To demo the concept, 13^th Lab have released an iPad 2 game titled Ball Invasion. The game is an additive shooter with the simple concept of shooting the balls but it demonstrates the awareness of your surroundings as bullets will bounce off objects in the real world.

The game is iPad 2 only as its requires the additional CPU power. Currently the game is on 50% discount ($1.99) so grab it from here if you are looking for an app to show off your iPad.

Ball Invasion

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHGtvdxTVZk

If you want to develop your own apps and try out SLAM/AR for yourself you can register for the SDK at: http://13thlab.com/developer/ It will certainly be interesting to see what developers build using this technology in the future.

Augmented Planet Event For AR Developers

lester — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 11:09:45 +0000

AP2011 the annual Augmented Planet event is announced and our speaker line up is looking amazing. If you have ever wondered how you can create your own augmented reality applications this is the event for you. At the event you’ll learn how to develop using technologies such as: AR browsers, facial recognition, visual search, natural feature tracking and much much more.

Augmented Reality (AR) is the latest red hot technology that is taking the world by storm. Have you ever wondered how you can use AR to build your own solutions that use the following technologies:

Natural feature tracking
Visual search
Face recognition
Augmented reality browsers

If you have wondered how you can use these technologies to build mobile applications for Android, iPhone, iPad 2, bada, Symbian or the web then Augmented Planet 2011 is the event for you. Augmented Planet, the No 1 blog dedicated to all things AR is back for our third London conference. This year we are focusing entirely on the development of AR applications and we have assembled the best speakers from the AR industry for an exclusive event in London.

At Augmented Planet 2011 you’ll hear from industry leaders, AR tools and platform providers and the UK’s leading AR developers. It’s not a death by PowerPoint event but an opportunity for you to see how easy it is to take advantage of AR.

Sessions include

The AR opportunities for developers
- Why you should be building AR content
Developing simple Worlds for Wikitude
- The basics of creating worlds using KML and ARML (Augmented Reality Mark-up Language)
Developing dynamic AR Worlds for Wikitude
- Creating advanced AR worlds, new features and options for developers
Using junaio to build POI driven content
- How to create junaio channels and making a compelling AR experience for users
Using junaio to build natural feature tracking content
- Creating GLUE channels that display 2D or 3D images
- AR is only as good as the 3D models you have. This session will look at the tools required to create stunning 3D content.
Face tracking
- Using the Dfusion Studio workflow for creating a face tracking experience. From the most simple to the more advanced. Prepare to be transformed!
Trans media apps
- The latest cross media AR experiences and the quantifiable ROI by some of the global major brands. See the latest mobile and iPad AR experiences
iPhone AR development
- The latest demos and iPhone development experiences from James Alliban one of the UK’s leading AR developers
The AiRaid SDK
- The bada open-source library that allows developers to quickly build mobile augmented reality applications
+ much more including keynotes from
- Lester Madden – author of Professional Augmented Reality Apps for Smartphones & AugmentedPlanet.com editor
- Myles Peyton – Total Immersion
- Ken Blakeslee – WebMobility Ventures
- Wikitude

Developing 3D objects and models

If you’re a developer here’s why you need to be at Augmented Planet 2011

Watch expert developers programming AR applications
See coding demos not PowerPoints
Hear from the leading industry experts on how to take advantage of AR
Learn how AR can be applied to your own solutions
Network with people from the AR industry

Spaces are limited, when the tickets are gone they are gone. Take advantage of the early bird discount now and save £50. Join our Facebook fan page for an exclusive event discount.

If you’re a developer and you want to hear first-hand from AR experts about building your own AR solutions this is must attend event.

Gold Sponsor

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Bronze Sponsor

Media Partners

2012 The Year of Face Recognition

lester — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 11:13:06 +0000

While 2011 is being billed by industry experts as the year of the Tablet, I am going to make the early claim that 2012 will be the year of face recognition.

Ever since seeing early demos of Augmented ID by Swedish company TAT which used the face recognition SDK by Polar Rose, it’s just been a matter of time before we have face recognition power in our smartphones. Polar Rose were acquired by Apple back in September 2010 which has led many to believe that the iPhone 5 will have face recognition capabilities, and I tend to agree that the next version of the iPhone will have some face recognition aspects. However while some bloggers feel that iPhone will use this technology as a security feature, i.e. unlocking the phone automatically when the use picks up the device, I think the technology will be used in a more subtle way.

My guess is that Apple will use the Polar Rose technology as a way to tag individuals in photos and possibly videos. As you take a picture using the iPhone camera each individual will be identified and tagged enabling you to search for all the pictures that containing the same individual or automatically upload the tagged photos to Facebook, (or wherever). I would be very surprised if the functionality is more sophisticated and incorporates live social media profiles of individuals in the camera view. I.e. while pointing the camera at an individual you see their recent tweets or Facebook updates. While there are companies building these solutions I think it’s a step to far to assume it will be such an integrated experience with the next iPhone. iPhone 6 however will give Apple developers enough time to experiment with the functionality and make face recognition a core part of the camera technology.

