Here’s something fresh from Google’s oven: the Google Goggles app for Android phones. Despite my let down when I realized they weren’t real Goggles, this is a mark of things getting interesting. Mobile AR apps are mutating and shifting into various forms and possibilities of the tech are certainly starting to form a big picture in the heads of developers. It’s here to stay allright.
The image recognition tech sounds exciting—image search and recognition in real time! I wouldn’t be surprised to see Google and Apple go heads on in a bloodsport match as they race towards the AR advertising market (incidentally bringing with them a wave of exciting apps and even AR goggle interfaces. Real ones.).
But, it’s best to let the video do the talking (read: I’m lazy). Here’s Google Goggles.
My Reykjavik University Aperio advisor surprised me yesterday when he mentioned how cool I was in that YouTube video. I had no idea what the hell he was going on about and made an expression similar to those in surprise-photo-shoots. As the expression wore off he explained my brother had uploaded a video of my visit to the MIT Media Lab in 1993. At the time he was working on multi-modal AI systems, which I happily agreed to test—the result of which is in the video below =)
The Advanced Human Interface Group (AHIG), MIT Media Lab. The ICONC System, demonstrated by Hrafn Th. Thorisson, Summer 1993. The system enabled the use of co-occurring, natural speech and gesture to interactively describe the arrangement and movements of objects in a room. The computer would interpret the user’s actions and figure out which objects the user was talking about and how to arrange them based on spatial information in the user’s speech and gesture. [Excerpt from the YouTube description, continued below]
The main authors of this work were David Koons (spatial knowledge, multimodal integration) and Carlton Sparrell (gesture recognition), directed by Richard A. Bolt. This technology is described in part in the paper “Integrating simultaneous input from speech, gaze, and hand gestures” by D B Koons, C J Sparrell, K R Thorisson (1993).
UPDATE (Oct. 30th, 2009): The article stated, wrongly, that this took place in 1994. This has been corrected.
The now famed Layar announced yesterday that it’s planning a major addition to their augmented reality platform: an ability to view 3D objects, animation and place 3D tags on buildings, etc. The addition is scheduled to be released in November, allowing 500+ developers to play with it through API.
Looks like Layar is going to keep their lead in the field; from their press release:
Layar 3D makes use of OpenGL, the accelerometer, the GPS and the compass of the phone. Developers can place 3D objects in their content layers based on coordinates. Objects can be optimized in size and orientation to create an immersive and realistic experience. The 3D capabilities support live downloading and rendering of 3D objects. Actions such as “open link” or “play music” can be assigned to 3D objects. [Press release]
Looking forward to early results from the minds of their developers. Embedded videos after the jump
Finally. An augmented reality application of superb execution. Layar is a Google Android OS application and an iPhone 3G S version on its way. Publicly announced on June 14th by Dutch company SPRXMobile. Many AR apps have hit the scene since Wikitude AR Travel Guide first appeared in November 2008—but Layar ups the stakes by being able to hide and show different types of information.
Kweekies is a new augmented reality game that’s tuned to hit iPhones, Nokia Smartphones and Windows Mobile sometime this summer.
Created by int13 the game is marker based (meaning that the software uses pattern on a paper to know how the world is oriented) and features some cute cuddly Pokémon-styled creatures that you train and control (to fight). See the embedded videos below.
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Augmenting reality to ignore reality
Love of the AR concept leaves me blind to shortcomings, but my girlfriend stayed vigilant and posed an observation: How does AR enhance this particular game? And she’s spot on.
Other than providing a flat surface, the real, physical environment plays no part at all in Kweekies’ gameplay. Making that surface virtual would provide more or less the same experience and remove the need to lug around a fragile piece of paper with inkblots on it (can it even be folded without producing errors?). But it does look cool, I’ll give it that. The portal concept and design is nice even though it looks like it’s just bling. Maybe Valve could do something functional there.
Is augmented reality in virtual reality’s footsteps?
This does beg the question whether primitive AR implementations will cause people to write them off as ‘cool… but pointless‘, thereby slowing down AR development. After all, that happened to virtual reality in the 1990’s: creating viable consumer products was impossible but we still made some primitive demos that spread hype like a nuclear shockwave. Time passed. The only things that remained exciting were machines with sky-high pricetags that even game arcades could hardly afford. Public demand decreased and VR R&D crawled out of sight and into the shadowy corners of labs, hospitals, military bases. By the time we had everything to make killer consumer products (ca. 2005)—people had lost all interest.
But maybe the masses will love all AR applications regardless? They’re cool, there will be others like Wikitude that’ll do practical stuff. One of the most popular iPhone games is a ‘yo momma’ joke generator. So who knows?
This robot, named Motoman-SDA10, is a versatile humanoid industrial robot currently on display at the International Next-Generation Robot Fair. He’s intended to serve both at the factory or at a workplace alongside humans. It’s an industrial robot so I couldn’t find any indication of vision, hearing or other sensors to make it more aware of its environment, so we can expect it to work in safe distance from humans until one of us provides that Change He Needs.
It’s been a while since the last post and I’m afraid it’s going to be like that for some time, mainly due to business, school and of course our dreaded economic uncertainties. It’s rare that I simply sit down and post, I usually mull over things for a few days and read up on the subject. But between the upcoming US elections and Iceland’s economic canary-in-the-mine situation, there hasn’t been much left to fuel my writing. So for now we’ll have to settle for slim posts.
Now, the Wikitude AR Travel Guide, created by Mobilizy, is an augmented reality application for the G1/Google Android. Judging from the video demonstration, the graphical overlay is quite a few notches smoother than Enkin.
According to Mobilizy’s website Wikitude should already available—but I didn’t find it in the Android Market, and the few 3rd party reviewers I looked at didn’t showcase the AR function. Perhaps there are two versions? In any case, reality is inching closer to augmentation.
This fantastic robot is the third in a series of robots designed at Case Western Reserve University’s biorobotics lab. Make sure you have a look at their site which contains more information and pictures.
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Check out this really amazing animation artwork done through a web interface to the ContextFree.js library created by Aza Raskin, a port of the open source application by Chris Coyn. It provides means of creating beautiful generative art with minuscule amounts of code. Make sure you watch it to the end where the Sierpiński triangle is generated with 3 lines of code.
I don’t care that it’s Star Wars oriented – playing music with a floppy drive is awesome. Can we top that? Wouldn’t know how to measure it, but click through to hear the floppy drive, a singing scanner and a whole band played with a HDD.
This robot, named Motoman-SDA10, is a versatile humanoid industrial robot currently on display at the International Next-Generation Robot Fair. He’s intended to serve both at the factory or at a workplace alongside humans. It’s an industrial robot so I couldn’t find any indication of vision, hearing or other sensors to make it more aware of its environment, so we can expect it to work in safe distance from humans until one of us provides that Change He Needs. 
