::.. AMIRE - authoring mixed reality ..:: I.document » Blog Archive » TwittARound. The First Augmented Reality Star Wars Game, Falcon Gunner, Hits The App Store. Star Wars and video games go hand-in-hand. There is a long line of Star Wars-themed games going back to the days of arcade games, and continuing through home console and mobile games. Now, the first augmented reality Star Wars game for the iPhone just hit the app store. It is called Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner ($4.99, iTunes link). The game starts with the scene from the original Star Wars inside the Millennium Falcon after they escape the Death Star and the TIE Fighters attack. The game also has an augmented reality mode which replaces the computer graphics background with your camera view. Falcon Gunner is licensed from Lucasfilm and published by THQ Wireless, but it was designed and developed by Vertigore Games, a startup incubated at Futurity Ventures.
Star Wars Arcade is not a two or three-man effort. Up until now augmented reality apps have been nothing more than cool gimmicks. 3 Reasons Why Games Are The Killer App For Augmented Reality. We all are great believers in the potential of Augmented Reality (AR). Within the next 10 years, we say, it will totally change the way we interact with the world. But what industry will be the first to bring AR to the masses?
When you co-found a company that focuses on Augmented Reality games – and especially – when it secures an investment from a venture capital firm – you have some deeper explaining to do. Here are 3 key (business) reasons why games will be the first industry to spearhead augmented reality into the mainstream: Reason #1 Games are the killer app for emerging technologies Games Accelerate the Adoption of New Technologies by the Mainstream Games have a history of pushing the envelop of new technologies and bringing new inventions to the masses: computer graphics, memory, silicon, screens, 3D animation, interactive story telling, immersion…and the list goes on and on.
Nolan Bushnell (the legendary founder of Atari) wrote back in 1996: Was the first PC a video game console? Augmented Reality Event - Home. Augmented Reality Treasure Hunt. Adidas Originals - Augmented Reality Sneaker Experience. AR Games « The Future Digital Life. System Flaw – first augmented reality game for DSi. 16 Top Augmented Reality Business Models. As promised a more specific ‘commercial’ follow up to my previous post on this topic which was more ‘story’ centric.
I am developing & producing a range of Augmented Reality (or if you prefer AR, ‘blended or layered media’) applications at the moment. I have also been asked to present at a few conferences and create a detailed white paper on the implications of AR for government & business looking at privacy, legal, copyright & crime issues. As readers of this blog will know I also lecture, run workshops & work with creative teams to come up with future ‘social entertainment’ based around virtual worlds and augmented reality.
But the purpose of this short post is to simply list and try to categorise the many types of business Augmented Reality apps appearing in the market. Information, 3D models or live action blended with or overlaid onto the physical world in real time. Augmented Reality Business by Gary Hayes Some examples: CISCO’s future of shopping BMW Future of Car repairs. ARTag. Augmented Reality is Rounded Corners. Posted on September 9, 2009 by rouli Earlier today, Thomas Carpenter posted this video and asked whether the augmented reality mode adds anything to the application. The answer is probably not. In my opinion we are seeing AR evolving into a cool feature for location based services, much like rounded corners was the cool thing to have if you were a web 2.0 application.
Yes, in some applications, like Layar and Wikitude, augmented reality is currently a major feature, but in the long run its the location-oriented content they should focus on, not on how to present it. Having augmented reality as just another cool feature is not a bad thing. It can actually be the thing that saves it from following the same path that virtual reality went by. Or maybe I’m just reading too much into a Youtube video. Like this: Like Loading... Filed under: Uncategorized. iPhone 3.1: Some Nice Tweaks - Augmented Reality Still Only Semi-Supported.
At its annual iPod event today, Apple introduced version 3.1 of the iPhone OS for the iPhone and iPod touch. While there are a number of small tweaks and new features in this update, for the most part, the new firmware enables support for the new features that iTunes 9 introduced today, including Genius mixes and premade ringtones. One feature we were really looking for, support for augmented reality (AR) apps, will only be semi-supported in this new version, though at least some AR apps that were previously impossible to implement on the iPhone will now be feasible.