Since Polar Rose was acquired the face recognition SDK has been withdrawn for download, but fear not, particularly if you’re an Android developer. At Mobile World Congress this year I met up with a company called Viewdle who have taken up the mantel of face recognition on mobile devices. The demo I saw was a prototype that instantly recognised an individual when an Android device was pointed in their direction. Once the individual was recogniesd their social media profile include Facebook and recent tweets was displayed. It’s the first step to a future where you’ll be able to use your smartphone to point at individuals and see who they are and how to connect with them. There is privacy storm brewing there but that’s a story for another time. In the meantime however, if the finished Viewdle product is half as good as their marketing video we are in for a real treat.

Viewdle

Viewdle – Photo and Video Face Tagging from Viewdle on Vimeo.

If you can’t wait for the mobile solution, Viewdle have desktop version that will automatically tag photos on your PC and upload them to Facebook. You can download the app here: http://viewdle.com/products/desktop/index.html

Microsoft Face Recognition
Microsoft Research in Israel have also being working on face recognition and have recently released a short video showing some of their work. You can imagine this technology finding its way into their gaming platforms.

Augmented ID
For those that missed the original ground breaking demo from TAT, here is the original demo based on Polar Roses SDK. This technology was acquired by Apple in September 2010.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb0pMeg1UN0

Face recognition for mobile devices will no doubt be huge. The ability to automatically tag individuals in your photos and search for other pictures where they are featured will be just the start. In 2012 perhaps we’ll all be using our smartphones to see who is around us and what they are thinking.

junaio Redefining Interactive TV

lester — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 10:00:49 +0000

I have to admit that that it’s not very often someone throws me a complete and utter curve ball and I see something that I never even considered before. After a while you start to think you have seen it all, but the junaio browser wins the January prize for the most innovative use of augmented reality.

The new junaio channel works in conjunction with a popular German TV show called ‘Galileo’. Viewers watching the show are able to interact with the program by using the junaio client and by pointing their smartphone at the TV screen.

During the Galileo program questions are displayed on the screen. Unlike most interactive programs that require you to SMS an expensive number and wait several hours for the result, when the junaio enabled program asks the viewer a question the viewer simply points their smartphone at the screen. The junaio channel which uses natural feature tracking recognises the question; it is then transferred to the viewer’s smartphone. Once on the smartphone the viewer can select the answer without having to send an expensive text. In addition real-time feedback can be provided so it’s great for interactive TV quiz shows. For example, play along to who wants to be a millionaire at home and get instant feedback, even compete with other players watching the same show.

As Peter Meier, CTO of metaio points out, it’s not just about quizzes. The same technology could be used to enable viewers to receive recipes as the chief is making a dish. It’s definitely an interesting idea to enable views to interact with the TV. Take a look at the video of the solution in action. (Video Link)

What TV program would you like to see made interactive this way?

Machine Infers Persons Interest From His Eye Movement

lester — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 17:21:07 +0000

For those of you that are eager to get your hands on augmented reality glasses and see what the future holds for facial recognition. Here is an interesting announcement from Aalto University with a rather neat video showing the system in action.

A method developed in Aalto University retrieves information to data glasses about people and objects a person is looking at. Equipment including an eye tracker implements machine learning methods and infers from context and gaze direction what the viewer may be interested in, to learn more about. Following that the machine displays additional information on viewer’s data glasses. For instance, a researcher may learn about scientific results of a researcher passing by and singles may see on their data glasses the relationship status of a person they meet. By following the eye-movement the machine also infers when additional information should be displayed.

In the test versions of the augmented reality (AR) method displayed information is retrieved from a database with information keyed in beforehand. However, the method can also be set to retrieve information from internet and social media. In this case searches – using Google among others – can be made by looking through the data glasses only.

The equipment recognizes persons looked at. It requires that images of the persons to be recognized have been inserted into database earlier. At the moment, it is not possible to identify totally unknown persons.

Our basic research on machine learning methods has made it possible to create new advanced user interfaces in which the machine infers without direct human commands what the viewer is interested in, tells professor Samuel Kaski from Aalto University.

As a result of our research we have created a prototype that has been successfully tested in laboratories. However, there is still a way to go before this can be commercialized, reminds researcher Jorma Laaksonen from Aalto University.

Study about the new machine learning methods is to be published in the Virtual Reality journal. The research results have been reached with funding from private companies and organizations to Aalto University’s MIDE research programme.

Information about the research consortium:
http://mide.tkk.fi/en/UI-ART

Preprint version of the article to be published in Virtual Reality:
http://research.ics.tkk.fi/mi/papers/vire10.pdf

System in action

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtuGSWDVdQU

The Future Of AR – Calling All Innovators

lester — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 22:57:52 +0000

Do you have a fantastic idea about how augmented reality can make the world a safer place? Perhaps you are working with a cutting edge technology that will enable the police or military to be more effective. If so then INSTINCT are looking for companies, individuals or academic institutions that have augmented reality solutions or ideas that can be used in the security or counter terrorism industry.

If you are interested in taking part and promoting your technology/idea, you’ll find more information on their website: http://td3-ar.com/

Augmented reality and the shopping mall of the future

lester — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 22:34:39 +0000

Interesting augmented reality proof of concept from Intel.

The touch sensitive screen replaces the printed store guide that shoppers use to navigate around a mall. It works by projecting an interactive display on a screen. As the screen is touch sensitive, shoppers are able to pull up information about stores along with floor plans.

