Maximum PC augmented reality RSS Feed

Release Notes: On the Cusp of an Augmented Reality Revolution

Will Smith — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 12:35:19 -0500

You may not have heard of it before, but “augmented reality” is coming, and it’s more than just cool tech—it will change the world.

Augmented reality has been a Hollywood staple for the last 30 years—although it’s more commonly associated with robots and cyborgs than people or PC enthusiasts. Put simply, it’s a technology that overlays a real-world scene with relevant contextual information, directly from a computer. In Robocop and Terminator, augmented reality was used by the movie’s eponymous characters to overlay friend or foe info. In Minority Report, it was used to display targeted ads, unique to each individual, as they walked through a city landscape.

More recently in the real world, augmented reality has been used in advertisements, rendering 3D animations attached to 2D surfaces you hold up in front of a webcam. (Check these sites for demos: http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/ and http://www.psfk.com/2008/12/mini-augmented-reality-advertising-a-reality.html). The Mini-Cooper ad is especially neat, because you can explore a 3D rendering of a car using a 2D ad and your PC. To date, the applications of augmented reality tech have been cool, but not particularly useful.

That’s about to change. Armed with GPS sensors, accelerometers, and compasses, many smartphones—like the iPhone 3GS and Google Android phones—have the hardware required to determine your position and orientation in the world. With that info, your phone will be able to display a HUD, overlaying info from the Internet atop a direct feed from your phone’s camera.

The first of these apps is likely to be acrossair’s Nearest New York Subway app for the iPhone. The videos we’ve seen of the app are amazing—hold the phone parallel to the ground and you see a traditional 2D map of NYC’s subway system, complete with your location. When you hold the phone perpendicular, the camera turns on. As you rotate, it displays icons revealing the direction to and the key info for the nearest subway stations over a live feed from the camera. (To see the video, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ps49T0iJwVg.)

As computing becomes more integrated with our day-to-day life, it becomes easy to envision ever-more-interesting use cases. I’d love a presence app—like Loopt or Google Latitude—that lets me see public profile information of people who share my coordinates in meatspace. Right now, I have no way of knowing that the guy standing next to me on the bus is my college roommate’s brother-in-law. But if my phone played a quick game of Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon with his Facebook profile, I might end up talking about something more interesting than the Giants’ game on our shared bus ride. In fact, with a large enough social circle, I may never meet another stranger again.

I can’t help but think that that would enrich my life. Isn’t that what technology is for?

BMW Shows Off Augmented Reality Concept for Mechanics

Paul Lilly — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 08:24:03 -0500

Remember when virtual reality was the hottest concept on the tech block? These days, augmented reality has become the new go-to fad for future tech talk, and even BMW is getting in on the action. Researchers for the German automobile manufacturer have developed a pair of augmented reality glasses designed to "assist BMW Service staff in their highly demanding technical work."

We'll admit the concept seems cool enough, but there's also something unsettling about a mechanic donning a pair of augmented tech-specs and being fed step-by-step instructions as he pokes around under the hood. We'd feel the same way if we spied a 'Car Repair for Dummies' book sitting in the Service center garage.

Yelp becomes First Augmented Reality App on iPhone US App Store

Pulkit Chandna — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 10:10:31 -0500

The Android Market abounds with Augmented Reality (AR) apps just as the iTunes apps store waits for its own deluge of such apps. Although the first wave of AR iPhone apps was expected to follow after the launch of the new iPhone OS, Yelp has shipped the first installment of augmented fun to keep US-based iPhone users occupied in the interim. The augmented reality feature is only meant for the iPhone 3Gs.

The functionality has been built into the new Yelp app, which can be downloaded from the app store. Shaking the iPhone 3Gs three times when using the new Yelp app invokes a view called “the Monocle.” The app overlays markers for restaurants, bars and other nearby businesses onto the camera view. As is the custom, the app uses iPhone’s GPS, camera and compass to find and display landmarks. This is the first AR app on the US app store.

