The week of May 16th, Vuzix — makers of military and consumer grade Augmented Reality eyewear — announced their newest line of AR glasses as the STAR 1200. As their press release states, STAR stands for See-Through-Augmented-Reality and describes the killer feature of this new concept — transparent displays. Rather than viewing small, mounted video screens in the eyewear that show you both… → Read More
Last week Thursday, Sony introduced “SmartAR”, a so-called integrated Augmented Reality technology that looked pretty decent in the demo video big S uploaded that day. The company produced a new video over the weekend, and if you’re into Augmented Reality, the new footage will blow you away. → Read More
Sony has been working on Augmented Reality technologies since 1994, and today the company took the wraps of “SmartAR”, a so-called integrated Augmented Reality solution. The company says their technology has four distinct advantages when compared to existing AR solutions. → Read More
I’m a huge William Gibson fan, not least for the ideas with which his books overflow. One such in Spook Country was location-based virtual art: VR images that can only be seen at specific real-world places. As is often the case with Gibson, I read that and wondered, “How long?”
Well, today we’re halfway there. I give you Broadcastr, a new platform that allows anyone to record or upload audio… → Read More
BeyondReality’s Jeroen Mol has an interesting concept for his new Augmented Reality game slated to go live in the Android Market in the next month or so. His clever idea of using paper money notes as AR targets (you know, those little black and white designs you usually have to print out first and view with your mobile device) eliminates the need to have a printer around before playing the… → Read More
The Mobile World Congress kicks off next week in Barcelona and sure to be a relevant part of that week-long conversation will be Augmented Reality. With several companies bringing new AR services to the market, Metaio sent out a press release this morning with yet another demo illustrating the value of the concept. Hot on the heels of their recent campaign with USA Today, this little demo video… → Read More
So you like to go fishing but have to sit in school or in your office all day? Takara Tomy might have the solution for you: their so-called “Virtual Master Real” [PDF] is essentially a fishing game built into some kind of “electronic fishing reel”. → Read More
Being based in Tokyo has many advantages, and one of them is to be able to visit awesome tech startups like AITIA: the Tokyo-based startup consists of just two people (a CEO and a CTO), having hired a third person (to run the business side of things) just three months ago.
What’s more important is that they have developed pretty impressive mobile technology: the company’s CTO single-handedly… → Read More
The fight for European predominance in Augmented Reality (AR) is a competitive one. Both Layar from the Netherlands and Wikitude, Austria, are working hard on establishing strategic distribution partnerships and strengthening their position with a raft of handset producers, mobile phone operators and producers of navigation systems. AR itself, of course, has been around for years, but the ubiquity… → Read More
A team of researchers at Tokyo-based Keio University came up with a solution to make sucking candy more fun: dubbed TagCandy, their device intensifies the taste of real popsicles using augmented reality (the use of this term is a bit of a stretch in this case, but OK). All that users need to do is to stick the candy into the device and start licking it. → Read More
Star Wars and video games go hand-in-hand. There is a long line of Star Wars-themed games going back to the days of arcade games, and continuing through home console and mobile games. Now, the first augmented reality Star Wars game for the iPhone just hit the app store. It is called Star Wars Arcade: Falcon Gunner ($4.99, iTunes link).
The game starts with the scene from the original Star Wars… → Read More
Mobilizy, the Austrian based company behind Wikitude, one of the leading Augmented Reality browsers in Europe and a direct competitor to well-known Layar from the Netherlands, has just raised an undisclosed round of funding from Austrian VC Gamma Capital Partners and tecnet Capital as a co-Investor.
It’s Mobilizy’s first round and will be used for developing their two core products, the World… → Read More
One of the “sub trends” of this year’s CEATEC exhibition (that’s currently taking place near Tokyo) is augmented reality, especially among the telecommunications companies. Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo is experimenting with an AR technology (developed by Olympus in 2008) called AR Walker. → 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
Tokyo-based augmented reality startup Tonchidot has raised $12 million in Series B funding from various Japanese companies, including the country’s second biggest telco KDDI, major media conglomerate Recruit, ad agency SPiRE and venture capital firms DCM, Itochu Technology Ventures (ITV), and JAFCO.
Tonchidot closed a $4 million series A funding round led by DCM and with ITV participating back… → Read More
For quite a few people, Augmented Reality (AR) is just a fad that will be over rather sooner than later. Things are a little different in Japan where Panasonic is currently in the news for a unique promotion campaign that’s based on that technology (for 3D VIERA TVs). → Read More
There are a lot of augmented reality apps out there, some even worthwhile. Not all, however, are this practical. When you’re shopping for a new watch (which people do, I understand), it’s not always easy to tell how it’s going to look on your own wrist. How big is it, exactly? Does the face look cool upside-down? Will that silver color clash with the blue of my veins? Important questions all. → Read More
While I was recently attending the iCitizen 2010 Symposium, Noora Guldemond, Head of Marketing at Metaio—a company focused on developing Augmented Reality experiences—showed me a few recent AR examples her company developed. This Jurasic Park example curiously doesn’t have the usual black and white “target” that I normally recall seeing in many AR demos. In fact, Noora indicated that is… → Read More
tripwolf, a social travel site, just released their Augemented Reality iPhone App (iTunes link). Based on their current version and together with a research team out of Salzburg, they are currently the only travel portal providing Augmented Reality travel content on an iPhone.
Lonely Planet, a well-known leader in the travel space, also offers an AR app, but it’s only available for Android right… → Read More
Augmented Reality is a pretty hot topic currently, but it seems to me that the Japanese in particular have really embraced the concept of mixing the real world with computer-generated imagery and data. One case in point is the Crimsonfox project [JP], an “Alternative Reality” scavenger hunt game event that took place over the weekend in Tokyo, Japan. → Read More
Nooka is one of our favorite brands and these guys created a new way to try on a Nooka watch at home. By using augmented reality technologies – albeit technology that may not work quite yet – you can try on any watch just by putting on a specially coded bracelet. The system senses the position of your hand and lets the Nooka watch appear in 3D right on your wrist. It’s honestly an amazing idea and… → Read More
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