Homo sapiens are visual creatures. We receive 75% of our information through our eyes. Explaining how to do something can be tedious and inefficient. Augmented reality offers a visual medium for explanation. This quick demo on how to assemble a LEGO tower using ARToolKit illustrates how effective this technique can be. If you don’t believe me, give a friend a pile of LEGOs and then try to explain how to create the tower in the video. Time your result and compare it. I’ll guarantee the AR method will win.

A group of students at the National University of Singapore has developed an AR game similar to Sim City using VRML and ARToolKit.

Virtual Sandbox is an educational software targeted at kids between the ages of 4-6. It provides children with an interactive learning environment for the learning of English vocabulary. By combining the concepts of Sim City, Flash Cards and Augmented Reality technology, we demonstrate how the bene?ts of both tangible and non-tangible interactions can be merged to create a fun, game-like learning experience for young children.

As a University project it gets high marks.  The controls wouldn’t be suitable for an older age group since using a PlayStation or Wii controller is more natural to kids these days.  But the younger crowd is more willing to move things around with their hands.  These types of games will need to move to gesture based controls like the EyePet  if they want to be commercialized. 

Think you know everything there is to know about augmented reality?  Well, prove it and take the augmented reality pop quiz. 

If you’re proud of your score, post the results on twitter with the hashtag #arpopquiz or in the comment section if you don’t use Twitter.  Thanks to Rouli who helped me with some of the questions.  The answers are further down the page, so you’ll have to scroll down to see them.  No peaking!  And if you quibble with the answer, just give yourself the points because this quiz is on the honor system. 

One point per correct answer.

The AR Pop Quiz

1) Who coined the term augmented reality?  

2) Name three “reality browsers”? 

3) Name four companies in the AR consortium. 

4) What three components does AR need to function?

5) Within how many meters is GPS accurate on an iPhone? 

6) Who created the ARToolKit? 

7) Who’s augmented reality magic trick created tons of buzz?

8 ) What was the first iPhone AR app to be available on the app store with OS3.1?

9) What types of companies have used AR in marketing the most?

10) What is the yearly AR conference?

11) How many years has it been happening under its current name?

12) Where will it be next year?

13) Name a fictional book that used AR?

14) What article of clothing should you wear when making an AR video?

15) Who developed the first AR interface? 

16) What well known anime show features AR? 

17) Who owns the patent on AR? 

18) Which company did the AR consortium write an open letter to?

19) Name three HMD companies?

20) What’s the name of the AR game from Georgia Tech?

The AR Pop Quiz Answers

1) Tom Caudell

2) Wikitude, Layar, Juniao

3) Int13, Metaio, Mobilizy, Neogence Enterprises, Ogmento, SPRX Mobile, Tonchidot, Total Immersion, YDreams, and Zugura.

4) Sensor, overlay and tracker

5) 3m

6) Hirokazu Kato

7) Marco Tempest

8 ) Yelp / Monocle

9) Car companies

10)  ISMAR

11) Eight

12) South Korea

13) Rainbows’ End, Halting State, (see this post for more)

14) Pink Hoodie

15) Sutherland

16) Denno Coil

17)  No one (trick question!)

18) Apple

19) Vuzix, Microvision, Lumus

20) Arhrrrr

Dedicated fans are powerful forces.  A super-fan will collect every commercial product of an imaginary character because they enjoy the break from their normal everyday reality. 

This video is a combination of a few other videos made about Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha.  Interestingly, we never actually see Nanoha Takamachi in the video.  Instead we see someone wielding all the weapons and powers that Nanoha possesses in the show.

This is the allure of video games of popular imaginary heroes.  People want to be the hero for a time.  Experience the extraordinary. 

Normal video games allow you to play the character on the screen.  Augmented reality will give the oppertunity to “be” the character on the screen.  The company that does that will bring to legions of fans to the technology.