Today, I was very excited when Thomas Wrobel sent me a draft of, “Everything Everywhere: A proposal for an Augmented Reality Network system based on existing protocols and infrastructure.”

Thomas has kindly agreed to let me publish his draft, to open a discussion on this topic. The diagram opening this post (click image to enlarge) shows, “An example of how collaborative 3D-spaces could be shared over existing IRC networks.” It is from Thomas’ proposal. The full text of his paper is included later in this post.

“Can we try to avoid a browser war this time?”

Thomas notes in the closing remark to his paper:

“I am absolutely confident in my belief AR will become at least as important as the web has, and probably a lot more so. It will also face much the same hurdles and challenges getting established as that medium did. But, speaking as a web-developer, can we try to avoid a browser war this time?”

Thomas Wrobel has consistently posted insightful comments on how existing standards could be used for creating open augmented reality networks. But he expressed concern to me that his work and this paper not be overplayed:

“I’m hardly a leader, I’m just an amateur with a load of ideas on AR-related topics, some which might be useful, others might become unworkable. I don’t want anyone to get the impression this is how I think it has to, or should be done.”

I have brought/am bringing up this topic of using existing standards and infrastructure where possible for open augmented reality networks in all my interviews with members of the AR Consortium.

And I am finding agreement on a point that Robert Rice makes, “there is no perfect, ultimate solution *now*, but we have to do *something* to work from and refine/evolve.”

Thomas Wrobel makes what I consider some crucial opening suggestions. I take my hat off to him for thinking about this early, coming up with some clear, elegant, and practical ideas, and doing the work to articulate these ideas so others can participate in evolving them.  Massive props for that, many times over.

Good ideas on standards at an early stage of  a developing industry like augmented reality are like spring sunshine and April showers for new crops. No one knows what storms and pests the growing season will bring – but water and sunshine (open standards) are always a good start. And, personally, I can’t wait to see how this new industry unfolds (see Bruce Sterling’s Layar Conference awesome keynote : “At the Dawn of the Augmented Reality Industry.”)

Thomas Wrobel is:

“a web developer working for a small, brand-new company called Lost Again, which mostly works on ARGs (That is, the alternate reality games, not the augmented reality games, although there’s probably going to be big overlap there in the future). We developed two educational ARG games for the Netherlands with a company called res-nova.”

I have been following Alternate Reality Games  through the amazing work of Elan Lee and Fourth Wall Studios. Like Thomas, I think the intersection of ARGs and augmented realities is going to be very interesting. Thomas wanted me to point out that the website for his company with Bertine van Hövell, http://www.lostagain.nl/, is just a placeholder for now.

“Probably be up fully within a week or two. And, “despite the logo, we aren’t an AR company [yet], or a travel firm. The logos supposed to represent being lost in our minds.”

Thomas has been thinking about the topic of an open augmented reality network for a while now.  He is an artist also known as DarkFlame and his ARN network is included in this augmented reality concept for 2086 he did in 2006 (click on image below to enlarge).

Beyond IRC

Both Thomas and Mez Breeze made extensive and insightful comments on my last post, “Augmented Reality – Bigger Than the Web: Second Interview with Robert Rice.” And in particular they both picked up on something I am very interested in – the potential use of the Google Wave Web of protocols in creating open augmented reality networks.

Mez in her brilliant brainsplosion on social tesseracting takes on the very definition of information:

“Tish, when you ask Robert “…what is your approach to delivering a massively shared real time [augmented reality] experience that is like Wave not confined to a walled garden?” that’s an extremely relevant question + one that needs to be addressed while considering the entirety of the Reality-Virtual Continuum. I’ve recently finished a series of articles addressing this: the framework I’ve developed is termed “Social Tesseracting.”

I have recently begun exploring the Google Wave Web of Protocols which are nicely outlined in this post by J Aaron Farr which includes the very interesting diagram below (so more on Google Wave in another post).

But, as Thomas notes, while he demonstrates his ideas using IRC (Internet Relay Chat) they reach Beyond IRC:

“As mentioned before IRC has some drawbacks, which are due to its age or method of working. As such, future systems might yet prove better alternatives for a open AR network. One example of such a system is Google Wave. It shares many of the advantages of IRC (open, anyone can create a channel of data, different permission levels can be set and its free), while avoiding some critical restrictions. (The data can be persistent). I believe some of the ideas I’ve mentioned, and possibly even the proposed protocol string could be adapted for Google Wave or other future systems. I believe overall the principles are more important then any specific implementation to get to them”

Also Thomas pointed that while he uses markers to illustrate some of his examples, they are just a method for tracking.  What he is presenting is going to be transparent to the methodology of registration/tracking.

Tish Shute: You mostly use marker based examples but there is no reason why the principles you are suggesting will not be just as relevant as we move more into using more sophisticated image recognition tools is there?

