Fascinating World of Augmented Reality: Volumetric 3D Head Up Display

The MVSC “InLand Mobile” display system is an advanced, conformal* 3D, volumetric Head Up Display system designed to be small and robust enough for fleet-wide police and first-responder deployment, accurate to < 1 meter, and cost engineered to become – very soon – a standard tool for ordinary as well as military drivers, pilots and mariners. 2 or three years should see it on our roads. We’re negotiating with Big 3 and foreign auto companies as well as defense contractors to fully commercialize the system. “InLand” capabilities are exceptional. It can generate still or motion graphics at 60fps, re-cast aerial recon imagery, video, or generate a “guide wire” navigational line using high quality GPS. Previously considered unaffordable for ordinary drivers, 3D HUD now CAN make it into our cars, showing objects at distances from a few feet to infinity in the landscape. The difference is a highly unusual optical design, patents pending, and a team dedicated to pushing this to public markets by keeping our eyes firmly on cost control as well as quality.

 

 

* In a conformal display, images appear to “conform to” a true location in the landscape ahead, at appropriate depth cues. NASA pilot studies confirm that conformal display is essential to promoting maximum situational awareness and reducing tunneling caused by “head down” console maps and 2D windshield “pseudo HUD” displays that require the eye and brain to refocus many times between “car” and “road.”

Rendered as a translucent overlay InLand will display safety and navigational symbols at appropriate depths from your car and your eyes.  Collision warnings generated byDSRC may enter the HUD looking something like this:

http://www.inlandmobile.com/images/20546123.png 

 

3D and Augmented Reality at the Navteq Developer Day in Berlin

NAVTEQ  is holding their first Developer Day events in EMEA. Learn directly from the experts how to use NAVTEQ® map data and partner APIs to quickly apply your skills toward creating the most compelling location based mobile apps in this emerging space.

Come and learn about the latest developments and innovation in location through case studies, interactive panel discussions and unique networking opportunities.  Participate in a Lucky Draw to win an iPad and other cool prizes 😉

You can see more information here

 

Augmented Reality Apps for Android & iPhone

 TagWhat

 

 

TagWhat is basically a social networking app that make use augmented technology. It lets users to tag whatever  they see in front of them using the apps tag feature. Once tagged your friends when visiting those  tagged places will see the details while pointing their android phone to places  in fro

The highly experimental and anticipated technology which we used to see only in Sci-fi movies is now a reality. Yes, we are talking about Augmented Reality ( AR )  which is something new and  a WOW factor to the end user. Wiki says,

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery.

For Augmented Reality to work and provide  rich visual experience the combination of GPS, Compass, Camera and a 3G/WiFi connection is required. And with the existence of powerful mobile platform like Android things are much easier for developers to roll out more apps. Here is our list of apps that make use of AR technology which we believe has a promising future.

 

 

Layar

 

 

 

Layar  is the worlds first augmented reality app and it uses Android’s GPS, camera, and compass features to display real-time information on the things you see and explore. Once you point your phone camera to the places in front, details are displayed on the screen. Be it restaurant, school or hospital you will get the info quickly. Developers  created many layers for diff services and many more are in pipeline.

 

 

BZZT

 

Audio Perfume is a platform for remotely activated sound effects on mobile devices. Sounds are played in the background of active apps, or even while the device is asleep.

 

Audio Perfume enables sounds to be played on all the installations of a particular app at the same time, enabling wearers of the same fragrance to enjoy moments of pure synchronicity. Sounds can also be activated for specific individuals as well.

 

 

 

WikiTude Drive

 

 

Wikitude  Drive is an Android navigation app that make use of the  Augmented Reality technology to overlay your route directly on top of what is coming through your Android phone camera’s viewfinder. This app can truly replace your virtual tour guide and can be helpful for frequent vehicle users. 

 

Real time geographical data is spiced up with camera inputs to give you a visually rich experience.

 

 

 Google Goggles

 

Goggles is Google Inc’s contribution to this  emerging revolutionary technology. While the app is running just point your android phone’s camera to an object in front  and capture. 

The app then uploads it to SnapTell server  and image recognition backend compares images with available ones to find an exact match. A very useful and worth using AR app available till date we say.

 

 

Space InvadAR

 

Space InvadAR is the latest addition to Android augmented reality space. It’s actually a vision based game that make use of AR. You point the camera towards a high resolution image and the app loads the right game based on the image. Here for demo purpose they have used an earth image and a fun game loads. Watch out this app is a paid app and is costly.

