augmented-reality

App sniffs out links hidden in the real world

Imagine sweeping your phone around a room and seeing a plethora of information about the pictures, music, and video around you. The Digimarc Discover app lets your phone read QR codes printed on products, identify tunes playing nearby, buy tickets when movies are advertised on a TV playing near you, and follow watermark links hidden in articles and product packaging.

Digital watermark purveyor Digimarc demoed the technology this spring and has now made the free app for iOS and Android available for download. The app falls somewhere between simple bar code readers and augmented-reality apps that recognize real-world objects and link information to them.

Digimarc Discover is the Swiss Army knife of real-world identification. It figures out the most appropriate identifying technologies for a given situation--QR code, watermark, audio and/or video--depending on where you are and how you've used it in the past.… Read more

How augmented reality is an opportunity for developers (Inside Apps)

Augmented reality in smartphones is just getting started.

If you have a smartphone or Nintendo 3DS, you've probably played with some form of augmented reality, which superimposes graphics, words and other useful information over real-life images.

Yelp, for instance, offers its Monocle feature, allowing you to see local listings superimposed over the image captured by the phone's camera. It uses the compass and gyroscope to locate the specific listings, which move in and out of view depending on where you hold the device. The augmented browser Layar came to prominence by accomplishing the same feat on Android smartphones. … Read more

Your face is the battlefield with new AR tech

I've been waiting half my life for the phrase "in your face!" to finally die. Now that it seems to be fading, I may have to contend with the rise of "On your face," as in "I'm gonna kick your ass, on your face!"

It's all thanks to a new technology that allows game players to actually fight their digital battles on their own faces. The iOS game Skinvaders uses an augmented-reality (AR) platform to take advantage of the devices' front-facing cameras and transform players' faces into the game terrain on which alien invaders must be defeated to save the world, or your face, or whatever... … Read more

3D Web hits the big time: Google Maps on WebGL

All that work to build 3D graphics into the Web just bore fruit on one of the Internet's most useful and widely used sites: Google Maps.

Google has enabled a "MapsGL" option to show 3D buildings on the site through the use of WebGL, a 3D graphics technology for the Web that four of the five top browsers have embraced.

The move marks another step in the convergence of the browser-based Google Maps and the more immersive Google Earth software that stemmed from Google's 2004 acquisition of Keyhole. Google Earth lets people fly around, overlays imagery … Read more

Portico takes tablets off-screen

Someday we may say size doesn't matter for tablets. Researchers from Intel, Microsoft, and the University of Washington have extended the interactive action beyond the tablet screen to the surface where a tablet computer sits.

Portico is similar to existing tabletop computing systems like Microsoft's Surface that recognize gestures and real-world objects, but is more portable and affordable. It re-creates the tabletop experience on a tablet by breaking free of the confines of the tablet's screen.

The system features a pair of downward-facing cameras mounted on stalks affixed to the back edge of a tablet. The cameras enable the system to see the tablet's screen and the surface around the tablet. Portico's augmented-reality software recognizes objects on and near the tablet. This allows interaction to be both on and off the tablet. (See the video below.)… Read more

PBS chief on child education platforms (podcast)

PBS has long provided programming for children along with "viewers like you." It's famous programs, such as "Sesame Street" and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," reach millions of children each day. But like other media companies, PBS is also on the Web and mobile devices, providing videos, songs, and learning games for kids to use at home and school.

The extensive classroom material the nonprofit broadcaster provides includes this lesson on explorer Henry Hudson, aimed at grades 3 through 12.

I recently spent an afternoon at PBS headquarters in Arlington, Va., where, in addition to … Read more

Aurasma may have found market for augmented reality

We've been seeing whizzy augmented-reality demos and apps for years. But so far, AR has been a gimmick--a fun toy for your smartphone or tablet, but not something you go back to a lot.

At the Demo conference today, yet another company, Aurasma, showed off AR technology. While the demo I saw looked way too much like a product from Total Immersion that I saw at Demo in 2007, Aurasma might actually have (finally) found a non-trivial use for this technology.

With this company's innovation, any real-world object can act as an AR trigger. Point your phone at … Read more

The 404 902: Where logical fallacies beg the question (podcast)

If you had to guess, how many pages exist on the Internet, including advertisements and computer-generated articles? Google just gave The World Wide Web Foundation a million dollar grant to answer that question.

We also want to talk about the next evolution of augmented reality apps, like a Google maps extension that overlays historical images on modern locations, and an Android app that shows you objects that would otherwise be invisible to humans- stuff like gamma rays, X-rays, and ionized gasses.

Finally, we'll examine the Electromagnetic Field (EMF) phenomenon that'd led a group of "Wi-Fi refugees" to live in the West Virginia mountains, where a Quiet Zone bans wireless signals across 13,000 square miles.

The 404 Digest for Episode 902

How many pages are on the Internet? Historypin overlays historical images on modern day Google Map. " Wi-fi refugees" shelter in West Virginia mountains. Kevin Rose goes full honeybadger on Gizmodo. Does 7-11 still have chilli and cheese for Nachos/Super Big Bite? Your daily 404 bathroom break: Boy scared of dinosaur.

Episode 902 Subscribe in iTunes (audio) | Subscribe in iTunes (video) | Subscribe in RSS Audio | Subscribe in RSS Video… Read more

Augmented reality meets D&D-style gaming

Dungeons & Dragons and other turn-based strategy games are alive and well. Gamers paint elaborate miniature fighters, monks, thieves, and monsters and send them out to battle on tabletops around the world.

OggBoard, a new Kickstarter project, is looking to bring those characters to life without plastic or paint. The concept is to mix augmented reality with board games so that knights and creatures take shape on your iPhone.

The OggBoard has an appealingly minimalistic design. It features a playing surface with small tiles and docks on either side for your iPhone or iPod Touch. Each tile is rendered on the screen as a different 3D character.

"We aren't just trying to make new apps, we are trying to change the way players and developers think about strategy gaming," said OggBoard co-creator Sam Lytle in an e-mail to CNET.… Read more