Posts Tagged iPhone
Dell Tablet Mini 5 For Augmented Reality
Posted by Tom Carpenter in augmented reality on February 27th, 2010
While the Apple iPad Tablet announcement last month was disappointing for augmented reality developers and enthusiasts, the details about the upcoming Dell Tablet will make you salivate.
The Mini 5 will have a five inch touchscreen with both front and user facing cameras allowing full augmented reality capabilities. WiFi and 3G connectivity allow enough bandwidth and the 1.0 GHz Snapdragon Qualcomm processor will give the Mini 5 the juice it needs to power resource-expensive AR apps. It’ll run the latest version of the Android OS which gives it AR credentials right away since there are many apps already made for that system.
The price plan will affect the market that it’s trying to fill, though Dell says they will price it “competitively”. But I don’t think I could have asked for better features from a tablet for augmented reality. The weight of the device might impact AR since holding it up will be harder than a smartphone and since it’s a touchscreen, will you want to hold it with one hand and navigate with the other? I hope some AR developers can incorporate voice commands into their games and products.
And while the screen might be too small in this version, they have eluded to a suite of tablet products so maybe a larger iPad sized version might come out in the future. Personally, I already have a free smartphone from work, so a tablet that does different things on a bigger screen would be appealing to me.
Will this be a killer device for AR? Probably not. But it’ll give developers a bigger landscape to play on and increase the number of AR devices on the market. The front facing camera certainly makes is a no-brainer for video conferencing. Just add some facial recognition and you can talk to your kids while out on the road with bunny ears attached to your head.
[Via Wired]
Popularity: 8% [?]
10 Worst Uses of Augmented Reality in 2009
Posted by Tom Carpenter in AR Games, augmented reality on December 20th, 2009
Tis the season to reflect and review the year that’s about the scuttle its caboose into 2010. It’s been a huge year for augmented reality after decades of R&D, finally hitting the public’s awareness. Unfortunately, not all applications of the nascent technology showcased its possibilities. Instead, some slapped it into use without careful forethought and understanding of why augmented reality will be one of the most important technological aspects of our collective futures.
So I present what I believe are the 10 worst uses of augmented reality in 2009. I’m only looking at the commercial applications of AR, because R&D should be given the freedom to test code without stringent use-cases to guide its development. And often the commercial AR was bad because it was rushed onto market in a lame attempt to cash in on growing hype.
10. Hangman
While I never found an actual release of this game, the demo alone at the Tampa Internet and Technology Summit 2009 made me grimace in pain. Hopefully HD Interactive scuttled their AR plans after this demo and redrew their strategy. When I first saw this video, it inspired me to write this post.
9. Firefighter 360
The “360″ in the name is appropriate because you’ll be spinning in circles putting out fires. This app is similar to many others released that have a live camera feed, but don’t actually connect to any real world objects. The fires and firetrucks are reached through a console controller style interface. To really be AR, I would expect players to have to move around.
8. Mosquitoes
The description for the game reads — “This fun game uses the compass and accelerometer for a super realistic ‘augmented reality’ effect.” If you have to use the word super for your game, then you’re probably not going to be successful. If the mosquitoes actually landed on me or I had to move around the room to attack them, that would be cool, but once again the only thing I’m getting out of this game is dizziness.
7. Arcade Reality
Another AR shooter that could be played in a virtual environment for the same effect as the augmented one. They at least get points for multiple game play modes.
6. Dodge Avenger AR Campaign
As Rouli has been chronicling, augmented reality for selling cars jumped the shark last spring. Dodge didn’t get the memo and released this PC based campaign last month.
5. Virtual Makeup
Games Alfresco found this scary gem of an AR video in its Not Ready for Primetime post. We’ve seen lots of compelling try-on kiosks for other products like shirts, hats and jewelry, but turning your customers into scary clowns probably isn’t a great idea.
4. Avon Perfume
I’ll be the first to admit I could be missing something in the translation, but didn’t anyone tell Avon that perfumes smell and augmented reality is primarily about vision? And how many people sit around posing pictures with their perfume bottles.
3. Twitter 360
This one is more about timing and scope than anything. The Twitter 360 app received much press including this spot on the Augmented Planet, but that same week, Layar came out with its 3.0 version which made Twitter layers possible within its browser. The lifespan of these narrowly focused apps are going to become shorter and shorter as the reality browsers and big name companies like Google get into the game.
2. Best Buy Campaign
I could have picked from any number of paper marker based augmented reality campaigns, there were a ton of them this year, but I chose Best Buy from last spring as the unlucky example.