 

 

 

 

Attention Android: Should Google lose the IP battle, Android cuts would go to Oracle & Microsoft

While the Oracle lawsuit against Google over Java may have come as a surprise to some, it was not unexpected by others, including Java creator James Gosling.

In what some characterize as a battle in the making ever since Oracle acquired Sun Microsystems, Oracle has leveled a lawsuit against Google for patent and copyright infringement over the use of Java in the Android mobile device platform.

Indeed, Sun had its issues with Android, but did not file suit. Java’s new master, Oracle, is a different animal.

Oracle issued a press release on its lawsuit late on Aug. 12 stating that Google had infringed on Oracle’s intellectual property.

“In developing Android, Google knowingly, directly and repeatedly infringed Oracle’s Java-related intellectual property. This lawsuit seeks appropriate remedies for their infringement,” said Oracle spokesperson Karen Tillman in a statement.

Florian Mueller highlighted a heavily redacted Google response to a damages argument made by Oracle expert witness Iain Cockburn, a Boston University professor. Cockburn argued that Google would owe unspecified damages if Android was found to infringe on Java.

The actual amount wasn’t disclosed, but Google did note that all Android revenue was included in Cockburn’s royalty calculation. Oracle also wants Google’s ad revenue from Android although Cockburn didn’t outline that argument directly. Oracle also argues for a 50 percent royalty rate.

If Oracle wins heavy damages it’s likely Google would have to rewrite Android—a big undertaking given the installed base. Mueller wrote:

This lawsuit has the potential to bring about a restructuring of Google’s Android business in economic as well as technical terms. Interestingly, Google itself admits that it could have done a license deal with Sun (apparently before it was acquired by Oracle) but rejected its terms. That refusal could now prove one of the worst mistakes in Google’s 13-year history as a company.

What are the chances of Oracle squeezing out big damages from Google? The odds are pretty good Oracle will get something out of Google because there will probably be a settlement before a trial. Oracle’s lawyers play hardball. Look no farther than the damages Oracle won vs. SAP in the TomorrowNow lawsuit. Few saw $1.3 billion in damages coming. At the moment, Google and Oracle are haggling over how to narrow the scope of the trial.

If we zoom out farther, it’s clear why Google is bidding for Nortel’s patents. The search giant has little IP defense. Citi analyst Walter Pritchard touched on this point in a big report on Microsoft’s tablet chances. He estimated that Microsoft gets $5 for every HTC Android device sold. Other Android OEMs may wind up paying anywhere from $7.50 to $12. If you toss in potential Oracle damages Android will be an operating system that’s free in name only.

Key excerpts from Pritchard’s report:

Google appears to have very little IP to defend itself with. The general protocol when a defendant is faced with an IP infringement accusation is to “retaliate” with infringement counterclaims and ultimately force some sort of cross licensing or other détente instead of entering a prolonged and costly legal proceeding that may result in a costly or disruptive settlement. Without significant IP of its own, Google is not likely to be able to deploy this defense…

Considering that Oracle is not suing to gain competitive advantage in the market for a competing smartphone product, we believe Oracle must believe it has strong chances of winning, otherwise it would not have filed the lawsuit…

Google may indemnify its OEMs and instead decide to fight the other legal action more directly itself, thereby drawing out the proceedings. On the other hand, the OEMs may choose to settle on
as favorable of terms as possible, noting that HTC settled for what we believe to be $5 per unit versus what Microsoft is asking of others (we believe $7.50 to $12.50). If the outcome is a significant settlement, it is likely a non-trivial per unit license settlement (like happened with HTC). If this is the case, this per unit settlement comes directly out of the OEM’s profit margin on each device. Our Taiwan-based colleague Kevin Chiang believes the operating margins per Android smartphone is the 10-15% range while the operating margins on Android tablets is 2-3%. The result of a settlement would be significantly inferior economics for the manufacture of Android-based devices.

Pritchard’s bottom line was that these Android IP concerns open the door for Windows Phone 7 or other alternatives.

Related: Oracle vs. Google over Java: Android lawsuits may begin to pile up

Great News from E3: Kinect backed by publishing and development elite

Microsoft’s two-hour E3 press conference demonstrated a range of enhancements to Kinect technology, as the wider industry continues to back the motion controller.