Together with the iTunes 9 update, the iPhone 3.1 firmware now allows users to download over 30,000 ringtones for four major labels at $1.29 each. iTunes 9 also finally introduces a better way to manage and rearrange apps on the iPhone or touch. In addition, iPhone and iPod touch users can now tap into the Genius Mixes that iTunes 9 introduced today. What About Augmented Reality? Apple's List. How AR Browsers Should Be… Posted on September 7, 2009 by rouli Frankly, I got tired with AR browsers. When Wikitude first launched I was excited. When Layar came out the whole blogosphere was thrilled. But now (only a couple of months after Layar went public), I’m feeling quite jaded. Apparently, I’m not the only one harboring those feelings. Rather than inventing the next (10th?) While AR in general is from a first person perspective, Mulloni looked into extending it with panoramic and bird’s-eye perspectives, in order to enhance the user’s understanding of its surrounding.
In his paper, Mulloni finds that such smooth transition into other perspectives can really help the user. Like this: Like Loading... Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | GPS and Compass, Research, Tourism and Outdoors, TU Graz. GoT - iPods, iPhones & iTunes - Bekijk bericht. Met de ‘Sekai Camera’ kun je je camera op een interessante plaats of object richten en krijg je direct feedback op je scherm in de vorm van reviews, berichten, aanbiedingen of tags die een grafische laag vormen over de fysieke wereld (een ‘graphical overlay’). Tonchidot noemt de camera een ‘social tagging device’ voor de iPhone. Het combineert een aantal functies van de iPhone: de camera, GPS en de internetverbinding. Allereerst bepaalt de ingebouwde GPS van de iPhone waar je je bevindt. Vervolgens kun je informatie ontvangen over plaatsen en objecten om je heen, geprojecteerd (overlaid) in een real-time video. Tevens kun je zelf informatie toevoegen.
Bron: Frankwatching.com. The Wall Has Fallen: 3 Augmented Reality Apps Now Live in iPhone App Store. First Paris Metro, then Yelp, now London Buses. The newest is even selling database layers through in-app purchases. It has been widely reported that the API required to display Augmented Reality (AR) layers of data on top of the camera view of a non-jailbroken iPhone 3Gs would not be publicly exposed until the launch of the next version of the iPhone Operating System, expected this Fall. Many developers are patiently waiting, but some have now found a way around the restriction. We just received word of the 3rd AR-enabled app hitting the iTunes store.
Earlier this week we reported on Paris Metro Subway as being apparently the first AR-enabled app to be accepted into iTunes. The London Bus app is even selling data sets through in-app purchases. It is now possible to add new Point of Interest (POI) databases to London Bus application via in-app purchase. This AR economy is moving faster than we expected. Can Apple now fairly deny other apps that seek to bring AR to the iPhone?
RobotVision: A Bing-powered iPhone Augmented Reality Browser. Bing Local Search has some interesting features you won’t find in Google, so the prospect of seeing Bing listings appear on top of your iPhone’s camera viewer when you point at a restaurant or business is intriguing. That’s what forthcoming iPhone app RobotVision offers – and it displays a view of Tweets and Flickr photos published nearby wherever you are. RobotVision is a new Augmented Reality (AR) app for the iPhone 3Gs. It’s not available yet, but it will be as soon as AR apps are formally welcomed into the App Store by Apple, probably sometime next month. AR browsers “turn the world inside out” by exposing latent online information about your surroundings; there will soon be enough of them that they will compete based on user experience.
RobotVision looks like it could be a good one. RobotVision was built by Portland, Oregon’s Tim Sears, a developer at a major PR firm by day and a side-project innovator by night. Does that mean that AR browsers will be commodities? UX and AR. Augmented Reality Games. Workshop approach Participants will design and construct a prototype of an Augmented Reality Game using the ARToolkit. Interaction between the virtual and the physical will be the focus of the games. The rules of the games are determined by the space programmed into the software, by the space accessible in reality, and by the creativity and persistence of the players. The morning sessions center on input from workshop trainers. Every afternoon the participants work on their own workshop projects. The workshop closes with a public presentation in which the issues are discussed and the results are shown.
