Posts Tagged Disney
NAB 2010 Show Sets Super Augmented Reality Session
Posted by Tom Carpenter in augmented reality on April 6, 2010
I haven’t done many press releases as of late, but this one caught my eye due to the various partners involved–”Key Figures from Nokia Research Center, Total Immersion, Walt Disney Imagineering & More To Discuss Cutting-Edge Blend of Reality and Computer Generated Content.”
*** press release ***
WASHINGTON – The NAB Show, the annual conference and expo for professionals who create, manage and distribute entertainment across all platforms, has announced the participants in a Super Session titled “Augmented Reality: Entertainment Meets Ubiquitous Computing.” Augmented reality (AR) is an emerging form of experience in which the real world is enhanced by computer-generated content specific to a location and to an activity. The 2010 NAB Show takes place April 10-15, in Las Vegas, Nevada.
The panel will feature industry pioneers Rebecca Allen, director, Nokia Research Center; Gene Becker, managing director, Lightning Laboratories; Chetan Damani, founder and CEO, acrossair; Joe Garlington, creative vice president, interactive projects, Walt Disney Imagineering; and Bruno Uzzan, CEO and co-founder, Total Immersion. They will examine how augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and alternate reality games (ARG) provide new forms of entertainment and new ways of transmitting information by dissolving the boundaries between the real and the virtual.
New Amsterdam Media principal Seth Shapiro will serve as moderator. The session is produced in association with the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Foundation and takes place Monday, April 12 at 2:30 pm.
“Augmented reality is a concept that is beginning to change media, entertainment and marketing in tangible, exciting ways,” said Chris Brown, executive vice president, conventions & business operations for NAB Show. “We are very excited that this group of leaders in the space will be at NAB Show to share their groundbreaking work and insight into what’s next for content.”
Rebecca Allen is director of Nokia Research Center Hollywood and Nokia Research Center Cambridge, US. Allen previously directed the Emergence Project at UCLA, an Intel funded research effort involving artificial life, 3D virtual environments, augmented reality and unique interfaces. She was also creative director/executive producer and 3D visionary at Virgin Interactive Entertainment and a member of the world-renowned NYIT Computer Graphics Laboratory and MIT’s Architecture Machine Group.
Gene Becker is managing director of Lightning Laboratories, a professional services company focusing on strategy and action for the connected world of ubiquitous computing, augmented reality, social media and the Internet of things. Previously, Becker was a technical director at Hewlett-Packard, where he led advanced research and business development for Cooltown, a web-based platform for mobile and ubiquitous computing.
Chetan Demani is founder and CEO of acrossair, a company dedicated to building advanced iPhone games and augmented reality applications using the OpenGL library. Previously, Demani launched several successful companies in the internet space, including Imano, a full service interactive agency with clients such as Nestlé, Citibank and Hotels.com.
Joe Garlington is responsible for the creative development of all interactive attractions for Disney theme parks around the world. Garlington has overseen the creation and development of numerous interactive attractions, including “DisneyQuest,” an indoor interactive theme park that debuted in 1998 at Walt Disney World; “Turtle Talk with Crush”; “Stitch Encounter”; “Monsters, Inc. Laugh Floor”; the new post show for “Spaceship Earth”; and many more.
As CEO and co-founder, Bruno Uzzan in the driving force behind the growth of Total Immersion, the global leader in augmented reality and a pioneer in commercializing the technology. Based in Paris, Total Immersion maintains a presence in Los Angeles, London and Hong Kong, and has an impressive client roster that includes Mattel, McDonalds, Disney, Coca-Cola, Nike, Twentieth Century Fox and Nissan Motors.
Two-time Emmy® winner Seth Shapiro is a leader in the profitable application of new technology to emerging business models. He has managed digital media initiatives with Walt Disney Company, DIRECTV, Comcast, TiVo, Time Warner Cable, Showtime, HBO, STARZ, and many others, including a variety of startups, venture and private equity partners. Shapiro is principal of New Amsterdam Media, a partner at the Opportunity Management Company, and co-founder of Media Valuation Partners, a leading firm specializing in the economics of media, entertainment and emerging technologies.
About the 2010 NAB Show
The NAB Show will take place 10-15 April 2010 in Las Vegas (exhibits open 12 April). It is the world’s largest electronic media show covering filmed entertainment and the development, management and delivery of content across all mediums. Complete details are available at www.nabshow.com.
News media registration is now available online. Click here to register as press for the NAB Show.
About NAB
The National Association of Broadcasters is the premier advocacy association for America’s broadcasters. NAB advances radio and television interests in legislative, regulatory and public affairs. Through advocacy, education and innovation, NAB enables broadcasters to best serve their communities, strengthen their businesses and seize new opportunities in the digital age. Learn more at www.nab.org.
Popularity: 13% [?]
Total Immersion’s Ghost Hunting Experience
Posted by Tom Carpenter in augmented reality on December 16, 2009
Mark Pine, the keynote speaker from Disney Imagineering at ISMAR09, gave the audience compelling reasons why truly interactive experiences are the future of entertainment and the one I remember most was: “It’s about connecting with the user.”
Total Immersion has recently partnered with Hanwa Co. (Japan) to create a live action augmented reality video game that connects with the user in much the same way that Mark from Disney had displayed. Unlike the projection based AR system that Disney used, Total Immersion have their guests wear a backpack and wield a video gun to hunt ghosts in the fully explorable house earning points as they capture them.
“We’re demonstrating the magical ability of augmented reality to capture visitors’ attention and imagination,” said Bruno Uzzan, CEO, Total Immersion. “Guests experience real time interaction with augmented reality content — and are pulled into real life videogame, dynamically.”