Announcements included a quartet of EA Sports titles with Kinect support, the world’s first Kinect-based core FPS game, and even a Minecraft port that uses the tech.

Kinect creative director Kudo Tsunoda has unveiled Kinect Fun Labs, a large-scale upgrade to the Kinect online community capabilities that went live with the announcement.

 

 

Fun Labs contains 3 major elements:

 

• is an advanced avatar construction system that allows players to build avatars by simply taking a picture of themselves. Fun Labs then processes a new avatar by recognising the player’s facial and body features, as well as clothing, and copying them instantly.

 

 

 

• Decribed by Tsunoda as one of the “best innovations in Kinect”, Fun Labs is a permanent addition to the Xbox Live dashboard with features that will be available to developers and community members alike.Fun Labs feature is ‘finger tracking’, which allows players to take pictures and draw directly onto them with their fingers. Images can be layered and finger tracking allows for lines to be drawn around the layers, creating a 3D effect that can be manipulated by the player by moving their body.

 

 

• The final Fun Labs featured shown was ‘object capture’. This function allows users to capture images of objects to use within game environments by way of motion control. Toys, skateboards, cars or similar objects can all be uploaded and controlled via the Kinect motion tracking technology.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The handset battles are over… The ecosystem war is starting!

 

Stephen Elop talks about Nokia – Microsoft ecosystem at the uplinq, here his interview:

 

 

Industry consensus is that Nokia – and by extension Microsoft – have three bad quarters to endure before the scale of Windows Phone devices shipments are sufficient to generate serious revenues for Nokia, Microsoft, operators and developers.

 

Still, Elop said all the right things, and the industry will be a better place with Nokia-Microsoft keeping Google and Apple more honest with respect to their ecosystems than they currently are.

 

Perhaps the bigger question is, in what form will Nokia be around in three quarters time? Elop’s speech may have demonstrated he’s on fire, but as some wags suggested, maybe that’s because he’s lashed to the mast of a burning boat.

 

As I suggested post-Mobile World Congress, mobile hardware – especially large touchscreen candy-bar devices – has become commoditized. Iphone started a new era – Mobile Ecosystem Services/Apps and now all the OEMs are looking to attract the most precious part of the ecosystem – The Developers Creativity.

 

Services are much more important, or as Elop more elegantly stated in his keynote address @ the Uplinq : The handset battles are over… The ecosystem war is starting!!

 

 

Federated Social Web – Berlin 2011 #FSW2011 Day 2

ON saturday we had a lot of great presentations and discussion on the actual status and the future of the Social Web.After  this we move to an open space debate in the later afternoon with some late. not properly to the german order 😉 but understandable . After a wake-up coffee with Uli ( I will not disclosed here his identity ;-)) and Rigo we move to the workshop sessions.

The most of the discussion was growing around the metaphor of Privacy. In my thoughts – and Evan Prodromou has the same belief – Privacy is a context cultural perception. Is impossible to have a consistence when try to define a structure for Privacy. In my opinion we must to go deep and have a high granularity and from that point to start to modelate for different cultural domains the meta privacy level. Please comment!!

The W3C-Workshop started with the Federated Codebase: Lessons Learned:

• Privacy-aware XMPP-based microblogging: Lessons learned with OneSocialWeb, Diana Cheng and Daniel Appelquist (See slides)

• Bridging Federated Protocol Stacks, Simon Tennant and Stephan Maka
• Stretching Boundaries: Lorea’s Experimental Approach To Federation, Hellekin Wolf and Pablo Martin (See abstract)
• SMOB The best of both worlds, Alexandre Passant, Julia Anaya, Owen Sacco and Pavan Kapanipath
• Project Danube, Markus Sabadello (confirmed)
• The Unhosted Social Web, Michel De Jong

After the coffee break we had the  Federated Social Architectures and Protocols 

• Towards a Plug and Play Social Web, Claudio Venezia (See slides)
• “Do we know each other or is it just our Devices?”: A Federated Context Model for Describing Social Activity Across Devices, Georgios Gionis, Heiko Desruelle, Dieter Blomme, John Lyle, Shamal Faily and Louay Bassbouss (See slides)
• A platform for managing campaigns over Social Media, Iosif Alvertis, Michael Petychakis, George Gionis and Robert Kleinfeld
• MyProfile Decentralized User Profile and Identity on the Web, Andrei Sambra and Maryline Laurent
• WebID and the Social Web, Henry Story
• WebID-enabled XMPP: a bridge to the social web on your IM and beyond, Benjamin Carrillo and Julia Anaya