Since every shopper is a different hight, it automatically detects the viewer’s height and calibrates itself accordingly.

The sound in the video is a bit crap, but the technology is an interesting glimpse on how shopping trips to the local mall will be in the not so distant future.

Intel POC

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWgleaSjOXI

Real-time tracking and Layar 4?

lester — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 09:23:17 +0000

Yesterday I went to watch Brazil play in the world cup, on the train I was listening to a couple of guys trying to explain the offside rule which was amusing to listen to.

Interestingly I came across an augmented reality demo a few weeks back that showed real-time tracking of players in a football game to show when they strayed offside. I’m not sure how much of the video below is smoke and mirrors as the dates don’t quite make sense. The video was uploaded in December but there was no camera API or OS beta back then.

Assuming it is real, the most interesting bit is that the description says ‘based on Layar technology’. Is this a first look at features in Layar 4.0?

Real-time offside concept

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnmxT6x85p8

Exclusive report: Augmented reality and the adult entertainment industry

lester — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 14:08:29 +0000

This article has an adult theme.

For the last 15 or so years I have been at the cutting edge of technology, always two steps ahead of the curve. I remember a long time back doing an event for Microsoft and talking about Smartphones. I met one guy in the audience after over coffee who told me mobile phones will never catch on. People have house phones and there is no need to carry a phone around with you he said. If people are not home when the phone rings, the caller will call back later, there is simply no need for a mobile phone. Well we all know how that turned out. After the event I spoke with another delegate over some beers who not only embraced the whole idea of mobile devices, but he wanted to know how he could deliver a mobile porn experience.

In my years of working at the cutting edge only two things with technology can be taken for granted.

When a new video playback technology is launched, Stephen Spielberg will launch yet another digitally re-mastered special edition of the Star Wars trilogy.
Porn will be the earliest of early adopters.

Skipping forward to the present day what has surprised me more than anything has been the lack of activity around augmented reality from the adult entertainment industries. Augmented reality would appear to be the ideal next generation technology that enables users to control their own movies but there is a distinct lack of content. So to answer the question, why is the adult entertainment industry not on the augmented reality bandwagon, we decide to ask the question to Quentin at Pink Visual, one of the leading mobile erotica companies around.

Quentin, could you start with a brief introduction to your role, the company and what the company does.

Officially, my job title here is “Director of Public Relations,” but that title doesn’t go far in describing my actual role at the company. In addition to the PR work, I also handle a lot of the company’s market research, statistical analysis, risk assessment, affiliate fraud control and I assist our in-house legal department where adult-industry-specific legal issues are concerned.

As adult entertainment studios go, Pink Visual is one that was created in reverse of the usual pattern; most studios our size started off shooting content for physical media and then branched out into online distribution and other areas. We started off in the mid-90s as a strictly web-based enterprise, and expanded from that foothold into DVD, cable, satellite and other more ‘traditional’ distribution channels. More recently, we’ve established ourselves as one of the leading mobile erotica companies – possibly even the single largest mobile adult entertainment company at this point. (Reliable metrics on adult companies are virtually impossible to come by, as there are very, very few publicly traded porn companies, and therefore very little data available on our competition for us to go by.)

History has shown that the Gambling and Adult Entertainment industries are normally the first to adopt any new technology and drive it forwards. Surprisingly there are no interactive augmented reality casinos or interactive adult applications available. Why do you think that is?

The adult industry is in an interesting place right now: on the one hand, there is a desperate need for innovation, and for development of a new means of engaging the consumer beyond serving up an endless series of dirty videos; on the other hand, many companies are struggling to keep their heads above water, financially, as a variety of factors have eroded their profitability substantially over the past 3-4 years. While the industry has a history of quickly adopting new technologies and new mediums for viewing and delivering porn – and augmented reality certainly appears to have potential in that regard – I think at the moment many adult studios are looking for a quick fix to right the ship, and the idea of tackling a new technological challenge is simply too daunting for them. To the extent that adult companies appear to be drawn toward anything “new” in relevant technologies, they are drawn to mobile devices, and to a lesser extent the potential of 3D porn. There’s nothing new about 3D, of course, but it is squarely back on the radar these days (owing mostly to the commercial success of Avatar, in my opinion).

It’s also possible that adult companies have looked at the technology and just haven’t figured out an effective way to weave augmented reality into their content or marketing. We’ve struggled with that question a bit ourselves; our initial demo merely scratched the surface of what’s possible, and in the months since we developed it, the challenge has been to come up with the concept that will resonate with our customers, and add value to the viewing experience that goes deeper than novelty and gimmickry.

Talking of 3D porn, cut very quickly to an excellent comedy moment from the TV program Jonathan Creek.

3D Porn – Jonathan Creek Christmas Special

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeOm-V6GJ7w

- continue on page 2 (see link below)

The Resurrection of QR Codes?

lester — Mon, 31 May 2010 16:34:07 +0000

Does anyone care about QR Codes anymore? I don’t see them used much, just a few die hard sites giving quick links to downloading software to mobile devices. QR Codes have been around since the 1990s and have hardly set the world alight, outside Asia I hardly ever see them used for sales and marketing campaigns, and when I do it’s normally a customer coming to me with a really poorly thought out campaign.