Thomas Wrobel: No reason whatsoever. I mostly choose familiar markers as something that could be used now, with a lot of coding library’s already established for them. I think for most future AR use, markers will go completely…especially outside. Either things will be done purely by gps, object recognition, or the (in the case of advertising) markers will look like normal posters.

However, I do think traditional markers might “cling on” as being used for non geographical specific stuff at home. After all, if you need some reference points for moving mesh’s about in real time…(say, when playing a board game with a friend on the other side of the world)….then there’s probably nothing that’s going to be more practical then some simple bits of paper or card.

Everything Everywhere

-  A proposal for an Augmented Reality Network system based on existing protocols and infrastructure.

by Thomas Wrobel

The following paper is my vision of a open AR Network and potential methods to implement it with existing technologies. Specifically I’ll be focusing on a potential for a global outdoor AR network, although the ideas aren’t limited to that.

Of course I call it “my” vision, but I’m obviously not the first to have many of these ideas. I have been influenced and inspired by many things…

[Some of Thomas Wrobel’s influences – watched and played. Images  from Mitsuo Iso’s Denno Coil (Click to enlarge) top,  below from the game “Metroid Prime,” and Terminator, and the last from Buffy the Vampire Slayer!]

The AR Network.

When I speak of a future AR Network, I mean one as universal and as standard as the internet. One where people can connect from any number of devices, and without additional downloads, experience the majority of the content.
Where people can just point their phone, webcam, or pair of AR glasses anywhere were a virtual object should be, and they will see it. The user experience is seamless, AR comes to them without them needing to “prepare” their device for it.

From this point forward, I will refer to this future AR Network simple as the “Arn”.

The Arn should be an inclusive, and open platform where any number of devices can connect to, and anyone can make and host their own location-specific models or data.
It should allow people to communicate both publicly and privately, and not have their vision constantly cluttered with things they don’t want to see.

There’s two old, existing paradigms that I think can help reach this goal when they are combined.

The Internet Relay Photoshop.

IRC, or Internet Relay Chat was a chat system designed by Jarkko Oikarinen in the late 80′s.

Its a system where people meet on “channels”, they can talk in groups, or privately. Channels can be read-only, or open to all to contribute to. There is no restriction to the number of people that can participate in a given discussion, or the number of channels that can be formed. All servers are interconnected and pass messages from user to user over the network.

To me, this relatively old internet technology is a great template, or even foundation, for how the Arn could operate. Rather then text being exchanged, it would be mesh data (or links to mesh data), but other then that much of the same principles could apply.

People could join channels of information to view or contribute. Families could leave messages to each other scribbled in mid-air on private channels. Strangers can watch AR games being played between people in parks. People going into a restaurant could see the comments from recent guests hovering by the menu items.
None of this would have to be called up specially, if they are on the right channel when it was broadcast, they will see it.

The IRC paradigm becomes particularly powerful when combined with another one common to many computer users; that of a “Layer” in an art program, such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro.
As most of us know, layers allow us to separate out different components of a piece of art while editing, either to focus our attention on one piece, or to make future editing easier.

Now what if we simply have each “channel” of information represented as a layer?

Click to enlarge image above.

Having channels corresponding to layers is an easy and intuitive way for the Arn to operate. The user can login and contribute data to any channel, like IRC as well as adjusting the desired opacity and visual range of each layer, like they would a layer in Photoshop.

In this way they can get a custom view of the world, both with shared and personal AR elements visible at the same time.
They would not have to switch between various overlays to their world view, as they could see many at the same time.

Persistence of Data

With IRC or IRC-like system to communicate the data sent is mostly temporary data…broadcast on the fly from user to user and device to device. Retained in the users local logs, but not “hosted” anywhere.

I think for the majority of day to day purpose’s this is not so much a drawback, but actually desired for AR. Most casual communication doesn’t need to be recorded permanently in 3D space and, indeed, if it was, the cost of running such a service would increase exponentially with users and with time. Not to mention, our visual view of the world would get very cluttered very quickly. Imagine what your monitor would be like if it kept a history of every window you have ever opened and their positions!

So for most cases AR space should be treated like a 3D monitor letting us display many pieces of data from remote and local sources, and even to share them with others, but not being, by default, a permanent record for it all.

Most data will be analogous to pixels on a display, and if kept in records its only on the clients devices, not on the network itself.

However, occasionally we do want 3d data analogous to a web-page, such as (in the example above), the map layer. Data here should be persistent and visible to all that have that layered turned on.  I see no reason why hosting this data needs to use anything else but standard web-hosting with the (read only) #channel on the Arn merely providing a route to the data.

As the user logs onto the channel, the server, using a chat-bot, can send them a list of meshes with location data attached, and the Arn browser can simply pick the data to display that’s local to them. (Note 1: By doing it this way around, it allows some degree of anonymity to be possible, rather then the server knowing exactly where you are and feeding the specific correct string to you.)

