How iPhone 4 Could Change Augmented Reality

When Apple announced iOS 4.0 earlier this year, some additions to the SDK (software development kit) caught the attention of augmented reality (AR) developers – specifically, open access to the phone’s camera APIs. But with the introduction of the new hardware in the iPhone 4 made this past Monday, the possibilities for AR on the popular smartphone have skyrocketed. Today I had the opportunity to chat about the device’s impact on AR with Stefan Misslinger, lead iPhone developer for metaio, one of the leading AR companies and makers of the mobile AR browser junaio.

(source: Read Write Web)

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.

The Rolling Stones have plunged into augmented reality.

This is awesome! The Rolling Stones have plunged into augmented reality, waking up the music industry to this new way of interacting with fans. Stones fans will able to fly-post their streets, homes or offices with virtual interactive posters of the rock icons. And if that isn’t enough… this augmented reality experience is also pioneering in the field of social media by making an integrated crossover to Facebook!

Here’s how it works

The app is the first of its kind in the world and was built by Howard Ogden of Augment Reality in conjunction with Polydor Records to celebrate the succe­­ss of the recently re-released Stones’ masterpiece Exile on Main St.

World Championship Layar ‘Soccer Tweeps’ driving overtime!

Since TAB Worldmedia launched the augmented reality Layar “Soccer Tweeps” a few week ago it has been a great succes. It started out as an experiment to see if we could integrate certain filters in the immensely popular social media Layar “Tweeps Around” to filter out geo tagged tweets about soccer and the world championships and it works great!

What is remarkable is that lots of women are tweeting about soccer… and in many casus when we log in we find more women then men!

I just looked around again and it blew my mind how may people tweet about soccer. It is fantastic… and looking at the stats… lost of Layar fans think so too.

Go to Layar on your phone and look for “Soccer Tweeps” or click on this link: http://m.layar.com/open/soccertweeps

Shocking statements by so called industry leaders on mobile Augmented Reality.

Just got hold of a new digital bulletin on augmented reality with some really shocking quotes from CEO’s, strategy directors of international companies that think AR is a fad. I was just amazed to hear the managing partner digital of Leo Brunett say things like “..it is a great platform for information, other then that I personally am not pushing it and think its a bit of a crock.” Tim O’Neill, MD of Reactive thinks it will run out of steam. Simon Baker, CEO of classified Ad ventures thinks its gimmicky and not something that you would use everyday.

Luckily Wendy Hogan, VP and MD of CBS interactive can’t see how it’s a Fad and Joe Talcott, Group director of marketing – News Limited states “It will be big, it will be commercial and it will be profitable.” And hurray for Peter Williams – CEO Delloite Digital and David Burden – Group CEO Webfirm Group, for their final words in the bulletin by saying it has potential because they see commercial possibilities.

Future talk

Offcourse these are all primary responses to what most mobile AR apps. currently offer. They are stand alone apps with limited imaginative experience and informational content. Time for “Welcome to the Future” to add some vision to this story. Did you for example know that augmented reality browsing is the new form of browsing for the near future? I will explain why: A.R. browsing will not just be available on a stand alone AR browser designed for just one piece of information or gimmic but integrated in the way you use your phone for browsing.

Worldcup 2018, FIFA rules and AR

The whole Dutch Dress incident with the Orange dressed-up ladies keeps the media busy, as today the major Dutch newspaper opens with an article on the FIFA rules and how The Netherlands will facilitate them if the championship is to be held in this country [Dutch]: Nederland is voor het WK bereid veel te geven.

The gist is that there will be an advertising free zone of 2 kms around the stadiums, where only the main sponsor will be allowed to advertise, and that the Dutch police will assist in maintaining these rules.

It is ironic that this – pretty detailed – policy is communicated today, just when the Orange Dress prank was taken to virtual Augmented Reality space in the Durban stadium.

Orange dress babes back in South Africa!

As we all know the orange dress babes from beer brand Bavaria were escorted out of the stadium and even arrested several times in South Africa. The beer brand then decided that it was enough and told the promotion babes to get on a plane and come back home.

The Dutch fans of the Orange dress babes were NOT amused by this. So augmented reality agency TAB Worldmedia and Skreenz decided to team-up and put the Orange dress babe back on the centrepoint in the Moses Mabhida Stadium in South Africa and the in the Amsterdam Arena. Fans of the Orange dress babes see her by using their Layar augmented reality browser and look under the Local tab.

Or use this mobile Layar link http://layar.com/open/orangedress

Layar’s News Round-up from its Anniversary Event

We proudly celebrated Layar’s first anniversary with fans, developers, publishers and partners in Amsterdam. We shared insights, facts, distribution agreement news, content announcements and API updates. Major announcements included a strategic partnership with Kooaba for image recognition, and the introduction of AR messaging with Floaticons. To top it off the new Layar video was premiered.

Layar founders, Raimo van der Klein, Claire Boonstra and Maarten Lens-FitzGerald were joined on stage by CTO Dirk Groten and head of customer development, Matt Miesnieks. This post will detail all announcements and news from todays event.

AR Business card (via James Alliban)

Just wanted to share this with you.

I read the blog post of James Alliban and he wrote the folowing: Inspired by this guy, I just got a fresh batch of business cards from moo.com. There’s not really enough space on a business card to explain yourself in any detail so I thought I’d extend it using augmented reality. I recorded a short video bio and created a 3D grid of coloured planes. These planes are updated with the colours from the video and extruded depending on the level of brightness.

Layars’ most popular “social augmented reality app.” Tweeps Around now available in the Android marketplace.

I just got word from Johannes la Poutre that he launched a wicked new app. a few days ago on the 27th of April. It is a direct launcher for Layars’ number one “social augmented reality app.” Tweeps Around. The launcher is an icon that you can place on the home screen of your mobile phone so you can access the Tweeps Around layer directly. I think this might be one of the next big thing that augmented reality developers will go after. So I asked Johannes what the next innovation in these so called “launchers” will be.

Johannes: “We’re experimenting with all sorts of ways to launch augmented reality layers directly: Basic launcher apps., Pro. launcher apps with sound and visuals (so called splash screens), direct links on mobile websites, buttons within existing android and iPhone apps.)”