We had a customer whose QR Code plan went something along the lines of… “A user will see our advert for a product, they’ll come to our website using their browser, download a our QR Code reader, then they’ll be able to take a picture of our QR Code which will take them to our micro site where they can download the software”. If a user has to visit your site to download something to go back to your site you have a problem. They missed the point of QR Codes being quick links to a website and not an interactive medium.

I was surprised to read on InventorSpot that Facebook are investigating using QR Codes that will link to a users profile or status feed. The article talks about the issues this raises with privacy, and how QR Codes are going to make Facebook millions in advertising.

Apparently the plan is, you as a user will have the option to use your QR Code on business cards, tee-shirts or whatever and friends will be able to access your Facebook page just by taking a photo of your code. The good thing about QR Codes is there are hundreds of readers out there spanning lots of devices, but I can’t help thinking it’s investing in the wrong technology.

Consider two options; you can have a tee-shirt with a QR Code that links to your Facebook Status feed. Users take a photo of your tee-shirt and get redirected to your Facebook page. Or you can have a marker that displays content directly on the tee-shirt with optional 3D animation. Which do you choose?

The InventorSpot article goes on to promote the enormous potential for advertising where every product has it own QR Code placed discreetly in the advertisement. You known the kind of thing where a billboard has an advert for the latest must have gadget and in the corner will be a QR Code linking you to the website. I’m sure that was the goal when QR Codes were first introduced but they have had their chance and they failed (in the the West at least). They are no match for today’s augmented reality solutions.

Today we have mobile augmented reality applications that are able to recognise full colour advertisements. Nokia’s Point & Find for example enables a user to take a photo of a movie poster and watch a trailer, book tickets at nearby cinemas (courtesy of GPS), or read reviews. Advertisers don’t even need to do anything special. Pongr is yet another solution that is able to recognise any billboard advertisement or product logo (as long as it is uploaded to their database) and give the user contextual information.

Coming full circle and back to Facebook and poorly implemented QR Campaigns, the scenario was given by InventorSpot was:

“Scan a product on a Facebook page and get an immediate personalized offer where you could purchase ‘said’ item on the spot. Advertisers in turn would pay Facebook 30% off every sale, using their Facebook Credit ‘commissionable’ model”

I could be on your Facebook page, see something I like, go downstairs to find my phone, come back upstairs, take a picture with my phone, be redirected to the product page, browser it on my tiny phone screen and enter my details using T9. Or I could just use my mouse to click the link.

QR Codes have their place as a quick linking tool for mobile devices not as a rich sales/marketing tool, it’s time to let them go and embrace the future.

iPhone Augmented Reality Marker Tracking

lester — Tue, 04 May 2010 14:04:39 +0000

We don’t often publish random augmented reality demos from YouTube showing spinning cubes or the like, but since iPhone OS 4.0 opens up the camera API to developers we thought we’d post some proof that the iPhone will support multi marker tracking.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrbowA1Atac

June onwards should be interesting times for iPhone owners as we should start to see some really interesting solutions being created.

The Stark Hud 2020

lester — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 13:44:39 +0000

When augmented reality glasses do finally arrive, I have such high expectations for the services they will bring. Imagine all your favourite augmented reality applications rolled neatly into a standard pair of sunglasses.

Features such as:

High speed data in the palm of your hand!
Geo-location services and tourist information!
Weather and traffic updates!
Social networking tools and applications!
Mood-monitoring jukebox!
Matchmaker targeting!

All these features are available in the Stark Hud 2020.

Sadly before you get too excited, leave work and run down to your nearest gadget store demanding a pair, the Stark Hud 2020 are a figment of Hollywood imagination to promote the new Iron Man 2 movie.

In Rouli’s predictions for 2010 I said that augmented reality glasses were still 10 years off. All I can say is when they finally arrive I hope they are as good as this.

Check out the new Stark Hud 2020

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_u34kV9go0

More Iron Man 2 AR demos
If you haven’t already, be sure to try Total Immersions Iron Man 2 demo.

I Am Iron Man – AR Demo

Augmented Reality Plug-in for Autodesk 3dsMax Released

lester — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 09:56:02 +0000

If you use AutoDesk then you’ll be pleased to know that Inglobe Technologies, an Italian company that specialize in the development of augmented reality solutions, has just released the first augmented reality plug-in for Autodesk 3dsMax.

They have put together an interesting video on publishing via AutoDesk and viewing the AR content.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9FxlP5nUqIM

More about AR-Media

With AR-media™ Plugin, Autodesk® 3dsMax® users can now experiment with the power of Augmented Reality inside this incredible 3d modeling software. Simply stated, the Augmented Reality technology allows users to visualize their 3D creations directly in the real physical space which surrounds them. Indeed, through ARMedia™ Plugin, 3dsMax® models can be visualized out of the digital workspace directly on users’ desktop or in any physical location, by connecting a simple webcam and by printing a suitable code. By means of the AR-media™ Exporter users can create and publish augmented reality files autonomously. Files created by the Exporter can be visualized on any computer with the freely available AR-media™ Player, without the need of having Autodesk® 3dsMax® and the Plugin installed. Users can now create their own 3dsMax® Augmented Reality models and distribute them to their clients as independent, stand-alone files and let their clients experience such models in Augmented Reality in a click.

