Metaverse One

So I was recently exposed to the post Augmented Reality Finds a Place to Fit: Shopping! The article states, " Two recent AR implementations show promise, however, by adding value and actually demonstrating how useful the technology can be ." The author of the post is referring to Converse's Sampler application for AppleiOS devices and a TryOnBathingSuit application created by ImmediaC . With such an endorsement, I had to check these apps out. Review: Converse's Sampler application Perhaps I am biased as I work with the technology and know what is possible with it, but I am not impressed with this application at all. Sure once I activate the app I can see how the sneaker will look on my foot with a superimposed image, but I can see how a sneaker will look on my coffee cup or anything else, as it is just that, a superimposed image. It floats in the middle of the live camera feed. There isn't any form of tracking or foot recognition. I wouldn't say F...

Earlier this month was the second WebGL Camp in Silicon Valley. Organized by Henrik Bennetsen (CEO of Katalabs ) and Christian Greuel (Manager of SRI Geovisualization Center), the camp is a developer focused event that aims to bring together the people who are writing the WebGL spec with those who build projects on it for some show and tell. WebGL is based on OpenGL ES 2.0 and provides a programmatic interface for 3D graphics. It provides a 3D graphics API implemented in a web browser without the use of plug-ins. It uses the HTML5 canvas element and is accessed using Document Object Model interfaces. The specification is currently a work in progress and is managed by the non-profit Khronos Group. The event was a who's who from the WebGL community. The presentation list: Gavriel State and Daniel Koch from TransGaming provided a high level introduction to the ANGLE Project . ANGLE provides OpenGL ES 2.0 compatible API's on top of Microsoft's Direct3D. Presenta...

I recently wrote a post on Google's Body Browser that I saw at WebGL Camp#2 this past week. Since that post, the web has exploded with news about this application and web traffic to the blog and video (almost 10,000 views in less than 48 hours) have skyrocketed. Here is the video I took from WebGL camp where it was presented. To experience the application for yourself, get anyone of these three browsers Chrome 9 Beta , Chrome Canary Build and Firefox 4 beta (WebGL is enabled by default) and then got to the Body Browser site . As I have covered in previous blogs, WebGL is a cross-platform low-level 3D graphics API that is designed to bring plugin-free 3D to the web. It uses the HTML5 Canvas element and does not require Flash, Java or other graphical plugins to run. A visit to the Google Health and WebGL team are in the near future for me. Check out the blog I guest write for to get my initial thoughts on this application.

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A few months ago I posted about the Kinect device from Microsoft. Kinect, since its launch in November, has sold over 2.5 million units in less than 30 days. This makes it the fastest adopted consumer electronic device ever, surpassing the recent title holder the iPad. Now what is really impressing me is how the hacking community has gone wild with the device and I recommend visiting KinectHacks.net to see what I mean. The technology behind the Kinect intrigues me. I know very little about 3D depth sensors and RGB cameras, so to learn more I decided to visit the Intel Lab Seattle that has been doing research in this area long before Kinect was released. Located by the University of Washington, Intel Lab Seattle is a Center of Excellence in Context-Aware Sensor-Driven Systems. Interdisciplinary projects and an emphasis on prototyping novel systems and user evaluation drive its agenda. Led by Director Dieter Fox , the research staff are recognized experts across a range of topics fro...

At the end of this past summer, I got the opportunity to present at NEXT2010 located in Arhus, Denmark. Now you wouldn't know by looking at the site, but I promise I was there. Started by the Innovation Lab Denmark six years ago, this annual event covers the latest and greatest in a variety of disciplines. The Lab brings inspiring international speakers and incredible technology to an event that is partly conference, exhibition, cultural, and social event. This year was the first year NEXT ran concurrently with the Arhus Festuge (festival). The week long festival, which was a blast, had engaging, futuristic NEXT exhibits around the town. I saw big cockroaches that drove robots, a Heineken beerbot, clothes that illuminated from CO2, movable toilets for seniors, a few hundred dollar cup of coffee, and a vest that provided force feedback when playing a first person shooter. Of course this was not all of the exhibits, but those that seemed to stand out the most to me. For more info...

This past summer in New York I got the opportunity to meet up and interview Ori Inbar , CEO and cofounder of Ogmento , an augmented reality gaming company. I would easily say that Ogmento is a leader in the commercial AR gaming space and Ori is one of the industry's key players. He is a founder/author at Gamesalfresco , a leading blog on augmented reality, one of the organizers of the Augmented Reality Event , and heads the Augmented Reality New York (ARNY) meetup group. His company Ogmento , with a development team in New York and a creative studio located in Los Angeles, has raised $3.5 million dollars in a first round of institutional funding from Chart Venture Partners and other private investors. Part 1- Part 2- Here is a promotional Augmented Reality (AR) app by Ogmento developed to promote the iPhone launch by Orange Telecom Israel. Put A Spell, the world's first augmented reality learning game for the iPhone. Many thanks to Ori for such an informative and fun i...