Another great Augmented Reality concept video from Keiichi Matsuda, the maker of Domestic Robocop.

Note: requires old school blue/red 3D glasses for optimal viewing pleasure.

The architecture of the contemporary city is no longer simply about the physical space of buildings and landscape, more and more it is about the synthetic spaces created by the digital information that we collect, consume and organise; an immersive interface may become as much part of the world we inhabit as the buildings around us.

via BLDGBLOG | Chris Arkenberg

Using, in part, hacked Wiimotes.

Sit down and get ready for 16minutes of wisdom from ‘ the Prophet’, Bruce Sterling, as he delivers a speech he’s titled “At the 9am of the Augmented Reality Industry“.

This is a sequel to his previous speech “At the dawn of the Augmented Reality Industry“, which you can find here.

I feel pretty vindicated by this that we’re doing a decent job of tracking Augmented Reality here. For the casual reader, you’ll find examples of everything he’s talking about under that link.

The latest update of the iPhone OS seems to be finally allowing the development of decent AR apps for that device. The first of these is Junaio.

But it’s still Android phones that are the place to be for the cutting-edge geek. I made the targeted jump to the aptly named HTC Desire a month ago (replacing my now ancient futurephone, the Nokia N95 8Gb), and my two favourite apps, especially for that game of ‘wow the non-tech kids’, are Google Sky Map and Google Goggles. Both of which are Android-only; both of which give you superpowers.

Now, no.. I’m not missing the point of Bruce’s speech. I’m very excited to see what happens when this industry truly augments our realities. Rest assured, we’ll continue tracking that right here.

A rather magical video, that’s really just a preview of things to come:

Utopian and radical architects in the 1960s predicted that cities in the future would not only be made of brick and mortar, but also defined by bits and flows of information. The urban dweller would become a nomad who inhabits a space in constant flux, mutating in real time. Their vision has taken on new meaning in an age when information networks rule over many of the city’s functions, and define our experiences as much as the physical infrastructures, while mobile technologies transform our sense of time and of space.

via Data Mining | Future Seek

We want HUDs, we love Iron Man.

(pic nicked from io9)

Here’s a neat viral video that will make more sense once you’ve seen Iron Man 2.

(viral vid via Tech Digest)

Gimme!

If you’re like me, you really wish there were more ways for a guy to pull off looking sexy in a saree.  But also, you’ve probably already gotten a little blasé about Augmented Reality. However, this video-billboard in the Netherlands really caught my eye.

An interactive billboard placed above crowded Amsterdam and Rotterdam thoroughfares displays, in real time, a view of the street below. Passers-by can see themselves live on the massive screen, but though the curb space in front of them is empty, on the screen there’s a tense confrontation unfolding as they stand there and gawk.

[Via @GreatDismal and POPSCI.com]

We’ve featured these architectural projections before. This latest one, an animation of an AC/DC song, at Rochester Castle, England is impressive. It is also a strange promo piece for the sequel to what I called Grinder Movie of the Year, Iron Man. Enjoy:

ACDC Vs Iron Man 2 – Architectural Projection Mapping on Rochester Castle from seeper on Vimeo.

Augmented Sculpture by GROSSE8 & LICHTFRONT / Passagen 2010 from Lichtfront on Vimeo.

augmented sculpture is an art installation that combines three-dimensional sculpture and 2-D projections by lichtfront and grosse8. the project was recently presented at imm cologne 2010 where viewers could see the piece in action. the project consists of an abstract geometric form that is spiky and jagged all over. the sculpture itself is white making it the perfect canvas for colourful light projections. an array of digital projectors is beamed onto the form in accordance to the specific shape of the sculpture. the projection can illuminate each facet of the form individually making the sculpture appear to be illuminating from within.

Via designboom.com.

The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.

Neat demo, I just pray the future isn’t so full of corporate logos.