Image Credit: I4U

New Android App Uses Augmented Reality to Help You Avoid Traffic

Paul Lilly — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:01:32 -0500

How many times have you passed an exit on the freeway only to run into an unexpected traffic jam? If you live in southern California, this probably happens a lot. But it needn't happen again if a new Android app can live up to the hype.

Dubbed 'Augmented Traffic Views,' the app makes it possible to see what traffic looks like up ahead. It does this by adding a layer of augmented reality (AR) above the G1's (or other Android device) camera view with live traffic camera images and traffic data. The AR layer shows the user any available traffic camera points, which the user can then tap to see the most current available image taken by the street cam.

Sounds pretty groovy to us, and it also sounds like an accident waiting to happen. To address the latter, the app also supports a hands-free automated predictive tracking mode that displays images from traffic cams up ahead as you drive.

So far, the app only works in Toronto, but there are plenty of U.S. areas where this could be a boon to drivers, should the developers decide to expand. In the meantime, catch a YouTube video of what you can't have right here.

Canon Unveils Augmented Reality Take on Jurassic Park

Andy Salisbury — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:52:03 -0500

Sure, we may not have the technology to create our own legitimate Jurassic Park (yet!), but that doesn’t mean we can’t try. And thanks to the minds over at Canon, we’re one step closer to being toe to toe with our prehistoric friends.

In an exhibit over in Chiba, Japan there will be 260 different dinosaurs to check out by means of a virtual reality viewer. A look through the viewer will put the dino about 5 meters away from you.

The exhibit will be on display from July 18th to August 1st, so if you’re hoping to make it over to Japan for a look, you best book soon.

Image Credit: Canon

Latest Augmented Reality Demo Turns You into Optimus Prime

Paul Lilly — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 09:00:30 -0500

Guaranteed to help close the deal during your next video conference (just maybe not in your favor), you can now transform your mug to that of Optimus Prime without investing in any head gear. It's all made possible through the wonders of augmented reality, with a little help from www.weareautobots.com.

The Active X applet takes over your webcam and goes to work using face and eye detection to render a 3D head of Optimus Prime around your noggin. It's just like all those other parlor tricks that shipped with your webcam's software, only prancing around as Optimus Prime is a little cooler than wearing a digital pirate patch or bobbing up and down with a fish face.

Browse Your Surroundings with Augmented Reality Browser

Pulkit Chandna — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 16:05:30 -0500

Scandinavian developer SPRX mobile has developed Layar, an augmented reality browser for 3G phones, which it claims is unprecedented. Despite the company’s we-have-the-first-AR-browser rant, Layar is in fact the world’s second AR browser. The first being Wikitude AR, which provides users with location-based Wikipedia and Qype content using the phone’s GPS, camera and compass. But Wikitude AR is certainly short on features when compared with Layar.

Layar lets users browse their milieu using their 3G handset’s GPS, compass and camera. It furnishes realtime information about the user’s surrounding, which is presented as screen overlays and can be used to find hotels, bars, ATMs, properties for sale, jobs and a lot more. The idea is that all that meets your phone’s camera has a story of its own. It is only available for Android devices in the Netherlands.

Marco Tempest Takes Augmented Reality to a Whole New Level of Cheesiness

Andy Salisbury — Fri, 01 May 2009 17:17:13 -0500

Marco Tempest, Illusionist and newly discovered augmented reality guru, has recently put together a video showcasing his latest act, Augmented Reality Magic 1.0.

Tempest’s implementation of augmented reality allows observers of his act to view the routine through his eyes, with the assistance of some computer animation (reportedly thanks to C++, OpenFrameworks, OpenCV, ARToolkitPlus, MacCam and “other open source goodies”). Throughout the trick he manages to bring forth a floating birthday cake, materialize a (shrunken down version of the) moon, and levitate cards in a most demonic fashion.

If you’d like to see it in action, be sure to check it out here.

Image Credit: Marco Tempest