Although there is no 3D data overlaid onto the live video stream – simply because this device does not allow it – I tend to call this application  augmented reality. It´s got an image detection (working with any image) and it gives you more, specific  information from a database. Mixing a virtual reality with the reality, as an intuitive interface and configurable to individual settings: age groups, knowledge levels and languages. So all kinds of special interests could be covered within one museum app. Quoting Picasso “Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.”, so let´s get rid of ressource waisting information design and make use of smart technologies.

junaio has been busy in the last week, we just announced another partnership with a well-known transit agency – BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) to provide transit data and live train schedules via augmented reality.

If you ride the BART everyday in the San Francisco area, you can now see the latest schedules of BART trains by pointing your phone around.

If you are a tourist, you can get information to the nearest BART stations and see live schedules, even route there using Google maps. BART has even left some tips on the channel for exploring interesting landmarks around San Francisco.

We are very excited to be working with BART on this initiative and huge thanks to them for been open to trying out new technology. We hope you enjoy the BART channel!

Press Release.

Okay, I get it.  A cute little kitten dancing across my keyboard (or other appropriate flat space.)  I’m a sucker for augmented pets.  I want one.

But why just a cat?

Come on, folks.  Can’t we dig a little deeper into the black sticky vat of emotions?

Why can’t we have a pet Banker to poke and kick and make it beg for money before we flick it off the desk into the trashcan?  Or a little Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to march around the table and then catapult into oblivion from my spoon?

Why must we tickle my cute reflex?  I have darker, baser needs that must be sated.

Until then, I’ll have an iKat. (meow)

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: augmented reality

I ran an interesting workshop at Mobile World Congress for people interested in augmented reality. The topic, should I build a plug-in for another application was one of the groups discussion topics.

Some of the audience members were in favour of building plug-ins and I can see the attraction. Products like Layar and Wikitude provide you with the application leaving you only to worry about your POIs. If you are not a marketing expert then you also have the opportunity to take advantage of their vast number of users with out doing a thing.

With all these benefits there must be some drawbacks? Yes there are:

• Complexity: if you are looking for a solution that goes beyond clicking on a POI and displaying data then building a plug-in is not for you. For the time being at least forget an augmented reality version of Pac Man.

• Discoverability: Layar have 10 pages of layars in their UI, if you build a plug-in where will yours be? If you are listed on page 10 will you really get that exposure to the entire user base?

• Money: until recently building a plug-in meant it was free but Layar announced at MWC that from later this month developers will have the opportunity to create paid for layers. Great news for developers, I’m not sure what the revenue model is for this yet as I can’t find any info, but one would assume that Apple will take 30% of the in app purchase and Layar will take percentage as well. So what will developers be left with?

• Prestige: this very much depends on how you want your application to be found. If you are happy with a user clicking on another application before they launch yours then plug-ins are perfect. However if you want a user to click your Icon on the device then plug-ins are not for you

The other option is building an application yourself; the obvious benefits are you control everything and if your application is chargeable you keep a lions share of the money, but it’s not without its draw backs either:

• Bug fixes: You are responsible for fixing those and getting your app though the appstore process

• Marketing: If being on page 10 of an applications plug-in list is a problem, where will you be in the appstore?

But probably the hardest issue to address is how do you get started? Suddenly you need to worry about retrieving your location, which way is the user facing, and just how do I put data in to the camera view.  In my talk I was largely on the create you own app side of the fence. Building plug-ins is fine if your data is simple and doesn’t warrent being it’s own application, or you don’t have the skills, or dare I say if you don’t care about it enough to want to market it as yours.

In the real world the problem is often how do I extend my existing geo aware application to include augmented reality, and perhaps more importantly, how do I add the functionality quickly and easily without a major rewrite. Neither of the two solutions above deals with that problem but fortunately there is now a 3rd option that does.

Wikitude have release  an api to enable iPhone developers to easily extend or build new standalone applications and include augmented reality functionality. It’s the best of both worlds because the application is yours, users will launch the application using your icon, you take responsibility for the marketing, you control the price etc, and because you are using the tried and tested Wikitude framework it makes develpment a snap.