Rock, paper scissors for the next generation:

This month’s issue of tee-magazine T-post is maybe the weirdest shirt I’ve ever seen. It looks normal (and pretty nice, actually) in real life, but when worn in front of a webcam hooked up to T-post’s special web app, a ghostly, green hand emerges from it and challenges you to a game of Rochambeau.

Via core77.com.

I know, you’re probably sick of AR this and AR that by now, and the technology is only in its infancy, but this?  Too awesome not to post.

Meet Parrot – ‘a wifi helicopter with two cameras’, or basically your own personal UAV.

A fantastic piece of tech. However, as Chris Arkenberg pointed out, “Compelling AR ultimately requires HUD glasses.” (Something I’ll be investigating personally this year.)

This hasn’t stopped Mr TheStreetFindsIt’sOwnUseForThings, William Gibson, himself from leading the discussion on just what cool uses this tech can be put to.

Welcome to 2010.

Tech Crunch has all the gory details, but this video gives you the gist – the heavyweight that Google now is just entered the Augmented Reality world, with an Android only (for now) application, Google Goggles:

Meanwhile, iPhone owners don’t despair. You get to play with the other part of the complete-AR-experience tool-kit; voice recognition. Dragon Dictation, regarded as the best PC-based voice-recogition software is now available on the iPhone. If that’s not enough, you can see what your friend’s see, with Knocking.

Gadgets giving us superpowers, we got ‘em.

Wikitude, the AR browser for Android and iPhones, hot on the heels of Layar, has added 3D objects to its functionality.  And to demonstrate this, they built an AR WTC memorial:

Wikitude Augmented Reality: WTC – Its not there but its there from Wikitude on Vimeo.

LA graffiti writer Tony, aka TemptOne, has a rare neuromuscular disease that has caused progressive muscle weakness and eventual paralysis. Despite not being able to move a muscle, his eyes still function normally. With the help of the Not Impossible Foundation, he was once again able to get back to work:

Video via F.A.T. (Free Art & Technology), where the project phases are shown. Since the Not Impossible Foundation is open source and non-profit, the source code for this device could be used by anyone.

Thanks to Joseph Holsten for the link!

From 37signals.com:

“The instrument is based on a translucent and luminous round table, and by putting these pucks on the Reactable surface, by turning them and connecting them to each other, performers can combine different elements like synthesizers, effects, sample loops or control elements in order to create a unique and flexible composition.”

Thanks to Joseph Holsten for the link!

From fashioningtech.com:

Now we have the Hap.tickle Greeting, designed by Lina Saleem, that allows us to send a tickle to our loved ones and dearest friends.

Since “tickling” strengthens social connections (according to Charles Darwin), Hap.tickle Greeting can help you connect with separated friends. The wearable itself is decadently designed with ruffles, frills and vibrating motors (of course) on the backs and sides of the garment. When the garment receives a message via SMS, the motors gently begin to pulse sending loving tickles down the sides and spine of the wearer.

Hugs, massages, and now tickles. The catalog continues to be built.

Rejoice, augmented reality is here! OK, now.. what’s next?!

Wait, first we better roll the video – Bruce Sterling’s keynote for the launch of the Layar Reality Browser, in which, Bruce being Bruce, he drops a metric ton of reality of these hip Dutch hackers. In fact this is mandatory viewing for anyone in a tech scene faced with the dangerous prospect of imminent success:

Now, while there’s still a little hype juice left to squeeze out of the lemon, let’s run a bunch of clips showing just how now Augmented Reality is.  Proof being, if it barely works, it’s cutting edge tech, riiight?!

First, Layar’s main rival – The Acrossair iPhone 3GS AR Browser:

Then the Yelp ‘Easter Egg’, later revealed to be using Layar’s platform:

Further proof that one of the initial killer apps for AR will be tourism, the augmented London Bus app for the iPhone:

Finally, a little South Korean weirdness to finish things off – Maptor, an AR “torch” is I guess the best description:

Yes, I know, I know, I know.. AR isn’t really here until it’s Clatter, right. Or HUDs at a minimum. Well, be patient.. Lockheed Martin just dropped a cool $US 1M to Microvision “to develop a see-through eyewear system for ground soldiers.” Cross-fingers, we’ll be getting our grubby paws on those in a few years.