We simply need to establish standards so this data can be pulled up and interpreted.

For instance, this standard could be as simple as a XML string pointing to a KML file on a server. This could then be then displayed in the users field of view at the co-ordinates specified.

In this way permanent data tied to locations, such as historical overlays or maps, could co-exist on the same protocol as temporary data such as mid-air chat’s or gaming related meshes.

There is also no reason why this shared-space/personal spaces based on channels of data has to be restricted to things given absolute co-ordinates.

(Different ways to access the same mesh)

It could work just as well with Markers and thus relative co-ordinates.

This would be mostly useful for indoor use, letting people logged onto a channel see the same meshes as everyone else on the markers. Thus allowing multi-player AR games, or AR games with observers very easily.

For example; games like Chess could be played between people with no additional code needed; You simply have a set of markers for only your own pieces, and as you move them the channel updates with the new positions, which are displayed in place in your opponents field of view.

This sort of game comes “free” with just having a generic system of shared space supporting markers.

It would also allow AR adverts down the street or in magazines to be viewed by simply logging onto the right AR channel

If markers are designed with URL data in them, this could even be a prompted or automatic process.
“There is visual data in this area on the following channel; #ABCD would you like to view this channel?”

Pros and Cons of using IRC or IRC-like systems

Pros;

• Anyone can write a IRC interface software.
• Anyone can create new IRC channels without cost
• Channels can have read and write permissions set.
• Users can easily have multiple channels open at once.
• Already established with thousands of severs worldwide.

Cons;

• 500-or-so character limit. 3D data must be linked too, not sent.
• Slow update rate. Lines of data can take a whole second or more to send.
• Non-persistent. Good for a 3d-view, not good for storage.

An example of how collaborative 3D-spaces could be shared over existing IRC networks;

Click on the image to enlarge

While in the long run I would hope for a dedicated AR network to be developed, with greater flexibility with persistence of data, there is a lot that can be done with the existing IRC system to implement the ideas mentioned above.

Below I will show an example of simple, crude, pseudo-protocol that could be fairly easily implemented to create shared AR spaces broadcast across IRC channels.

Its important to note, the goal here isn’t to exchange the mesh data itself on IRC, its to exchange links to the data.

Exchanging the mesh data directly within the 500 character IRC limit would be very hard, and liable to errors.

It’s also a waste of network bandwidth, as many people logged onto the channel might not have that object in their field of view, so their clients should not bother downloading it. (it should be up to the client browsers when to anticipate and cache mesh data).

Proposed Basic XML link exchange for AR;

Principle;
As user creates or changes an object, the clients software  posts a simple xml formatted string to
the IRC channel.
Anyone logged into that channel then sees that mesh displayed in the specified location.

This string could be formatted as follows;

<Mesh
ID=”DARKFLAME:1”
Obj=”http://www.darkflame.co.uk/mesh/church/chuch.kml”
Loc=”(49.5000123,-123.5000123)”
Permissions=”None”
LastUpdate=”12/12/0000,2012:12”
/>

This string allows other users client logged into the channel to automatically load the object from the URL and display it at the correct position in their field of view.
If the permissions are set to allow it, they could then move the object themselves, with the update being feeding back seamlessly to other users on the channel.

The objects posted are given an ID, which can be just the posters name, followed by a unique object number for that name. These unique ID’s would allow clients to track different instances of the same mesh, as well as making it easy to implement permissions. (if only the poster should be allowed to move this object, then the clients simply check if ID matches the user name posting the update. If its not, they can ignore it).

Next the objects need to be linked to a mesh.

The location of the objects mesh doesn’t have to be a fixed remotely-hosted url, it could be an IP address and port number of the user posting the mesh,hosted by the application posting the link to the channel.

Obj=”www.darkflame.co.uk/mesh/church/chuch.kml”
Obj=”123,223,14,23::3030”

The objects co-ordinates, likewise, need not be specified as absolute gps co-ordinates, but instead could refer to generic Marker.

Loc=”(49.5000123,-123.5000123)”
Loc=”Marker1”
Or relative to a marker;
Loc=”Marker4 (+0.0023,-0.0023)”
Or relative to a default plane;
Loc=”Default(+0.213,-0.123)”

The AR Browsers could then handle the association between the Markers pattern and its Name.
This way the markers are reusable, they do need unique markers to be printed for every new bit of AR they want to look at.
Users could just keep a set of generic markers handy, which they could simply assign to be Marker1,Marker2 etc for any AR use. (Note 2: As mentioned above specific makers could also contain a default ID name and channel built into their data, letting the Arn browser simply prompt the user if they want to see the model even if they aren’t in the right channel. This set up would be most useful for paper and even billboard advertising.)