 

 

Beyond‐Privacy and Identity Spam-What others say about us on the Federated Social Web, José M. Del Álamo, Yod-Samuel Martín and Juan C. Yelmo (See slides)

Empowering users with effective and relevant privacy controls, Sören Preibusch

Personal Zones: identity, devices and social proximity, Dave Raggett and Rigo Wenning (Seeabstract or Slides)

 Social network federation with Social Stream and Social2social, Víctor Sánchez and Antonio Tapiador

To whom will all the data flow? Enable users to monitor the proliferation of shared information, Sebastian Labitzke and Hannes Hartenstein (See slides)

WebID+ACO: A distributed identification mechanism for social web, Dominik Tomaszuk, Hendrik Gebhardt and Martin Gaedke

 

 

 

 

Federated Social Web – Berlin 2011 #FSW2011

 

 

 

 

The Federated Social Web Summit Europe 2011 is supported and co-organized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and by the EU FP7 PrimeLife project. The local organization is done under the label “d-cent” and by the independent institute PerGlobal. The workshop is also supported by and will be hosted at the Heinrich-Böll-Foundation, Berlin.

 

Jan Schallaböck introduced Tim Berners Lee with a life stream Keynote. I have remained with a fact from his speech :

 

 “In general, decentralized things are better for the net than centralized things.” – Tim Berners-Lee

 

Not just for the net, in all domains decentralized structures force a decocratic ecosystem. Here is his talk, was recorded with my old Nokia 95 😉

 

 

 

 

The W3C is the world’s leading international standards organization for the world wide web, consisting of over 300 members and founded by Tim Berners-Lee, who is widely acclaimed as the inventor of the Web. An Incubator Group of the W3C has been investigating its role in the Social Web, and  produced a report “A Standards-based, Open and Privacy-aware Social Web” overviewing the landscape. W3C is exploring further into the Social Web with the WebID and Federated Social Web Incubator Groups.

 

 

 

“Following Social Advertising in the United States” by Aleecia M. McDonald was the next presentation. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aleecia M. McDonald is a PhD candidate in Engineering & Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University, where she is a member of the Cylab Usable Privacy and Security (CUPS) research laboratory. Her interests span the intersection of Internet technology, policy, economics, and law. Ms. McDonald’s research includes the efficacy of industry self regulation, behavioral economics and mental models of privacy, network traffic analysis to combat spyware, automotive privacy, and RFID technology. In addition to a decade of experience working for software startups, Ms. McDonald holds an MS in Public Policy and Management, and a BA in Professional Writing, both from Carnegie Mellon. Her findings have been featured in media outlets such as the Washington Post, Ars Technica, Free Press’ Media Minute, and have contributed to testimony before the Federal Trade Commission.

 

 

 

 

“Do Not Track” is the new web browsing metaphor implemented from Mozilla, other Browsers will follow. 

People think they’re not getting tracked on the Web; “that’d be like tapping your phone, which is illegal.”

 

 

 

 

Lessons learned from Social Networking in Egypt by Amr Gharbeia – Technologist and activist was the next presentation. 

 

 

 

After the coffee break the Keynote: Who needs Facebook anyway? – privacy & sociality in Social Network Sites by Ronald Leenes – Tilt and PrimeLife Project

 

 

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dromescu/5795190719/in/photostream

 

 

At the end we had a great Public Roundtable: From society to technology, Implementing an interoperable, privacy-aware, and decentralized social network with: 

 

 

Fabrizio Sestini – European Commission

 

Francesca Bria – Imperial Business School

 

Ade Oshineye – Google

 

Ilya Zhitomirskiy – Diaspora

 

Seda Gürses – K.U. Leuven

 

Amelia Andersdotter – Pirate Party Sweden

 

Moderation: Geraldine de Bastion – Digitale Gesellschaft

 

Today will continue to federate what is remaining from the social web :-). You can follow us on twitter #FSW2011

 

 

 

 

Mobile: The 1st Citizen #Mash-up thoughts from #Uplinq 2011

 

Uplinq has a strong message for me after the first day : Content in Mobile Context is King, WebOS , HTML5 and Augmented Reality – this are the slogans at the Uplinq 2011

 

From Ewan, the begining  :  “I went to the back of the hall for the start of the Paul Jacobs keynote at Uplinq this morning. I was expecting some kind of whizzy introduction — I wanted to get some of it on camera. I’m pleased to report that I wasn’t disappointed.

