Apple has been awarded a patent today (via AppleInsider) that describes an augmented reality (AR) system that can tag real-world items in a live video stream and display information about them in a HUD overlay. It sounds exactly like Pop-Up video in practice: turn your device to focus on Rick Astley, for instance, and get a pop-up picture of the singer belting out “Never Gonna Give You Up.” → Read More
Canon announced the launch of its MREAL system for “mixed reality” today, which includes a head-mounted display that allows wearers to combine virtual objects with the real world in 3D, which essentially sounds like a product designer’s dream. On the consumer side, augmented reality hasn’t done a great job of proving itself generally useful at this point, but in an industrial design setting, the… → Read More
Microsoft had a new patent application published with the USPTO today which shows a glasses-based heads-up display system that could overlay information on the real world for a user. If it sounds familiar, that’s likely because that’s what Google’s trying to accomplish with Project Glass, which actually already has functional prototypes out in the wild. → Read More
Meet Sharky the Beaver, Sphero‘s first augmented reality character for their little robotic spheres. Over the past few months, Orbotix has been developing many new ways to use the toy. With this new app, the company is making its first step into the world of augmented reality. As a reminder, Sphero is a ball with an internal motor. You can control it using a Bluetooth-enabled smartphone or… → Read More
Amazon Flow, the barcode scanning/augmented reality app from Amazon subsidiary A9.com, has arrived on Android today, following its November 2011 iOS debut. To refresh your memory, the app lets shoppers scan things like CDs, DVDs, books, toys, video games, and more using their smartphone’s camera in order to display product details and pricing info.
Barcode scanning, however, is not unique to… → Read More
While the use case for these glasses can quickly become quite dubious, the YouGen.tv glasses by Vergence Lab are pretty cool. Not only do they instantly change from sunglasses to clear Buddy-Holly-style specs they also record your life as it happens.
Created by Jon Rodriguez and Erick Miller, the glasses will go for a $199 pledge (they’ll retail for $299) and the creators expect these things to… → Read More
Augmented reality isn’t always totally pointless. Sorry if you think it’s hugely useful to see an augmented view of tweets around you just by holding up your phone, but I like to find slightly more advanced applications using the technology. One such app, MagicPlan, fits that description.
From the two-year old startup Sensopia, the MagicPlan iOS app is rolling out version 2.0 of its floor plan… → Read More
CrowdOptic, a maker of an augmented reality app and mobile analytics solutions for the enterprise, has raised $500,000 in new funding today in a round led by Bowman Capital. According to CEO Jon Fisher, CrowdOptic will use the new capital to accelerate development of products in the area of mobile-powered technology for live events as well as expand the security features of its platform. → Read More
Lego (or LEGO if you’re adamant about trademarks) has just dipped another toe into electronic gaming with their clever “Life Of George” iOS title. The game uses 144 pieces and a piece of cardboard covered in a dotted pattern. The game is simple: George shows you a picture from his travels and asks you to recreate it using Legos. You have to dig around in your box of pieces to recreate the image… → Read More
Augmented Reality veterans Metaio are announcing some more details about their upcoming insideAR conference scheduled to take place in Munich, Germany on September 26 – 27. While the speaker list for the event has been available since July, the greater theme for the conference is being updated via press release today. That theme is: “From a Vision to a Roadmap”.
To help illustrate this… → Read More
Qualcomm wants to help bring better augmented reality apps to mobile phones, especially those powered by its Snapdragon chips. Today, it is releasing an augmented reality software development kit for Android phones, along with a $200,000 challenge for the best Android AR apps. The challenge goes through January, 2011, and the best apps will be showcased at the next Mobile World Congress.
AR… → Read More
Mobilizy, the company that brought us one of the world’s first Augmented Reality browsers, Wikitude, just released a major upgrade which crosses that significant line between technology and its effects in the ‘real’ world. Their idea was to build a virtual memorial in remembrance of the 9/11 attacks in the U.S. and the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York City. The result will be the… → Read More
One of the most exciting, gee-whiz features being developed for mobile phones right now are augmented reality browsers. Rather than fire up a mobile Web browser like Safari or Opera, these generally add an information layer over the world as seen through your phone’s camera lens. Last year at TechCrunch50, Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera wowed the crowd with its AR browser demo, Layar is creating a lot… → Read More
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