The Default location could be a settable region, or marker, on the clients browser that defines a playable/user-able area in the field of view. Mostly useful for home use, this could typical be a square region on a users desk.

So, in the chess-game example, the client of the person making the moves simply updates the position relative to the Default every time they move their marker (which is tied to a chess piece mesh).
Then the (non-owners) clients software could automatically display it relative to their Default plane. This would make games like Chess, Checkers, Go or any other game involving merely moving objects about automatically very intuitive and easy to set up.

So by having meshes settable to absolute gps, marker-relative, or default-relative locations, reduces the bother necessary to experience AR content quite considerably, and makes “non-geo-specific” AR applications and games trivial to implement.

Next is permissions.

Mesh-permissions would be a simple string saying who else can update the data, if anyone.

eg;
Permissions=”None”
Permissions=”RandomPerson1, RandomPerson2”
Permissions=”All”

By default you could only update or move your own meshes. (identified by the ID of first posting). If you attempt to update anyone else’s,  their clients would just ignore it.

Thus in a game of chess, you can only move your own pieces. If you attempted to move your opponents (by reassigning  your own marker to their pieces Ids), the clients would just ignore that assignment. You’d only be fooling your own system.
Likewise, when pinning a message in mid-air for your friends to read, no one else can change that message without your permission, although copying it would be easy.  (Note 3: It’s important to note this sort of object-specific permission system is in addition to the global-permissions, or “user-modes” it’s possible to set for the IRC channels and users as a whole.)

Finally, as object data could change within all sorts of time-scales, the easiest way to keep everyone logged in up to date is to just have a time-stamp of when each model was last updated.

LastUpdate=”12/12/0000,2012:12”

This would not necessarily be the same as the XML string post date, because the models mesh might not be updated, but merely moved, and in such case the Arn browser shouldn’t redownload the mesh.

This sort of arrangement could be used as a standard today, and users wouldn’t have to constantly download special AR programs to view a single AR mesh.

In the long-term I would hope for more advanced methods to manipulate Arn-content online, analogous to Dom manipulation in web-pages. But for now, we should at least establish standard methods for devices to pull up meshes and overlay them in the correct position.

So, having a layered system could give the user a seamless blend of dynamic and static data with which to paint their world with.
I believe this is all relatively easy to achieve using modifications of existing web technology, combined with some basic graphics systems.

Local Data:

However, so far I have only talked about remote data.
What of programs originating on the device itself? This is, after all, how most AR software we have at the moment works.

I think, that just like the remote channels, local software should also be blended into the same list of layers.  People shouldn’t have to “Alt+Tab” out of one view of the world, to see another.
They should be able to see both at once, if they wish.

For instance, if your playing a AR game, why shouldn’t your chat window be viewable at the same time?

If you have skinned your environment with a custom view of the world, why shouldn’t you also see mapping or restaurant recommendations?

So local data and remote data should be blended in the same view.
How can AR software – of which I hope, there will be  thousands – seamlessly be expected to layer their graphics, not only with the real world, but with each other, and with online data too? Will games and software makers need to co-operate to allow their graphics to be integrated together with correct occlusion taken into account? A tall order, no?

I must confess though, my technology knowledge fails me here.

I can only guess special graphics drivers, or 3D APIs,  will have to be developed to let programs share their 3D world with that of a Arn browser.
Maybe programmes should simply treat themselves as a local-sever which the browser can connect too, and let the Arn handle all the rendering itself (although I imagine many games designers would find this quite limiting).
So I leave it as an exercise to the readers to discuss and propose the best methods by which this vision of a layered world could be realised..

Beyond IRC:

As mentioned before IRC has some drawbacks, which are due to its age or method of working.
As such, future systems might yet prove better alternatives for a open AR network.
One example of such a system is Google Wave.
It shares many of the advantages of IRC (open, anyone can create a channel of data, different permission levels can be set and its free), while avoiding some critical restrictions. (The data can be persistent).
I believe some of the ideas I’ve mentioned, and possibly even the proposed protocol string could be adapted for Google Wave or other future systems.
I believe overall the principles are more important then any specific implementation to get to them.

Summary;

⁃    In order for AR to flourish the user shouldn’t need to download a separate application for each mesh they want to see.
⁃     Having url’s embedded into QRCoded markers which point to standard mesh files like dxf or kml would be a way to do this right now.  The QR code would only have to be seen precisely  in shot once, then its borders could be used like a standard marker.

⁃    An augmented view of the world needs to support visual multitasking, and having  layers of information is the best way to do that.
⁃
⁃    Methods need to be devised to allow drastically different software to contribute to these layers, without restricting either the software’s rendering ability’s, or the users ability to pick and choose what layers of information he wants to see.

Last point;

I am absolutely confident in my belief AR will become at least as important as the web has, and probably a lot more so. It will also face much the same hurdles and challenges getting established as that medium did.
But, speaking as a web-developer, can we try to avoid a browser war this time?