The framework which is also available for the Android takes the worry out of building applications by doing all the hard work for you, so much of the hard work that we asked the Mobilizy guys to create a new application around football and then set them the challenge of adding augmented reality to extend the application. Nicola took us up on the challenge and said that it took about 30 minutes to extend the application to include the new functionality, which you have to say is pretty impressive.

To demonstrate how easy it really is take a look at the video below:

To begin building your own augmented reality applications for mobile, visit  wikitude.org/developers where you can get the API and the sample FIFA project, then follow the 4 simple steps:

• Add the WikitudeAPI-Folder containing the Static Library, Public Headers and Resources to your iPhone-Project in Xcode.

• Add additional frameworks to your project and make changes to the linker flags (details are found in the API documentation)

• Within your custom application, create a new WikitudeARViewController with your registration data – this ViewController returns the camera view.

• Add your data as POI array and start the view

The final step is to tell us at Augmented Planet what you build and your experience with the API. So, while the debate over create a plug-in or write your own will continue, it has become a lot easier to go down the build your own route. Thanks to the Wikitude API you can have your own icon and eat it too.

Related posts:

1. Augmented Reality In One Hour
2. Augmented Reality Driving Applications
3. Mobilizy Shape The Future Of Augmented Reality

Ever been out on a Friday night and just want to find something to do? Wished you can find events / concerts around you instaneously and seamlessly without having to “search” through a mobile browser? Well, now you can with junaio and augmented reality.

We have teamed up with Eventful, San Diego based, leading service for discovering, sharing, promoting, and creating local events throughout the world to bring you the “Eventful Channel.” You can access events / concerts / venues in your location simply by pointing your phone around you (iPhone 3GS at the current moment). The digital overlay tells you directionally where the event is, and clicking on it unlocks details about the events, it even has a feature to guide you to the location.

SXSW party-goers won’t have to worry which party / event is happening around them. They can find out, simply by pointing their phone.

“We’re excited to work with junaio to give SXSW attendees the opportunity to find the nearest and coolest parties happening at SXSW through augmented reality,” said Tim Breidigan, Vice President of Business Development for Eventful. “The ability to point your phone around you and see events is an enriching and groundbreaking experience.”

Full press release here. Eventful News.

What will be the coolest game at SXSW this year? SCAVENGAR!

metaio and Porter Novelli has partnered to bring to you this awesome spin of the traditional scavenger hunt using augmented reality. Virtual clues and physical markers have been hidden around the conference center and around Austin for you to find. There will even be folks with markers on their T-shirts, in which you can unlock cool 3D experiences and score points! The best part…. The winner gets $1000 at the end. Robert Scoble will also be wearing one of these T-shirts, so make sure you find him, and see his live-Twitter feed on top of his T-shirt.

For more details and game rules, check out: www.scavengar.com

Download junaio today and start playing! See you all there at SXSW!

Ciao to Bella Italia!

A problem all AR and VR systems suffer is the one of haptics. You just can’t touch the virtual world! While you can touch a screen, a marker or a joystick, you still won’t be able to touch the simulated objects. Force feedback is bulky and not as accurate as the real world’s friction or collision. Also you will have trouble of occlusions: is your hand behind the virtual stuff or in front of? The illusion breaks fast with wrong occlusion rendering - and of course - when missing physical feedback.

At RTT AG, I also run into these AR-scenarios where an augmentation is just not enough. If we simulate something the user wants to hold in his or her hand we will use a chroma keying to overlay a colored 3D print rapid prototype that replicates the virtual object’s shape. Now you can actually grab the object and still see your hand on top of it while enclosing it with your fingers.

Of course, we are limited to have a virtual object similar shaped to the 3D print, but it’s a great workflow with realistic haptic feedback. We also integrated push buttons, where your fingers may trigger virtual keystrokes.

