augmented

A new music video for a U.K.-based hip-hop artist showcases a fun idea: talking (and moving) graffiti.

The video, by British design outfit Paintshop Studio, features, in the words of Paintshop's blog, "animated graffiti rappers, created entirely in spray paint and brought to life by painting and repainting key elements."

Now, whether the idea of talking (and moving) graffiti is fun or horrifying depends on your point of view. Imagine if every tag you walked past in the city shouted the name of the tagger at you. (Then again, someone like street artist Banksy could no doubt work amusing, and even profound, wonders with this--as could a group of experimental poets, composers, and urbanists.)

Of course, this particular graffiti mural is confined to a video. But it does make us think. What if you combined this idea with QR tags and augmented reality? We've seen similar things before. Artists have "hi-jacked" billboards using iPads and AR, and damaged murals have been "restored" using QR tags. It might be pretty sweet if you could hold your smartphone or tablet up to a piece of graffiti or a mural and watch it come alive.… Read more

Augmented reality is far from mainstream--but a couple of exhibitors at CES are working hard to change that.

Aurasma, which is part of HP's Autonomy business, showed off its 3D augmented reality app. And today I caught up with a London-based startup called Blippar, which is set up at CES' Eureka Park.

Blippar, which last week raised an undisclosed amount from Qualcomm Ventures, has been in technical development for a year and just launched in August. It has about 30 partners in the U.K, and is working hard to sign up more and break into the U.S. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Sensics, which makes augmented-reality goggles that I'm told are used for educating Air Force mechanics on how to maintain aircraft, is showing at CES a new technology platform that puts the whole experience in one untethered, head-mounted, bug-eyed contraption. I had to try it.

SmartGoggles is a tech demonstrator, not a product you or I can buy, but it's an interesting look at a potential future of entertainment devices. In the demo I saw on its stereo goggles, you have the first-person perspective of a giant, towering over skyscrapers. With a game controller, you can punch them and they collapse. As you turn around, your view moves with your head. It worked well enough for me, and unlike some virtual reality-products I've tried before, I didn't notice any nauseating lag between my movements and the view of what I saw. … Read more

LAS VEGAS--Initially launched in July of last year, Aurasma, the augmented reality platform for Android and iOS, has just gone 3D. And did we mention it's a top-10 finalist in this year's Mobile Apps Showdown at CES?

If you're not familiar with Aurasma, it's a bit like a QR code reader that doesn't actually use any QR codes. See, with Aurasma, you simply have to point your device's camera at something, and if the app's image recognition technology fires, then a 3D pop-up will appear. You can watch the pop-up as-is, overlayed on … Read more

Sure, the idea of augmented reality has some appeal.

Overlaid on your view of the real world, your Net-connected glasses show navigation instructions, prompt you with the name of the person you're talking to, and run an ad-blocker app to turn billboards into wallpaper with soothing nature photos. And with one display for each eye, you see in 3D, so you can turn the outisde world into an immersive videogame.

The only problem is that you look like a total dork walking around with bulky electronic devices stuck to your face.

Vuzix, which sells such products, says it's … Read more

Mercedes-Benz is toying with augmented reality to give car buyers a closer look at its products and accessories.

Using downloadable iOS and Android augmented-reality apps for Fitnessbike and the C-class MercedesSport, shoppers can take a virtual walkaround of the products. With the C-class app, you can even outfit the AR sedan with a few accessories, such as a spoiler. But the renderings still have a ways to go to be more useful than a parlor trick.

The apps are intended for German consumers, but Mercedes-Benz has links to the downloads on its Web site, giving a U.S. audience a … Read more

Google is reportedly designing eyeglasses that could display information on the world around us.

The high-tech specs purportedly would tap into Google's cloud-based location services to convey details about the user's surroundings. The visual information would then appear as a 3D augmented reality computer display.

Known as wearable head-up displays (HUDs), the glasses are reportedly in the late prototype stage, says tech news site 9to5Google. Based on information from one of its sources, the site describes the glasses as similar in appearance to conventional eyeglasses but with a few buttons on the arms. The actual display technology is … Read more

There's no need to mentally undress people when you have an app that can do it for you. Moosejaw decided to take outdoor clothing in a Victoria's Secret direction with the Moosejaw X-Ray App for iPhone, iPad, and Android.

The free app harnesses the power of augmented reality to strip the puffy jackets and pants off of its models. Fire up the app, hold it up to a model in the catalog, and get a view of the unmentionables beneath.… Read more

Here's an interesting iPad-equipped, augmented-reality twist on adbusting and culture jamming.

Responding to my recent post about a mural "restored" using a giant QR code, CNET reader victoria_ro pointed to an ongoing project by the New York-based Public Ad Campaign and its Left Coast compatriot The Heavy Projects.

The project, which surfaced in New York's Times Square earlier this year, is dubbed the Augmented Reality Advertising Takeover, or AR | AD, and it "uses augmented reality to transform, filter, and democratize the messaging in public space"--to quote the intro to a video that documents the effort (you'll find the film embedded below).

A clutch of artists create works that appear when viewers toting iPads or other smart mobile devices train their gadgets on given ads. A setup using Junaio's augmented-reality technology, which can recognize images, spies a particular ad and serves up the appropriate art piece.… Read more