Everything Everywhere , draft.
by Thomas Wrobel
Darkflame a t gmail

I first started talking to Robert Rice, CEO of Neogence Enterprises, Chairman of the AR Consortium, in 2008.  Robert was already actively working on creating the world’s first global augmented reality network.  But it took a few months before what Robert had said to me about impending explosion of  augmented reality into our lives really sunk in – “this is going to be much bigger than the Web!,” he extolled.

By January, 2009 I was convinced and I posted my first interview with Robert, “Is it OMG Finally for Augmented Reality?..” As I mentioned in the intro, I had recently tried out Wikitude and Nathan Freitas’s grafitti app on the streets of New York City and I was impressed.  Now, 7 months later, Augmented Reality has  not disappointed and there is an explosion of new applications, and the arrival of some of first commercial and practical toolsets, SDKs, and APIs for aspiring developers.

For more on this see my previous post, Augmented Reality’s Growth is Exponential: Ogmento – “Reality Reinvented,” talking with Ori Inbar, which is an introduction to my series of interviews with the key players in augmented reality and founding members of the ARConsortium – Int13, Metaio, Mobilizy, Neogence Enterprises, Ogmento, SPRXmobile, Tonchidot, and Total Immersion.

As I mentioned before, Maarten Lens-FitzGerald of SPRXmobile told me the other day that my first Interview with Robert Rice, in January of this year, was a key inspiration for SPRXmobile to get started on the development of Layar – a Mobile Augmented Reality Browser. Much more on Layar and Wikitude – world browser in my upcoming interviews with Maarten Lens-FitzGerald and Mark A. M. Kramer, respectively.

Recently, both Layar and Wikitude earned a mention in the white paper by Tim O’Reilly and John Battelle, Web Squared: Web 2.0 Five Years On. Web Squared is essential reading not only because it covers the underlying technological shifts of “Web Meets World,” which augmented reality is a vital part of;  but, crucially, Web Squared focuses on how there is a new opportunity for us all:

“The new direction for the Web, its collision course with the physical world, opens enormous new possibilities for business, and enormous new possibilities to make a difference on the world’s most pressing problems.”

I am currently working on a post on Green Tech AR which is one of the areas augmented reality can play an important role “in solving the world’s most pressing problems.” Augmented Reality has a lot to offer Green Tech development.  As Gavin Starks of AMEE said at Euro Foo in 2006, “climate change would be much easier to solve if you could see CO2.”

But really useful Green Tech AR requires still hard to do markerless object recognition (going beyond feature tracking and modified marker recognition), and a tight alignment of media/graphics with physical objects, in addition to a quite a high level of instrumentation of the physical world.  And for Green Tech AR to really shine, we are going to need innovators like Robert Rice who are working on, and solving, multiple really hard problems like:

“privacy, media persistence, spam, creating UI conventions, security, tagging and annotation standards, contextual search, intelligent agents, seamless integration and access of external sensors or data sources, telecom fragmentation, privilege and trust systems, and a variety of others.”

Recently Robert Rice presented at MoMo Amsterdam. Here is a drawing of him in action (picture below from wilgengebroed‘s Flickr Stream).

In his Twitter feed Robert Rice ( @RobertRice ) Robert reminds us: “By the way folks, what you see out there now as “augmented reality” is not what it is going to be in two years.”   Robert plans to show the first public demo of his “platform for platforms” at  ISMAR 2009.

Robert is writing up a series of White Papers currently.  I got a preview of the first, “The Future of Mobile – Ubiquitous Computing and Augmented Reality.”  Robert points out, “AR through the lens of the mobile industry and ubiquitous computing is almost overwhelming compared to AR as marker based marketing campaign.”

I asked Robert, “What are the key take-aways for investors interested in the augmented reality field at the moment:

“First, Mobile AR is going to be bigger than the web. Second, it is going to affect nearly every industry and aspect of life. Third, the emerging sector needs aggressive investment with long term returns. Get rich quick start ups in this space will blow through money and ultimately fail. We need smart VCs to jump in now and do it right. Fourth, AR has the potential to create a few hundred thousand jobs and entirely new professions. You want to kick start the economy or relive the golden days of 1990s innovation? Mobile AR is it.

Don’t be misguided by the gimmicky marketing applications now. Look ahead, and pay attention to what the visionaries are talking about right now. Find the right idea, help build the team, fund them, and then sit back and watch the world change. Also, AR has long term implications for smart cities, green tech, education, entertainment, and global industry. This is serious business, but it has to be done right. I’m more than happy to talk to any venture capitalist, angel investor, or company executive that wants to get a handle on what is out there, what is coming, and what the potential is. Understanding these is the first step to leveraging them for a competitive edge and building a new industry. Lastly, AR is not the same as last decade’s VR.”