One of our partner universities, the Politecnico Milano in Italy and their KAEMaRT group (Knowledge Aided Engineering, Manufacturing and Related Technologies) by Professor Umberto Cugini have been working on extending our module to support even more feedback. Their engineers work on programmable hardware buttons, sliders and nobs, that can communicate with the virtual world: the rendering of the virtual buttons will be updated accordingly to the real world’s buttons. But more - the most important feature: you can set the behavior of the buttons through the software… how hard is it to pull the slider? How many clicks does the wheel have? So it can influence in both directions between real and virtual.

In the following video you can see their great work on haptics simulations combined with our Augmented Reality module RTT RealView and our real-time chroma keying. We believe, this is the way to go for product prototypes, haptics research and user tests.

Wow, after the first dust has settled it´s time for me to give you an update about junaio on augmentedblog. The version 2.0 features a whole new … er, I mean, you can read all this here. And there´s a fantastic scavenger hunt to be played in on and around the SXSW conference next week, which… well, you can see this in the movie below and read everything about “scavengAR” here or here. But the implications of all the new functions anyway are … Gosh (!) … this journalist at übergizmo was faster than me. So what can I add to this? You are right! junaio has an open API. It is open for concepts, designers, content partners, developers or ideas and experiences by users. And where else than in this tiny information source for aumented reality enthusiasts could we put the emphasize on the fact, that we are welcoming everybody on the platform and are looking forward to create an augmented world together. Get in touch, try the app (it´s for free), play around, get inspired and let us know, what you are thinking, planning or what you already have done through creating a fascinating channel!

Check out the cool new features

junaio 2.0 now in App Store

Make the World Yours  – create your own channel and share information with your friends. For more information take a look at our relaunched website http://www.junaio.com/

Here at Augmented Planet, we have reviewed a few mobile augmented reality games in the past. Many of these are of the more traditional type: overlay some virtual enemies in the camera view, and wave your phone around and try to shoot them, see here. Occasionally a game like Parallel Kingdom comes along which is a little different to the norm – so to speak. Again the debate arises as to what the definition of augmented reality is in the context. Is the only ‘reality’ the live camera view, or is your location also a type of ‘reality’, which too may be augmented. I won’t delve too deep into this discussion here, however this article will probably help to muddy the waters a little further.

Recently Nokia launched Ovi Maps Racing For Nokia Symbian^1 handsets. This article does not serve to review the game itself, as there are many sites which do this already, however what I want to do here, is to discuss the augmented reality-ness (<-I want to coin this phrase if no one has already claimed ownership), of the game.

The idea behind the game is that you use your current location to create a track using Ovi Maps (Navteq), and then you can race around, trying to set the fastest lap times.

From the Ovi Store:

Access your location, create a track and put the pedal to the metal. Ovi Maps Racing gives racing game enthusiasts a totally unique gaming experience combining map navigation and racing. Why not race on your home street? In addition to creating your own tracks in European cities, you can also choose from pre-defined tracks and check global rankings. Ladies and gentlemen, download and start your engines!

Is this Augmented Reality?

So the argument arises: is this an augmented reality game? It has not been marketed by Nokia as such, and we’ve not made our minds up yet. Do you need to be able to use your current location using the GPS sensor? Is it not enough to just be able to pick a map from a library, or create a map from an Ovi Maps interface? (The application provides both of these options). Is the use of the GPS sensor just a shortcut that feigns ‘augmentation’? Many augmented reality application and games simply give the perception of augmented reality and whilst the technology bubble continues to inflate, maybe this will do for now?

In any case, we’d definitely be interested in hearing your thoughts on the matter.

Ovi Maps Racing is available for Nokia Symbian^1 (S60 5th edition), devices: N97, N97 mini, 5800 XpressMusic and can be downloaded for free for a limited time only from the Ovi Store.

Related posts:

1. Augmented Mapping The Future Of Maps?
2. Augmented Reality for Nokia owners
3. ARound for the Nokia N97

While the narrator voice harkens back to old 50s ‘Technologies of the Future’ videos, the actual content IS actually from the future.  As much as I’d love to have this technology in my Toyota plant, I just can’t see making the ‘how-to’ videos for simple tasks as they suggest.  This kind of augmented efficiency improvement activity is only suited for highly complex tasks that are performed regularly by amateurs.