More pictures can be seen on Total Immersion’s blog about AR and they recently uploaded this video to YouTube.
Total Immersion reports a high revisit rate with teens and gamers which bodes well for AR driven entertainment. Their AR entertainment experience makes me realize that the first real augmented reality HMDs won’t be bought by consumers, but instead will be used in malls and other family entertainment centers to create immersive gaming experiences like this ghost hunt.
As the technology becomes more robust with occlusion, better graphics, and faster tracking; the complexity of the games will grow. It’s not hard to imagine AR games like the one’s described in Larry Niven’s Dream Park taking over the laser tag centers in your local mall. We just won’t tell the kids that they’re really LARPing.
Popularity: 17% [?]
Interactive Entertainment using Augmented Reality
Posted by Tom Carpenter in Uncategorized on November 18, 2009
The use of augmented reality in our daily lives is still a few years away. The technology and business model hasn’t yet reached the point where it’s cheap enough for the masses.
The entertainment business is a different story as they’ve been using augmented reality for some time now. My eyes were opened during the keynote speech at ISMAR09 by Mark Mine, a Walt Disney Imagineering Director. They use AR in a variety of interesting and imaginative ways (well duh! they are Disney afterall.)
“Magic sand” interactive experience using projections on top of sand to create volcanos and playing with turtles.
KimPossible activity using hand-held comm units that led kids on a secret adventure through the park.
Building sized projections of ghosts during holidays like this video of Space Mountain on Halloween.
Mark also showed us some great scenic illusions using projectors on a live scene, but unfortunately I couldn’t find a video. What Mark showed us is how to use AR–right now–by concentrating on the user experience. The Imagineers had over 144 different degrees in their group, but he said the key was to have an art and communications background to go with the engineering. Keep that little factoid in mind all you wanna-be AR designers.
A couple of his best lines were, “Seeing is believing, but touching is truth,” or “It’s about connecting with the user.” The lesson I got from it for AR developers outside of the entertainment industry is to not forget the person using your new-fangled technology.
Mark wasn’t the only keynote speaker from the entertainment industry. Natasha Tsakos who plays Zero, a worker everyman stuck between dreams and reality, in her UP WAKE performance piece, also gave a keynote. Similar lessons can be learned from her experience as with the Disney talk.
Disney and UP WAKE are both big budget productions, but can the little guy use augmented reality to entertain? I don’t know much about the guy in this next video, but he’s giving it his best go.
Or if you’re looking for a company to develop a projection AR entertainment experience right now, then look no further than Globalzepp.
These days everyone is enamored of augmented reality on the smartphone, but we shouldn’t forget there are other ways of using the nascent technology in creative and innovative ways. Projection based AR still has a lot going for it in situations where it can reach a large audience.
Popularity: 24% [?]
A Few ISMAR09 Demos
Posted by Tom Carpenter in AR Games, augmented reality on October 25, 2009
There’s so much for me to talk about from ISMAR09 and I was only there for half of the conference. I have a half-dozen more posts sketched out for the next couple of weeks. I did get to attend the demo night on Monday which showcased the real hands-on applications of augmented reality. Gail Carmichael posted up a video of some of the demos, so I’ll try to expand on what was shown.
Sony EyePet Demo- Ever since I saw the trailer for this game, I’ve been wanting to own it. Even so much that I’m willing to buy a PS3. The ability for the camera to pick up hand motions was impressive. In the video, he’s bouncing the head of an AR bobble-head doll to make bubbles come out and tickling the monkey with his fingertips. As a game, its mostly a cute demonstration of the technology that aims at the 3-8 year old market (and AR enthusiasts), but it’s a precursor of bigger things. In the future, motion capture will be the new controller.
The Tank and Kid Demo – This one showed how virtual objects and real ones can interact in a seamless manner. Once again this technology will be best used in games, but it could bleed over into many other applications.
Shooter VR/AR Demo – Notice I’m not using the real demo names because I’m not even sure what “Computing Alpha Mattes in Real-Time for Noisy Mixed Reality Video Streams” means. Unfortunately, its hard to get a feel for what this demo did from the video. The video makes it look like a cross between Max Headroom and a VR game. In some ways, that’s all it was, because it used blue screen technology to mix in virtual reality dioramas with the player. I found it interesting when the player would look at the area at the edge of both the real and the virtual. I got a real sense of how these two realities can mix together at the edges. Let’s hope they can figure out how to do this without the blue screen.
ProFORMA Rapid Model Acquisition - Here’s one I can almost understand from the abstract title. The program creates 3D models in real-time which is mind blowing. The downside is you need to rotate the object around for the camera to pick up the object, but the usage has crazy possibilities. It won the Best Demo for a good reason. Mix the ProFORMA with other technologies like photosynth and we can achieve a 3D mapping of the world in rapid (4-5 years) time. More on ProFORMA here.
Animatronic Shader Lamps Avatars - I would have been more impressed by this demo if Mark Mine from the Disney Imagineers hadn’t explained this same technology during his talk. Regardless, it grabbed attention because they had a comic as the face making fun of passerbys.
Thanks to Gail Carmichael who took the video and also posted more pictures about it on her blog. I sat next to her during the Disney keynote while she took tons of pictures with her giant expensive looking camera and uploaded them to her Flickrstream. I had total camera envy and was afraid she’d laugh at my tiny phone camera. Cheers to you Gail for helping put on a great ISMAR and taking fantastic pictures.
Popularity: 26% [?]
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