Talking with Robert Rice

Picture of Robert Rice at MoMo from Guido van Nispen‘s Flickr Stream

Tish Shute: So perhaps we better start with an update on state of play with Neogence?

Robert Rice: Neogence is doing well actually. We don’t talk much about the fact that we are still a small startup and we face a lot of the usual obstacles related to that and being a small team. Fundraising has been extra difficult, mostly because people are just now beginning to see the potential in AR, but that is still colored by perceptions based on a lot of the gimmicky AR ad campaigns out there. Still, it is better than it was two years ago the idea of an AR startup was a bit of a joke to a lot of VCs we talked to. However, we do have an agreement from a new venture fund in Europe (which we can’t talk about yet) for our first round of funding, but we don’t expect to close that for several months.

If all goes well, we hope to debut our first public demo at ISMAR 2009 in Orlando to select individuals and a few press folks. We might release a few viral videos before then that are conceptual and about what we are building in the long run, but that depends on how things go over the next several weeks.

We are also very active in looking for and building strategic partnerships and relationships with other companies, and this is not restricted to the augmented reality or mobile sector. As I have said before, we are looking at this as a long term business venture and the industry as something that will be bigger than the web itself within ten years. We are doing typical contract work and custom AR solutions to keep the cash flow going and build up the corporate resume a bit. So, if you want something done, and better than the stuff you are seeing now with all of the generic “look at our brand in AR with markers and a webcam” you should definitely give us a call.

Tish Shute: Just to clarify because most of the recent press has been about browser type AR like Wikitude and Layar which are not in the purist sense AR ‘cos they do not have graphics tightly linked to physical world. Neogence, if I am correct, is focused on building a true AR platform in the sense I just described?

Robert Rice: Hrm, I have argued with a few others about the actual definition of AR. Some people prefer a narrow and limiting view (3D overlaid on video), but I think in terms of the market and the end-user, it is better to have a wider definition. In that sense, AR is purely the blend of real and virtual, with or without full 3D overlaid on video. If we go with that, then Wikitude, Layar, Sekai, NRU, and others all fit into the AR definition.

Anyway, you are correct. We are building a true platform for AR, and this is quite different from what others are marketing as AR browser “platforms.”

There are a few problems with the “AR Browsers” approach that no one seems to be noticing. One is that they are all trying to get people to build new applications for their browsers, when they should be trying to get people to create content that they can share and browse.

Second, someone using Layar is not going to see anything that is designed for Sekai or Wikitude.

Third the experiences are generally for one user. While I love all of these guys and think each of the teams has some real talent on it, the model is flawed until someone using Wikitude can see the same thing that someone using Layar or Sekai camera is seeing (provided they are in the same physical location).

While we are working on our own client side technologies that we hope will be useful and integrated with every mobile device and AR browser out there, our core focus is on connecting everything and everyone together, and facilitating the growth of the industry with the tools to create content, applications, and so forth. We want to solve the really difficult technical problems (some of which most people haven’t even considered yet, because of the perspective they are looking at the potential of AR with), and make it easy for everyone else to do the cool stuff. We want to be the facilitators.

If you really want an idea of where we are going or some of what has inspired us, you have GOT to read Dream Park, Rainbows End, and The Diamond Age. If you have heard me speak anywhere or read my blog, you know that I am continually suggesting these and others.

Anyway, short answer, yes, we are building a true platform for ubiquitous mobile augmented reality, and we are absolutely the first to be doing so. I hope to demo some of this in October at ISMAR, with a full commercial launch next year (10/10/10 at 1010am Hehe, seriously). We will probably launch a website soon for people to start signing up and building a community now (especially if you want in on the beta testing of the whole kibosh).

Tish: So just to clarify,  how will Neogence’s approach differ and fit into the  growing world of Augmented Reality tools that we have now, e.g.,  ARTookit, Imagination, Unifeye?

Robert: I guess you could say that we are trying to build the infrastructure for the global augmented reality network. This could be viewed as a service, or even a platform for platforms. If Neogence does its job right, anything you create using ARtoolkit, Unifeye, or Imagination would be applications you could ultimately link to, integrate with, or deploy on or through, what we are building, and not be tied to a specific set of hardware, browser, or walled garden.

Tish: You mention Neogence is going to provide a platform for platforms. Without knowing the details that sounds like a lot of centralization which prompts the inevitable question: “Who owns the data?” Do you think other AR applications or providers would resist a “Platform for Platforms?” I know the potential centralization power of Google Wave has already got people talking about these issues (one of the comments in my recent blog post was about how Google Wave protocol may be interesting for a least some parts of augmented reality communication).

Robert: It really depends on perception and how we end up building it. We aren’t talking about creating a closed system. As far as who owns the data, it depends on what data we are talking about. For the most part, I think that if the end-user creates something, they should own it and have control over it. They should also be able to do what they want with it, independent of everything else.