So I think the Maker culture would find better use of the technology when it actually becomes available to the masses.  Or it could work as a maintenance guide for short-run products that don’t have a large repair station base.  This summer I had to replace a pulley belt on a 70 inch zero-turn mower and the explanation sheet left a lot of steps out.  It took four neighbors to figure it out.

Here’s the description from VVT (Finland):

Customer specific and individualised products, small batch sizes, as well as increasing product complexity set higher demands for assembly work. Augmented Assembly is a research project at VTT, where AR technology is applied to increase assembly efficiency. In augmenting assembly work, the assembly worker is guided by virtual objects of components and assembly tools, and visual assembly instructions. The worker sees the augmented view through light weight head mounted devices (e.g. data glasses),and sensors provide feedback from the performed operations.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: augmented reality, VVT

One of the hurdles in the future of augmented vision is avoiding sensory overload. In Tish Shute’s latest interview, Will Wright notes (and he is far from being the first one to allude to this problem):

our senses are set up to know how to filter out 99% of what is coming into them. That is why they work, and that is what is beneficial. I think that is why AR needs to focus on… You look at what I can find out on Google or whatever, the amount of information is just astronomical. The hard part, the intelligent part, is how do you figure out that one tenth of 1% that I actually care about at this given second?

Researchers from Tokyo’s Meiji University, haven’t quite figured out how to build that filter but they do have a neat way to avoid overloading your senses. In the F.A.R.vision system project, the level of augmentation is determined by your eyebrows. Bend them inward (that is, frown) to make virtual objects more visible.

You may look silly, but that explains why terminators always had an angry face when hunting down Sarah Connor. More information can be found here, in Japanese.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Meiji University, Research

One of the hurdles in the future of augmented vision is avoiding sensory overload. In Tish Shute's latest interview, Will Wright notes (and he is far from being the first one to allude to this problem):

our senses are set up to know how to filter out 99% of what is coming into them. That is why they work, and that is what is beneficial. I think that is why AR needs to focus on… You look at what I can find out on Google or whatever, the amount of information is just astronomical. The hard part, the intelligent part, is how do you figure out that one tenth of 1% that I actually care about at this given second?

Researchers from Tokyo's Meiji University, haven't quite figured out how to build that filter but they do have a neat way to avoid overloading your senses. In the F.A.R.vision system project, the level of augmentation is determined by your eyebrows. Bend them inward (that is, frown) to make virtual objects more visible.




You may look silly, but that explains why terminators always had an angry face when hunting down Sarah Connor. More information can be found here, in Japanese.

In December I predicted that Oprah will have an AR item on her show during 2010. My prediction is getting one step closer to becoming (augmented) reality today, as Martha Stewart has some sweepstake that involves FLARToolkit

You can try it yourself here, I didn’t bother going through the questionnaire to see exactly what it’s all about.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Marketing and Advertisement, web camera

In December I predicted that Oprah will have an AR item on her show during 2010. My prediction is getting one step closer to becoming (augmented) reality today, as Martha Stewart has some sweepstake that involves FLARToolkit


You can try it yourself here, I didn't bother going through the questionnaire to see exactly what it's all about.

Maybe you are sick of iPhone or android augmentations for the moment? I can definitely relate, since they are eating up your battery and it not yet socially accepted to scan your RL chat buddy with your smartphone all the time. ;-) With HMDs out of consumer reach for the time being, there has always been an alternative to weak portable devices or glasses: projected augmented reality - or spatial augmented reality (SAR). Like Oliver Bimber I’m a big fan of this approach, since it really augments your real life objects without the need of special glasses, an extra screen to look up to or any kind of handheld device. The augmentation really appears where it should be: on top of the real furniture, etc.

I’ve posted a couple of examples before (e.g. on animating buildings or the augmented GO game (posted on augmented.org’s facebook page last friday)), but here again is another great example of how to enhance a given existing scenario nicely with AR.

Samuel Jordan and Michael Greenspan from Queen’s U did a project on spatial AR showing a neat AR pool assist.