The bundle provides users with an advanced visualization functionality which serves two main purposes in the design life cycle:

- Help to study and analize virtual prototypes in real environments
- Communicate 3D projects immersively and astonishingly

All you need to make AR-media™ Plugin & Exporter work is a personal computer, a webcam and a printed code attached to the software. A wide range of Head Mounted Displays, including the Vuzix® CamAR, eMagin, i-glasses™ are also supported.

http://www.inglobetechnologies.com/en/products/arplugin_su/info.php

Augmented Reality Advertising – A Possible Future

lester — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 12:49:19 +0000

Last week we had a couple of students visit us to finalise their dissertation which is based around augmented reality, cheers to Bradley and Kieran for dropping by our office. One of the topics we discussed was how augmented reality will change advertising and will it change advertising for the good.

I’m not convinced that advertisers fully understand the potential yet, but nether the less there are a few good examples of augmented reality campaigns that enable a user to interact with products before they commit to buy. Everything from trying on sunglasses, clothes, watches or even seeing how furniture will fit in the home.

For a long time now we have heard about advertisers wanting to give us geo-targeted promotions, its not fantasy, there are many companies that offer Bluetooth Marketing solutions which have a proximity range of around 100m and can beam out offers to any mobile user foolish enough to leave Bluetooth enabled. You know the kind of thing where you are out shopping and your mobile receives special offers from stores as you walk past. If I’m out shopping, I could be tempted to receive targeted messages about that single specific item I am looking to buy. But if I am looking to buy a TV I don’t want my phone filled up with discount vouchers for pizzas, baby food, new suits or teeth whiting products as I make my way to the electrical store.

With augmented reality companies are looking at how they can build targeted campaigns to get the best return on their investment, and this means understanding their customer. The technology already exists where digital signage is able to recognise if the person passing is a male or female, young or old, happy or sad, and then choose what advertisement it should display. Someone who is sad could be targeted with an advertisement for a holiday in the sun, where as a young guy would see the latest pair of Adidas trainers. I have no problem with that, it’s an example of non intrusive targeted marketing. But what happens when digital signage evolves to the point where it recognises you and gives you a custom advertisement based on your buying habits, or worse yet your Google browsing history?

I have a supermarket loyalty card which we use every time we go shopping, occasionally when our discount vouchers arrive we’ll get offers for obscure products that have been recommended to us based on a single random purchase we made in the past. I think the last example was we had purchased something and shortly after discount vouchers arrived for male incontinence pads, no worries, no harm done, the vouchers go in the bin.

Let’s jump forward now to a short time in the future when digital signage has evolved to the point where it can recognise individuals and offer you targeted advertisements based on your previous buying habits. Since digital signage is not private, anyone close by will see/hear your ‘targeted message’ (as well as their own), how do you feel about being offered incontinence pads while riding the escalator on the way to work?

Even further in the future when augmented reality glasses are common place, are we looking at a world where advertisers will combine augmented reality with the real world to such an extent that just by looking at a product will kick start an advertisement?

For an example of a nightmare futuristic scenario take a look at the following video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSfKlCmYcLc

So far developers and advertisers have been responsible (or just slow) to exploit mobile augmented reality as a geo-targeted advertising platform and have avoided spamming the user with unnecessary advertisements by pointing out the nearest Mcdonalds, Burger King, Starbucks etc while you are looking for a train station. Let’s hope that it stays that way.

Star Wars AR Comic (use the webcam Luke)

lester — Tue, 13 Apr 2010 10:51:57 +0000

Anything Star Wars pretty much has success written all over it. So combining a Star Wars comic and Total Immersions augmented reality technology is going to be a winner.

Check out the video below. Notice how with one comic the character goes though his practice routine, but when you add the second comic battle takes place.

Excellent example of augmented reality bring print to life.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPEmBadE-bY

Augmented Reality – The Services Of Tomorrow

lester — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 13:31:41 +0000

Ah the future, every futurist’s dream, with routine predictions including robots doing our house work or even taking over all our jobs and working on our behalf. I’m not really sure why I would want a robot to do my job for me, what the hell would I do? How would I earn money? Can you imagine a scenario where your robot has gambled away a month’s salary leaving you no money for food?

Personally I’m conservative when making predictions about the future, it’s easy to get carried away and over estimate the changes, particularly with augmented reality and the impact it will have on our lives.

Right now the only prediction I can make with any degree of accuracy is the wife is going to be getting a pretty crappy Easter egg. Having left the egg shopping to the last minute again, I know when I get down the supermarket today or tomorrow the best eggs will all be gone leaving me with slim pickings. I’m also pretty sure that augmented reality glasses are some years off, I expect someone will have a go at mass marketing them in the next 5 years but I think it will be at least 15 years before they are anything like useful.

I define useful as interacting with our surroundings and giving us real contextual information not just giving us a compass telling us which way is north or showing us our latest emails

While the video below is not aimed at augmented reality glasses but holographic augmented reality, a technology that would be practically impossible to provide in the video context, it is an excellent concept video nether-the-less of what kind of services that augmented reality glasses may give us access to.