This is one thing that proponents of the smart cloud and the thin/dumb client don’t like to talk about. It sounds great on paper, but when you start thinking about it, all that does is strip away power from the end user. Case in point…Amazon recently wiped every copy of George Orwell’s 1984 from all Kindle devices. They claimed they didn’t have rights to distribute/publish it and it was available on accident. The scary thing though, is that they literally went into every kindle out there, found copies, and deleted them.

How would you like it if Microsoft suddenly decided to delete every copy of Microsoft Office? Or every file that had a .doc extension? That is a huge violation…we feel like we own what is on our computers. But with the whole cloud thing, your data is at the mercy of whoever is running the cloud servers. No privacy, no ownership, no control. And if the system breaks, all you will have is a pretty dumb device that can’t do much on its own. Now, that isn’t to say that the technical merits and benefits of a cloud model aren’t worth pursuing, they are.

But I think there needs to be some hybrid model. Don’t dumb down my computer or my smart phone, let’s keep pushing how much these devices can do. We should take full advantage of centralized and distributed systems, but in a hybrid mashup sense. That is what we are pursuing with our AR platform, while trying to protect ownership and intellectual property rights of the end user.

Tish: Earlier today I was telling you how impressed I was by Google Wave – it is quite mind blowing to experience massively multiplayer real time interaction on what will be an open internet wide platform – Wave is breaking new ground here and more than one person has mentioned its potential role in AR to me (see the comments to my recent post on Ogmento).

I know you are a strong advocate of this kind of real time shared experience being part of AR.  But we are only just beginning to see it emerge via Wave on the existing web – what will it take to have this kind of real time shared experience in AR!  We got briefly into the thick client, thin client, cloud versus P2P discussions – what is your approach to delivering a massively shared real time experience that is like Wave not confined to a walled garden?

Robert: I’m not a fan of any of those models as being stand alone or mutually exclusive. Again, the hybrid model with the best of both worlds is key. In the early stages of the emerging industry, you are likely to see some walled gardens (or perhaps a walled garden of walled gardens…).

No one knows how things are going to turn out in the next five to ten years and few people are thinking about it actively. For us though, I favor Alan Kay’s quote (pardon the paraphrasing): “To accurately predict the future, invent it”. That’s what we are doing. In the short term, there will be plenty of experimentation in the industry and a lot of model testing.

Tish: Do you think though Wave protocols might be useful as at least part of the picture for AR standards?  As you point out open standards and open protocols are going to be vital for shared experiences of AR.  Is it important to build off existing protocols to get the ball rolling and what do you see as being the important early protocols for AR?

Robert: I think for now, we will use a lot of existing protocols for communications and whatnot, as well as the usual standards for things like 3D models, animation, and so forth. This is only natural. However, as the industry and technology evolves, we will need entirely new ones. As far as I know there is no existing market standard for anything like the Holographic Doctor from Star Trek Voyager, and that type of thing is definitely in the pipeline for the future (sooner than you would think).

Tish: All the excitement at the arrival of the browser like mobile reality developments has been really great – I feel people are getting a taste for what it means to compute with anyone/anything, anywhere and and anytime.

Wikitude started the ball rolling. And with Wikitude.me it is the first to support user generated content. Now there is Layar, Sekai Camera also. But as you mentioned to me in an earlier chat, with Layar and Wikitude opening up “their are probably half dozen other apps coming out in short order with similar functionality (even the AR twitter thing has some similarities).”

What has been most exciting to you about these developments up to this point? What will these apps/platforms need to do to stand out in a crowd.  Up to now, these browser like AR experiences do nothing with close by objects. Do you see “world browsers” with near object recognition coming out in the near future. Could Wikitude do this with an integration of SRengine or Imagination?

Robert: Yes, Wikitude or Layar could do this (integrate with something else for “near” AR) and it would be a step in the right direction. Tagging things in the real world is the basic functionality that will grow from text tags to photos, videos, 3D objects, and all sorts of other types of data and meta data. This gets really fun when that data is generated by the object itself. First is just giving people the ability to tag something and share that tag with their friends, everything else grows from that. This sort of functionality is probably the most exciting in terms of near future advancement.

However, I think the idea of a stand-alone browser platform is a bit awkward…unless you also consider firefox a website browser platform. After all, you can create widgets (applications) for it. Anyway, the point is having access to the same data…if you put three people in a room, one for each browser, they should see and experience the same content, although the interface might be different (based on what browser and of course which hardware they are using). This means there needs to be some communication between whatever servers they are storing their data on (meaning, user tags) and some standard for how those tags are created.

Of course, if all they are doing is grabbing the GPS coordinates of the nearest subway station and telling you how far it is and in what direction, then they should all be able to see the same thing, regardless of the platform. But then, that isn’t really interesting is it? I could get the same info on a laptop with google maps.

