Now Google is getting into mobile augmented reality with a mass-market game!

Google is launching an augmented reality massively multiplayer online role-playing game on its Android operating system. The game is called Ingress, which is a word that essentially mean “an entrance,” and looks to be played by using a phone to interact with the game and the real world around the player at the same time. It gets even weirder, though.

Players will choose between two sides, the Resistance or the Enlightened. The Ingress page in the Google Play store says the game is based around a “mysterious energy” which has been uncovered in Europe, and the two sides are fighting over what to do with it. The Resistance, as the name suggests, are against using the energy, but the Enlightened are totally psyched about it. Which side you choose comes down to how willing you are to embrace weird new forces in your life. If you read this site, we’re guessing you’d side with the weird new energy.

Due to the fact that the game is still in closed beta, we haven’t had our hands on it, but we did find a viral marketing site based around the site at nianticproject.com. The site has a lot of videos and pictures that probably tie in to the game somehow. It’s built to resemble an investigation board and it follows the work the character P.A. Chapeau is doing to research the game’s mysterious energy and something called The Niantic Project.

We’ve seen augmented reality games before, but it seems like this is trying something new in terms of scale. There are also games like Parallel Kingdom and Shadow Cities that are location-based games, but it seems like Ingress will integrate more true augmented reality features into the game. That could just be from the look of this slick trailer for the game, but it doesn’t show much real gameplay so we can’t be sure.

Another feature that might just be something from the video and not an actual part of the game is that most of the energy fields seem to correspond to pieces of public sculpture, so at the very least Ingress might be a good reason to go walk around a bit and look at some art.

(via Geeks Are Sexy)

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Meet Sharky the Beaver, one of the coolest tablet-games using augmented reality.

PRESS RELEASE

BOULDER, Colo., Nov. 16, 2012 – Orbotix, the makers of Sphero, the first robotic ball gaming system controlled by smartphones and tablets, today announced the release of their groundbreaking augmented reality app, Sharky the Beaver. “Using Sphero as the moving fiducial, games can now be created where characters come to life and roam around a user’s house to interact with the real world environment,” said Orbotix CEO Paul Berberian.

(video via Engadget)

The app, Sharky The Beaver, overlays a virtual beaver on top of Sphero. As users drive Sphero with their iOS device, Sharky comes to life and runs around the environment looking for cupcakes. The user can also rotate their device into portrait mode to toss cupcakes at Sharky as he autonomously runs around.

Vodafone’s first mobile Augmented Reality experience for VNZMA.

Great signal from Vodafone… they’ve launched an app using augmented reality. Judging from this video they’re using sound and image recognition to trigger AR content. I must admit that it’s not quite what I would have in mind for Vodafone but it is of course fantastic that they are using it at such a large campaign scale.

So 5 Stars for Vodafone!

Download the VNZMA 2011 app and bring your phone to life with some clever augmented reality. Plus see whos nominated for the awards, vote for the Vodafone People’s Choice Award and heaps more.

Check it out here http://play.vodafone.co.nz/music/vnzma/app

Lego’s new Augmented Reality game app Life of George

Ok ok… this might not be mobile augmented reality as you know it… But I’m sharing this concept with you anyway because I am convinced that the future of mobile augmented reality is all about the transformation “from search to discovery”.

Also I believe that the definition of mobile augmented reality will have a broader perspective in the future. At TAB Worldmedia we use the definition “Augmented Reality is there where the real World and digital World interact with each other”. In that perspective this app by Lego is very foreseeing.

We salute the Lego team once more… thank you for this great concept!

Dutch themepark the Efteling launches mobile augmented reality fairytale.

Today the magical World of fairytales has become even more magical. Today we launched the Worlds’ first mobile augmented reality fairytale for the Efteling and Rabobank.

However… I’m not gonna bore you with long stories now… just have a look at the promo video and let us know what you think!

If you have your mobile phone with you type in: http://m.efteling.com/rabokluis or scan this QR code…

We found proof that Nintendo 3DS is going to make Augmented Reality huge!

Just a couple of days before the launch of the Nintendo 3DS. In an earlier article that we posted in September of last year we explained how the Nintendo 3DS is one of the handsets that will bring augmented reality to the mass. Now that we see more and more expamples of AR usage with the device on the internet, our statement is underlined bigtime!

Now we found this hillarious video of a couple of guys who are already playing around with AR on the device and they proof that the Nintendo 3DS has huge potential for AR. Literally that is! 😉

Watch the video:

Nintendo 3DS will bring mobile augmented reality gaming to the mass.

As stated earlier we truly believe that mobile augmented reality will be the most powerful marketing tool of the near future. We’ve been talking to many handset manufacturers and also game console manufacturers to get a realistic view on what they are really doing to take mobile augmented reality to the mass.

Now Nintedo 3DS is openly showing us briefly how they’ve enabled mobile augmented reality on their new console. Sure it’s just a very simple example BUT the fact remains that if Nintendo enters the AR market with their DS consoles it is a great sign that mass reach will go even faster then expected.

See the example around 1:45 min.

Sony takes first steps into super cool Augmented Reality gaming!

I just had to share this great article by Kris Erickson, PS3 Informer with you.

Sitting alone in your room one night, a mysterious crack begins to form in your bedroom wall. The lights flicker ominously. Suddenly, an alien tentacle, belonging to some horrific monster, breaks through the crack. One exploratory tentacle and then another reach into the room, looking for prey. Sensing your movement, they sniff the air in your direction. Terrified, you jump to your feet and use the only thing at hand, an aluminum baseball bat, and begin landing blows on the arms as they dart around the room. Grabbing a ballpoint pen from your desk, you stab it deeply into one of the fleshy appendages and it quickly retreats from whence it came. Having survived another onslaught in the augmented reality game Parallax Shift, you hit the autosave on your PS4 and remove your goggles. Welcome to the future of augmented reality, coming very soon to a video game device near you.