Materials We'll be working with the ARToolkit. Explore the website. Basic 3d modelling will be done with Blender , the opensource 3D modelling suite. Trainers Klaas Kuitenbrouwer workshop designer, new media lecturer, and game designer for Oorbeek Workshop Report door Jelle van der Ster, Klaas Kuitenbrouwer Wat kan je ermee? IPhone Augmented Reality Apps Expected in September. The dazzling new trend of “augmented reality” mobile applications, software that puts layers of information on top of a mobile device’s camera viewer, is something that’s left iPhone owners feeling out of luck. Now one company developing such an app says Apple has said the technology required will be officially enabled in the next version of the iPhone OS – which is expected out in September.
Developers are able to access the necessary controls in the phone illicitly, but when Apple offers a stable and official Application Programming Interface (API) for layering data over the camera viewer – that’s going to be game changing. The particular app in question is a subway route finder that shows route signs when you point your phone one direction or another. The list of possibilities is long, though, so we hope this September date is for real. The rumor was first unearthed on Friday by Mark Milian of the LA Times: We’ve written extensively about Augmented Reality before. Iphonearkit - Project Hosting on Google Code. Augmented Reality: Here's Our Wishlist of Apps, What's On Yours?
There’s another dimension present, everywhere we go, that a growing number of technologists are working to uncover. These people aren’t talking about theoretical physics or a magical world of fairies and gnomes – they’re talking about information that could offer more context to traditionally physical lived experience. Augmented Reality (AR) is the phrase being used and this practice of making layers of data available on top of real world experiences could be a big one soon. Improvements in geolocation, bandwidth, mobile devices and APIs are the foundation of this feeling that a useful Augmented Reality may be more realistic today than ever before.
AR isn’t new, but it’s been pretty hokey so far. Place Data The most common dreams for AR are probably concerning historical and other data about locations. How did this man make friends in the first place? Find My Keys or Car Shopping! Face Recognition and People Search The person next to you…is a zombie. Control-F For Offline Print What About You? Open Letter to Apple: Let us Augment Reality with the iPhone! A letter sent to Apple Developer Relations. Dear Apple, We are a collection of augmented reality (AR) enthusiasts and professionals (from business and academia), who have been working on a multitude of AR apps for the iPhone. These apps are poised to change the way people interact with the real world. But here is the rub: we are currently unable to publish these apps on the app store because the iPhone SDK lacks public APIs for manipulating live video. We are asking Apple to provide a public API to access live video in real time, on the iPhone. We will be happy to offer additional technical details.
The impact of augmented reality (AR) on our lives could be as significant as the introduction of the PC. Looking back just a few years, AR pioneers had to hack a slew of components into ridiculously large backpacks and HUDs, and be confined to rigged environments. Here is how augmented reality could open up new opportunities for the iPhone this year: Arf (Georgia Tech) ARghhhh (Georgia Tech) Home | Augmented Vision. Top 10 augmented reality demos that will revolutionize video games.
Augmented Reality (AR) has the potential to do something parents can’t: free gamers from their couches and usher them into the real world, to play. ***UPDATE***if you find this interesting – check out the recent post Top AR Games of All Time. Here is my countdown of the top 10 best AR demos poised to revolutionize video games: 10. Human Pac Man When Dr. 9. In 2006 the Come Out & Play Festival turned New York City into a playground for a weekend, then did the same for the city of Amsterdam in 2007. None of the games played in the festival made it to my top ten list – individually. 8. Tobias Lang and Blair MacIntyre (GA Tech) give us an extraordinary glance at what happens when the virtual world “leaks” into the real world. The world is the battlefield, your phone is your weapon. 6. “Magical monsters appear from shadows cast by the hands of participants, reacting to gestures with sound and animation. 5.
What if everyone could overlay reality with their own virtual creation? 4. 3. 2. 1.