Of course this is another use case than a location based approach of the mobile devices. But I always enjoy these projector approaches, for the simplicity and the non-visibility of technology. In a controlled environment it is easy to augment - even without a marker in front of a webcam. So, if you play pool not often enough to remember the physics or rules, this could help you out a lot… but then again it’s just theory and hopefully the cushions work well to get the angle right.

I’d love to collect some more projects that are heading this direction of SAR. So, if you have something up your sleeve (or your University Lab) please let us know in the comments or by mail! I’d love to compile an overview of good spatial AR 2010 for you guys! :-)

Hey David, this one is for you

…and Lola gets a tons of augmented animations straight from the pages of the book directly to your webcam.

This unique picture book for children uses original torn-paper illustrations to tell the fun-filled story of the glamorous Lola the Leopard, who is incredibly vain, and her friend Monty the Meerkat, whose clumsy antics don’t add up to the purrrrrfection Lola is looking for. This book features an amazing bonus feature: Book, Webcam, Action! Just hold the last page of the book up to a web-cam and you’ll see Lola and Monty burst vibrantly to life in full 3D animation, accompanied by music! These are the first books to use augmented reality technology for very young children. “What Lola Wants, Lola Gets!” teaches children about different aspects of growing up in an amusing way that they can relate to.

While using the AR portion of the book sticks you to your computer when you might normally be reading the book to your kids in bed, it’s still a fun way to read a kids book.  I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of these markerless book products in the near future as publishers, desperate for revenue, latch onto the “next big thing.”

The augmented reality kids book “What Lola Wants…Lola Gets” comes out on April 1st by Scribblers, a division of Book House.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: augmented reality, Book House, Markerless, webcam action book

It's Sunday, and it's time for another weekly linkfest:

• Tish Shute has a short interview with Sims creator (though I'll always remember him for Simcity) Will Wright. Highlights:
  
  • "our senses are set up to know how to filter out 99% of what is coming into them. That is why they work, and that is what is beneficial. I think that is why AR needs to focus on"
  • "definitely one of our strong interests is AR."
• And there's a short video interview with Christine Perey.
• Mydeco.com and Dassault Systems launched a new iPhone app to let you try out virtual furniture in your home (see my AR in 2010 - a look indoors post for similar applications).
• Now that you have found the right furniture, you can look for the right partner, using AR, of course.
  
• Gizmodo dug out a nostalgic "mobile" AR implementation.
• Doritos Brazil has another AR campaign, but this time it features the largest marker ever.
  
• Infiniti uses old AR tricks to sell its G model.

The weekly video is not exactly a demo of an augmented reality system, but it relates well to other projected interfaces we have featured previously. It's made by Microvision, and it's pretty cool (as long as you don't have any furniture, rugs or ceiling lamps in your room) [via ecademy.com]:


Have a nice week!

It’s Sunday, and it’s time for another weekly linkfest:

• Tish Shute has a short interview with Sims creator (though I’ll always remember him for Simcity) Will Wright. Highlights:
  • “our senses are set up to know how to filter out 99% of what is coming into them. That is why they work, and that is what is beneficial. I think that is why AR needs to focus on”
  • “definitely one of our strong interests is AR.”
• And there’s a short video interview with Christine Perey.
• Mydeco.com and Dassault Systems launched a new iPhone app to let you try out virtual furniture in your home (see my AR in 2010 – a look indoors post for similar applications).
• Now that you have found the right furniture, you can look for the right partner, using AR, of course.
• Gizmodo dug out a nostalgic “mobile” AR implementation.
• Doritos Brazil has another AR campaign, but this time it features the largest marker ever.
• Infiniti uses old AR tricks to sell its G model.

The weekly video is not exactly a demo of an augmented reality system, but it relates well to other projected interfaces we have featured previously. It’s made by Microvision, and it’s pretty cool (as long as you don’t have any furniture, rugs or ceiling lamps in your room) [via ecademy.com]:

Have a nice week!

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Dassault Systemes, linkfest, Projector based AR