Games:
Being a fan of air-hockey, I have to say that the demo in the video looks pretty compelling. Presumably you could play multi player with either a computer control character or someone in another country.

AR Air Hockey

Navigation:
I like the personal navigation icons that each user has guiding them in the right direction. As some one who gets lost even with an iPhone and Google maps, this technology can’t come soon enough.

Never get lost again with AR navigation

Email:
Ok I’m not really sold on this part, having a giant keyboard projected on to the ground, nah not for me.

Not sure thats a great place to stop and do email but...

Watch the full video

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJyIuEnEecA

How far away do you think this technology is, and what type of applications would you like to see?

Tiger Beer for the iPhone

lester — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 11:51:46 +0000

If you have ever been to China Town you’ll know just how overwhelming it is, fortunately to celebrate Chinese New Year Exposure have released a Tiger beer promotional iPhone application that will highlight local bars that sell Tiger beer, give you costs so you can figure out which is the cheapest and reviews so you’ll know which is the nicest.

Like all augmented reality applications we have seen, it has an AR view, hold the device up and see the results in the camera view, or see them in a map. Nothing new there. But it seems that advertisers are finally catching on to the whole concept of augmented reality as a branding platform.

Tiger beer also comes with a game to encourage users to interact with the application more and not just when they are thirsty. As I installed the application I accepted the ability to receive push notifications, so I’m assuming that next time I am out and about in London’s West End I’ll get relevant offers delivered.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=782JdQ_kbjw

The game incidentally is not an augmented reality game but is kind of fun nether the less.

If you have a China Town near you and you want to do a bit of exploring, you can install from here: TigerBeer

Augmented Reality Toys For Boys

lester — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 13:19:32 +0000

If I won the lottery apart from a new Porsche, Ferrari, and Lamborghini I’d have a fleet of robots.
Every day my garden would be mowed by robotic lawnmowers that would come out, cut the grass and then return to their base station. Each room in the house would have a vacuum cleaner robot that comes out at 3am does a bit of hovering (quietly) before going back to it’s base stations to recharge.

Of course I would want a Rovio as well to act as my home security. If your not familiar with a Rovio, it’s a mobile web-cam that you can control over the web. Put the Rovio somewhere in the house, disappear somewhere exotic on holiday and at anytime you can connect up to the device and view the cam. Better yet you can control it and drive around the house to make sure the pets are OK or check that your TV is still where you left it.

So we have remote control robot with a web-cam, wouldn’t it be great if…

Way ahead of you with that one. LinceoVR is a set of tools that enable developers to build augmented reality content, using their SDK a mash-up has been created that allows the Rovio web-cam to recognise markers turning the robot into a games platform.

Check out this video and I’m sure it will be on your wish list.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bl2WeRfrfUM

Ultimate Guide To iPhone Augmented Reality – Part III Browsers

lester — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:58:20 +0000

The augmented reality guide for the iPhone series is a bit like painting the Golden Gate Bridge. By the time you have finished compiling a list more have hit the appstore so your work is out of date.

For today’s ultimate guide we’ll focus on augmented reality browsers. The holder of the best augmented reality browser for 2009 is of course Wikitude which was voted no.1 in the Augmented Planet Readers Choice Awards, so who should we be looking out for in 2010?

WhereMark
WhereMark is a relatively new arrival but has already caught the eye.
Plus points, great UI, innovative pinch and stretch zoom, search across multiple categories. Negative points, difficult to see what category is selected, switches between portrait and landscape.

Verdict well worth installing

WhereMark iPhone Augmented Reality Browser

Yell Labs

Another new entry, visually looks fantastic. I really love the lock-on effect where the targeting targeting reticle locks on to a POI. The search criteria is also presented nicely and it’s easy to perform a one click search.

Yell AR (UK ONLY)

While it looks great it is not without problems. The initial search range is set ridiculously low and it took an accident before I figured out that there is a hidden menu on the right hand side of the screen that controls range.

Data accuracy, I know I moan about a lot about this, but pressing the Indian restaurants button reveals 10 matches. 6 of which are Chinese restaurants, 1 is a grill, 2 are Indian restaurants, and one KFC. If you are going to go to the effort of having dedicated search buttons the least you could do is ensure that the data is going to be correct.

While Yell looks good, as you use it you’ll see that the application feels empty. There is no map for example so navigation is difficult and once you have your POI selected very little information is given, in my tests nothing more than the ability to place a phone call was shown.

Verdict, disappointing from Yell you would expect better accuracy, but worth installing and showing your friends the cool lock-on feature.

Zagat To Go
This is another visually stunning app, the ability to scroll A La Street View through the results is pretty cool. Zagat also has a review system so you’ll know if the restaurant you are visiting is any good. It’s difficult to find a downside to this app other than the price ($9.99), but 89 reviews out of 107 give the application 4 stars or above so they must be doing something right.

Verdict, cool app if you are looking for a high quality application to find places to eat and you are not on a budget then well worth getting.

Zagat To Go

ARgo
Another new browser launched in early February. Search is performed by dedicated buttons which orientate themselves to either portrait or landscape depending on how you hold your device. Searching for Indian restaurants returns a good set of results, all of which actually look like they are Indian restaurants (no KFCs). As you can search POIs from different categories the compass has a nice touch where each POI is identified by a different colour.