So where do this leave us fine citizens of this marvellous Future Present?

By our current measure of the state of Future – ie Japanese anime – the world of Eden of the East is just around the corner, but Dennō Coil might be a ways off yet. As fans of this show know, that’s your shining example of the realisation of technology as magic, which Bruce mentions in the keynote.

With such wonders on the horizon, I can’t help wondering what’s lying beyond it. Anyone care to take a guess?

We talked about the prototype HUD contact in January 2008. They have been working on improvements:

Today — together with his students — Babak A. Parviz, bionanotechnology expert at University of Washington, is already producing devices that have a lens with one wirelessly Radio Frequency powered LED. To turn such a lens into a functional browser, control circuits, communication circuits and miniature antennas will have to be integrated. These lenses will eventually include hundreds of semitransparent LEDs, which will form images in front of the eye: words, charts, imagery enabling the wearers to navigate their surroundings whithout distraction or disorientation. The optoelectronics in the lens may be controlled by a seperate device that relays information to the lens’s control circuit. Another use could be the monitoring of the wearer’s health and biomarkers f.e. cholesterol, sodium, kalium or glucose.

Link and photo via nextnature.net, though the image is a concept only at this point and not yet a working prototype.

Thanks to LBA for the tip-off!

It is 4:46am, I can’t sleep, and I have a question.

The future, as seen by the internet is often expressed by gadgetry, and there’s a particular trap involved in writing about outbreaks of the future in that gadgetry is often really shiny.

And if you’re writing about the future, chances are pretty good that you really like shiny objects.

But, gadgets are not the future. Look at the iPhone.

The iPhone is a fantastic bit of gadgetry, but it’s not the future – no matter how many proto AR apps get developed for it, there’s no way to escape the essential limitations of the device. The iPhone is simultaneously fiendishly useful and completely useless at the same time. It’s filled with a lot of really useful little apps and features, but it’s still handicapped from reaching a certain horizon of real productivity. Without extensive hacks, the iPhone is unable to connect to a variety of external devices for both input and output. It is extremely limited in what programs it can run.

It is essentially a closed system, and the reason for that is that it is designed by a company that holds true to a business and design philosophy that states that you do not own the product that you purchased. While a pervasive business philosophy in many fields (you don’t own your iPhone, you don’t own your music, your movies or your books, your food is made from genetically modified or patented seeds that are never actually owned by the farmers who grow it) it’s not future friendly — or to be more specific, it is a design philosophy that is friendly to a future that is, simply put, a retail opportunity.

The iPhone’s use to any sort of a future worth having is in changing the way that many people relate to technology. It’s now cool to have a computer in your pocket. It’s cool to be on the internet (via 3G and EDGE and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth) 24/7. In the countries where the iPhone has been able to saturate the market, it’s instigated a real sea-change in the way that people react to electronic mediation of their relationship with their environments. Unfortunately it has come with the baggage of corporatization and loss of ownership that is also as pervasive as the new environmental relationships is helps negotiate.

I say that the iPhone is not the future, but what I mean by that is that the iPhone is not representative of a future I want to see. The future is not just a retail opportunity and a finer world is not built entirely of consumer goods. I’m not keen on a future where the major technologies of environmental and social mediation are owned and controlled by corporate ideology. As AR creeps closer and closer, the question of who gets to plant a flag in the liminal space of a technologically re-mediated environment becomes a more pressing concern – with new horizons there are always new forms of colonialism.

The question is, or at least my question is: How do you separate the positive technological and sociopolitical advances of the iPhone and its ilk from the anti-open source, anti-democratization, future unfriendly ideology that they bring with them?