1. Always Feminine Hygiene Ad
An epic fail for so many reasons. Besides being a typical paper-based marker campaign, the use of augmented reality had no tie-in with the feminine hygiene product. The usage was so bad I had to rant about it in July.
There we have it, ten of the worst uses of augmented reality in 2009. While augmented reality is on the rise and many applications are impressive uses of the technology, we still have quite a few stinkers in the bunch. Usually the culprit is misunderstanding of the technology or rushing it to the public without deciding if its actually fixing anything. Blake Collins from OneZeroThrice expanded on this trend in his post about Who is, and Who Isn’t Augmented Reality.
And because I’m a nice guy, if you made it to my 10 worst list or you want to stay off of it for next year, I’m offering up my post about the 10 Things Your AR App Must Have to Succeed to help you mend your errant ways. I wrote it in anticipation of the over-hyped iPhone 3.1 OS, but it can be applied to any usage of the technology. While its certain there are misguided plans hatching at corporate conference rooms all over the world right now that will make us groan and roll our eyes at their attempts at augmented reality, I’m buoyed by the knowledge that it only takes a few proper applications to change the world.
Popularity: 46% [?]
Nexus One Will Take Augmented Reality To The Next Level
Posted by Tom Carpenter in augmented reality on December 15th, 2009
The details about the recently “dogfooded” smartphone from Google called the Nexus One have been surfacing more rapidly than a fart in the bathtub. For most the buzz centers around the Nexus One’s rumoured untethered bachelor lifestyle or potential $99 price, but I found the more interesting nugget of information to be the Snapdragon processor from Qualcomm.

The Snapdragon processor has 1GHz processor and onboard graphics and claims to produce 22 million triangles per second. Compare this to the iPhone which only produces 7 million triangles per second (see this comparison chart for more details.) Now we’re still way outside the realms of the desktop processors which light up screens at 60 million to 300 million triangles per second, but we’ve passed the old GameCube which ran at 12 million triangles per second
The Nexus One will also sport a 5 Megapixel flash camera with 720p HD recording possible. With the Android OS2.1 open API access to video, augmented reality will look better on the Nexus One than the sorry old iPhone and do so without all the annoying limitations from the Apple app store.
While the Nexus One is still a smartphone and limited by its small screen (aka “Magic Lens”); its better graphics, higher processing speeds, open OS and improved camera will make augmented reality work and look better. The real breakthroughs will come with a cheap HMD, but until then I think the Nexus One with the Snapdragon processor will help augmented reality take another step toward wide usage.
Popularity: 27% [?]
Twitter 360 – Augmented Reality App
Posted by Tom Carpenter in augmented reality on December 1st, 2009
The newly released Twitter 360 app is sure to make a big splash. The app allows you to see your friends tweets and also track them through your camera view or map view.
As far as I know, this is the first iPhone app to utilize the geotagging feature of Twitter.
Would be nice to see this integrated into a Twitter client, but I imagine that won’t be far behind.
Popularity: 5% [?]
25 Things I Learned At ISMAR09
Posted by Tom Carpenter in augmented reality on October 27th, 2009
Inspired by Joe’s “50 Things I Learned at ISMAR“, I’m going to take a crack at 25 things since I was only there for half the conferance.
1. Participation in ISMAR doubled from 2008 to 2009.
2. In the next six months it’s important that a few AR companies have success so funding will flow for the others.
3. Projections should be used in big interactive spaces to allow for a shared augmented experience.
4. The Disney Imagineers showed us how AR can make a difference right now.
5. HMDs will bring stripper poles to every corner.
6. Magic lens is or isn’t the answer for AR.
7. Lots of great research isn’t making it to commercial usage.
8. Apple must open up their video API, now!
9. Don’t wait. Use the technology at hand to make the killer AR app.
10. Place is the new social networking.
11. Augmented reality is NOT following Moore’s Law (but it can with enough money.)
12. Disney teaches us that the technology has to be invisible.
13. Sell the experience not the technology.
14. Stop trying to reinvent old games using AR. Create your own category.
15. Augmented reality should be about 4D (don’t forget about time!)
16. We need indoor locative solutions.
17. History can be reborn with the right magic telescope.
18. Light-weight, fashionable HMDs aren’t ready yet.
19. Conferances at the same hotel at the Mountain Dew Tour makes for interesting people watching.
20. I’m excited about the future of AR.
21. I saw at least five applications for AR on my factory floor, but no one is developing a commercial product for me to purchase.
22. Leverage the military to fund development for commercial.
23. I learned as much in conversations outside of the conference rooms than I did in them.
24. Don’t forget to tell a story.
25. Augmented reality pets don’t chew on the furniture (unless you want them to.)
Popularity: 12% [?]







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