The downside, the POIs in the camera window were pretty difficult to select. POIs were often place on top of each other making it impossible to select those that were further way. There is also no map so no navigation.

Verdict, not really tested in anger. Needs work on selecting POIs

Acrossair multifunctional browser

Acrossair
The Acrossair browser feels like it’s a collection of different AR applications rather than a single app. You can find the nearest tweets, wiki’s, search for restaurants or if you’re in a social the mood you can share your location with your buddies via facebook, twitter, or email. There is even an option to find where you left your car.

There is a good collection of functionality here but it feels like a bit of a jumble. With applications, presentation is often everything. If a user doesn’t like the look and feel they wont come back no matter how good the app is. Here the developers have gone for just putting everything into a list and it feels like it has just be thrown together, it really doesn’t do it any justice.

Verdict, worth installing just for the car locator application

Other world browsers.

Robotvision
Bionic Eye
Nearest Places
Worksnug

Augmented Reality Browsers

And The Rest

In Rouli’s (ARTimes.net) predictions for 2010 I predicted that everyone would have augmented reality browser functionality by the end of the year, so expect this list to grow. In the meantime if you are looking for even more browsers, try these.

iNeedCoffee
A Cafe View
BUL
Spot Crime – see where crimes are taking place around you. (US only I believe)
Stella Artois
Urban spoon
Nearest Wiki
Cyclopedia
buUuk
Nearby Navigator
Ristoranti d’Italia del Gambero Rosso
Wiki(Ar)
Taiwan Food AR
Compass Camera
A Nearby View
Huckleberry
Beijing Discovery AR

Random browsers, find bars, find crime. It's all good

Augmented Reality Browsers Innovation & Best Practices

lester — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 13:44:25 +0000

Not so long ago I was an evangelist championing the adoption of voice recognition technologies in the UK. Love them or hate them I’m sure you’ll have experienced them.

IVR:    “Welcome to your local cinema please speak the name of the movie you would like to see”
YOU:   “Avatar”
IVR:    “You said Valentines Day, is that correct?”
YOU:   “no I said Avatar”
IVR:    “Thank you what time would you like to see Valentines Day”
YOU:   “I don’t want to see Valentines Day I want to watch Avatar”
IVR:    “You said 5am is that correct”

and it goes on.

During my speech technology years I learned that when you move away from the visual it’s actually very difficult to build a UI that present the user with lots of information. Try this, look at your desk and imagine you want to allow a user to choose anything they see laying around. You are probably thinking easy I’d put everything in to a list and let the user select what they want. Good answer, but what happens if the user is in another room and they can’t see your list? Now you have the challenge of having to tell them each item that is on the desk, since you have no idea what they are likely to need you don’t really know which items to list first. With an IVR you have the added complications of having only 10 keys so if you have a lot of items laying around then you’ll need to split them up in to pages. Press * for more options. Coupled with trying to present all the information at a reasonable speed with out boring the user and having them screaming in to the phone you can see some of the complications.

Why is this relevant to augmented reality? Augmented reality developers have to address similar problems but instead of working with the challenge of no visual UI they have a problem of visual overload and face issues such as:

How do you present a large amount of data to users in a visually compelling way.

How do you show data that may be located in almost the same geographic location and decide which object should be in front.
How can you make it easy for users to navigate the results without obscuring objects in the background
How do you provide some way to indicate distance so users get some indication of scale

It’s an interesting problem that as users we don’t think twice about

Here is a typical search (Wikitude) which shows the closest items first and those further behind.

Wikitude World Browser

Notice that they are all plotted on the same plane making it difficult to get access to some of the background items, which could of course be the result you are after. We do get the impression of depth because the distant objects are represented by smaller icons.

Worksnug/Acrossair hit upon the idea of stacking results. Those results that are nearest to your location are shown at the bottom and as you move your way up the list they get further way.

Acrossair stacking results

As more browsers are released and browsers go through new releases it’s interesting to see how developers are approaching the issue of distance and presenting data. For that I am going to draw attention to 3 browsers that have notable innovation worthy of being called ‘best practices’ for augmented reality browsers of the future.

Yell
Yell recently released their AR browser, it’s very Wikitude like in that all items are plotted on the same plane so it does suffer from POIs being hidden when there is a large group of results in the same area. Yell have attempted to solve this with their automatic lock-on functionality. As you move the phone around the targeting reticle will lock onto a POI saving you trying to hold the phone still and tap a partially obscured result. A pretty neat innovation.

Yell with automatic target lock-on

Wheremark
Wheremark are worthy of an innovation mention for their feature which allows you to pinch the screen to change the range. Instead of having to select distance through a menu or via a slider you can re-size the distance in the same way you re-size a webpage. Search results are stacked and the further away the POI is from your current location the smaller it will appear.

Wheremark stacking with pinch distance control

Zagat To Go
Zagat To Go a new browser from Handmark has probably one of most innovative approaches to navigation so far which I am sure is going to become the best practice for future designs. Rather than stacking POIs, instead POIs in the distance are present but their opacity is high so they appear almost as fuzzy images. Like Google Street View you can flick to step forward into the background bring those objects closer, its a really neat effect.