Some chaps arrived into the crowd with big drums. They set them up and then proceeded to freeze, listening into their radio headsets for the stage instructions. The lights went down. Some fancy spotlights illuminated each of the drummers spaced across the hall.

And boom.. the drums began beating. Then after a few moments, the massive screen came alive… “

Qualcomm keynote on a lovely June 1st morning began with Paul Jacobs, Chairman and CEO of Qualcomm noting some impressive numbers on a large stage with one gigantic colorful screen behind him flowing with ribbons of light. Jacobs noted that they’ve got word that mobile data is expected to grow 10-12 fold by 2015, this punctuated by the completely odd addition of “Real D 3D” glasses on everyone’s seats. Next Jacobs noted that 1 BILLION Qualcomm BREW-powered devices had already been shipped, and notes that “today’s market [is one where people] don’t really care about what their next PC is going to be.”

 

 

 

 

Keynote comes in the form of 3D – showing up on the big screen a bunch of video games and video captured and played back for the audience. Next they punctuate the experience with a scene from Kung Fu Panda 2, a 3D movie that’s just come out in theaters this weekend. All of this is being shown on the Qualcomm MPD, a device we’re just a bit familiar with, running its ADRENO GPU. All of this is played back from the smartphone. 

 

 

The next demo focused on augmented reality as applied to a DVD case. QR codes on the DVD front case coupled with image processing to back out the case orientation and size enable a software running on the MDP to overlay video from the DVD’s trailer. Framerate and tracking were spot on and completely fluid, even with three trailers visible and playing back.

 

Beyond just synthetic JavaScript tests, characterizing page load speed (HTML parsing), scrolling and composition, and HTML5 performance will be the key areas. 

To demonstrate some of its HTML5 collaboration, Paul showed an impressive demo where the browser talked directly to the camera API for image acquisition. The demo included live image preview, capture, and filter application taking place from within the browser. The demo appeared to be running on a MDP running some version of Android 2.3. 

 

 

 

 

Augmented Planet Event For AR Developers 1-2.06 in London,

Lester Madden organize this great event for developers on 1-2.06 in London.

 Lester is founder and Director of Augmented Planet Ltd, set up to drive awareness and adoption of one of the newest innovations in the electronics industry – Augmented Reality. Augmented Reality systems superimpose graphics, audio and other sense enhancements for every perspective. Lester manages a leading blog, devoted to all things AR, reaching a rapidly growing worldwide readership. 

Sessions include

• The AR opportunities for developers
  • Why you should be building AR content
• Developing simple Worlds for Wikitude
  • The basics of creating worlds using KML and ARML (Augmented Reality Mark-up Language)
• Developing dynamic AR Worlds for Wikitude
  • Creating advanced AR worlds, new features and options for developers
• Using junaio to build POI driven content
  • How to create junaio channels and making a compelling AR experience for users
• Using junaio to build natural feature tracking content
  • Creating GLUE channels that display 2D or 3D images
  • AR is only as good as the 3D models you have. This session will look at the tools required to create stunning 3D content.
• Face tracking
  • Using the Dfusion Studio workflow for creating a face tracking experience. From the most simple to the more advanced. Prepare to be transformed!
• Trans media apps
  • The latest cross media AR experiences and the quantifiable ROI by some of the global major brands. See the latest mobile and iPad AR experiences
• iPhone AR development
  • The latest demos and iPhone development experiences from James Alliban one of the UK’s leading AR developers
• The AiRaid SDK
  • The bada open-source library that allows developers to quickly build mobile augmented reality applications
• + much more including keynotes from
  • Lester Madden – author of Professional Augmented Reality Apps for Smartphones & AugmentedPlanet.com editor
  • Myles Peyton – Total Immersion
  • Ken Blakeslee – WebMobility Ventures
  • Wikitude

• Developing 3D objects and models

If you’re a developer here’s why you need to be at Augmented Planet 2011

• Watch expert developers programming AR applications
• See coding demos not PowerPoints
• Hear from the leading industry experts on how to take advantage of AR
• Learn how AR can be applied to your own solutions
• Network with people from the AR industry

Augmented Citizen Offer 5 Free Tickets for the event.  Please use the discount code: ‘arcitizenvip’. You can register here

If you’re a developer and you want to hear first-hand from AR experts about building your own AR solutions this is must attend event.