Zagat To Go

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fkJfCvN7FUw

I’m interested in what other features you have seen that you think would make it in to an augmented reality browser best practice or innovation guide.

The Case Against Augmented Reality

lester — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 13:22:34 +0000

Gianmarco at the University of Computer Science in Bologna (Italy) asked an interesting question a few days ago on the cons of augmented reality. When talking about AR we are always looking on the positive side so in response to Gianmarco’s question I was thinking about the negatives.

Privacy: We discussed before about user being able to geotag your content without you having control. For example your mother comes over to your house and tweets about your priceless collection of Ming dynasty vases. Your home location is geotagged and out there for all to see along with details of your most valued possession. An enterprising thief using the latest version of BurglAR would be able to see high value items worth stealing in the local area. While geotagging is a concern it’s not really a problem caused by augmented reality, your mother may choose to upload a geotagged picture of your Ming vases to Facebook or Flickr so the same data would be available in Google maps.

Location: There are numerous applications to share you location data, Google Latitude, Ping, Hayway to name just a few. Location data is not live, an application has to request your location or you have to update it periodically so people are unable to see your movements in real time. Can anything negative come from people knowing your presence? Possibly a thief could see when you are out and come can take your Ming collection but again it’s not augmented reality making it possible.

3rd Party Data: Layar are doing really well in getting developers to build 3rd party layers so I took a look through the list of the 300 or so to see if there is anything there that could be construed as potentially evil. If we are playing the role of criminal mastermind then we’d be disappointed to learn that Layar isn’t going to help us with our quest for world domination. There are interesting layers that will tell me what products have been sold in an area so I could have my band of henchmen patrolling the streets trying to track down high value items that have just been sold. But I’m sure the data is not live and any would be master criminal would do better sitting outside a local electronics’s store and following someone home.

Users: Users are at risk from augmented reality but mostly though stupidity rather than the technology. For example, driving while messing around with the phone or falling down a manhole because they are not looking where they are going, but the same goes for twittering while driving or walking.

Hollywood: There is a very real risk of crappy AR themed movies. Remember Lawnmower man for virtual reality?

It’s difficult to see any negative in the current implementation of mobile augmented reality as it’s really about taking data from other sources and presenting them in a new view. The data is freely available from other sources and just presented differently.

Is there no potential for evil with augmented reality?

Face recognition: When augmented reality technology becomes powerful enough and we can recognise individuals just by point a phone at them (or through AR glasses) then I think we’ll see some negative. Lets imaging someone builds an application that scans the police crime database. You might happen to share similar features as a known criminal and find yourself banned from stores, worse you could falsely be recognised as a sex offender and have your life ruined.

Advertising: Love it or hate it it’s everywhere. Location aware advertising has been in the works for a while with the promise/threat of offers being sent directly to our mobile devices as we are walking down the highstreet. Depending on your point of view, intrusive advertising could be a negative feature.

Porn: Considering the porn industry is usually the first to adopt new technology it has been remarkably slow to exploit virtual reality or augmented reality. Negative? definitely if you’re the wrong end of the business and being exploited.

I failed to find any immediate negative issues, so let me ask you. If you were planning on becoming a master criminal hell bent on either taking over the world or planning the crime of the century, how would augmented reality help you achieve your goal?

Augmented Reality And The Future Of Sport

lester — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 14:56:43 +0000

Some several months back I blogged about an augmented reality solution called Seer that was implemented at Wimbledon. The solution was ingenious, use your Android device to find out how long the bathroom or food lines are as well as get relevant information on the games in play. Scores, statistics that type of thing all from the comfort of your seat. Not only do you know what is happening with the game but you now the perfect time to go to the bathroom and grab a hotdog on the way back.

EYEPLY are a start-up company that are looking at changing the way we view sports by combining a similar augmented reality solution for all sporting events.

EYEPLY - The future of sport

Golf is an obvious candidate that would benefit from such a solution. If you are sitting at the 7th green is hard to know what is happening at other locations on the course, with an EYEPLY augmented reality solution you would be able to point your device in the general direction of the hole you are interested in and get up to date scores and player information on the game taking place. In the video below EYEPLY talk about solutions for baseball games, when a player steps up to the plate you are able to click on him and get his relevant stats. If you are fanatical about a sport you want to know everything about a player.

When I saw the Seer video I thought it would be fantastic if the technology could be applied to a football match. Being able to click on a player, get his stats, how far he as run, how many passes he has completed etc all live during a game would be pretty amazing. Especially when you haven’t seen that player before. I have a friend who occasionally works for various TV stations on football events overlaying the graphics that show scores and other game stats. A lot of information is tracked in real-time by various companies and is available at the touch of a button. The data is there, the question is how do you make that information available and useful to be consumed by the public.

Could this be the future of sports?

Static games like golf or tennis are somewhat easy to manage as the players exact location is not that important, but in an augmented reality world with fast paced games like football the problem is how do you track 22 players around a pitch in real-time and determine who is who? If you want to combine a Sims style icon over every player on the field then you need some pretty good tracking. Interestingly the EYEPLY guys say they are working with a company who have the tracking technology to do this so perhaps at next years world cup we’ll see some really cool augmented reality solutions.

EYEPLY Video

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtOCePI7w8c