This is part of the problem right now though…no one seems to be thinking about the bigger picture much. All of the effort is either on making the next cool ad campaign for a car or a movie, or creating a tool to tell you where the nearest thingamajig is, but in a really cool fashion on a mobile device.

No one is talking much about filtering data, privilege systems, standards, third party tools, interoperability, and so on. There is also little conversation about where hardware is going. Right now everyone is developing software based on what hardware is available. This needs to change where hardware is being developed to take advantage of new software coming out (this happened in the PC industry a while back and growth accelerated dramatically).

These are some of the reasons why I led the effort to start the AR Consortium. We brought CEOs from 8 different AR companies and startups together to start talking about these issues. We are still getting organized and have plans to expand the membership to other companies, but we want to do this right and we aren’t rushing things. The important thing is that we have started and there is at least a line of communication open now, where there wasn’t before.

I would expect to see the early movers expanding what they offer very soon, and they will probably lead the way in the short term. Definitely keep an eye on the companies involved in the AR Consortium. There are lots of very smart and motivated people there, and they are far ahead of all the experimental dabbling in AR we are beginning to see on youtube, twitter, and elsewhere.

Tish: When we had a discussion about what were the basics for an AR platform and an AR browser earlier, you talked about the difference between tools, a platform, and a AR browser – like Wikitude and Layar which should be about features/functionality e.g. to create treasure hunts AR geocaching, invisible AR yellow sticky notes you can leave at restaurants you don’t like, etc. Also you noted it should let you explore (browse) multiple formats, and open content content for AR – any data, information, or media that is linked to something in the real world and the visualization/interaction with the same.

Wikitude is a stepping stone to a true browser by your definition. But are we also seeing what you would define as an AR platform emerging – Unifeye, Wikitude (you can recap your definition if you like too)?

I think Wikitude hopes to provide the lego blocks for  augmented reality readers, browsers, applications, tools, and  platforms?

Robert: I expect some segmentation among the various AR companies that are out now, as they find their individual strengths and focus on them. Some will emphasize the client software (the browser), others will develop robust tools for creating content, SDKs/APIs will advance and facilitate rapid development of applications, etc. Neogence is ultimately working on the glue in the middle that ties everything together, makes it massively multiuser, persistent, and ubiquitous. Things like Unity3D have the potential to fill a need in the middleware space.

Tish: I know Blair McIntyre (see my interview with Blair here) and others are using Unity3D as an AR client, Could Unity3D become increasingly important?

Robert: It has the potential to become a favored middleware for providing the rendering layer. It already works nicely in regular browsers, and on several mobile platforms. Why code all the graphics rendering stuff from scratch when you can just license something and extend its features with AR functionality?

Tish: Now to ask your own question back to you! There seems to be a lot of reason to think that, eventually, there will be the kind of access to the iphone video API that augmented reality really requires and by that I mean more than we will get with OS 3.1 which is rumored to deliver only about half of what we really need for AR on the iphone – “not truly useful when you want to align video. with graphics.”  So:

“The iphone…future or failure? Seemingly anti-developer stance regarding augmented reality, and only a sliver of the global market share. Are we letting the short term glitz of Apple and the iPhone fad pull us in the wrong direction? Shouldnt we be focusing on symbian devices that have the lion’s share of the market? or should we be looking more at either other OSs (winmobile, android) or not at all and trying to create a new platform that is more MID and less smart phone with a hardware partner?”

Robert: Apple and the iphone are a bit problematic right now. There is no way I can go to a venture capitalist (at least in North America) and say hey we are building awesome AR applications for winmobile or symbian…they would either laugh or they simply wouldn’t get it. There is this false perception that the iphone is the ultimate mobile device, it is the sexiest, and the only thing that people want. Everyone wants a demo on the iphone, the media is mostly interested in iphone developments, and the apple fanatic market could give a fig about other devices. Other devices may have a larger market share or even better hardware, but we have to focus on the iphone right now at least in the demo stage to get any market attention and traction worth the time and effort.

In the future though, unless Apple changes its stance with their SDK and APIs, and starts adding hardware that is key for mobile AR (beyond what is there now), the market will move on without them. This is a really easy decision to make given Apple’s draconian policies and the fact that their percentage of the global market is miniscule. The smart companies are looking at the whole picture and not putting all of their eggs in the Apple basket.

Of course, once the wearable displays are commercially viable everything changes. Wearable computers with small screens or even no screens are going to be what everyone wants. The interface will go from handheld touch screens to virtual holographic interfaces that you interact with using your bare hands.

So for now, (the immediate short term), its all about the iphone. Taking mobile ubiquitous AR to the global market and building for the future will be based on something else. Hardware risks becoming a commodity or a closed platform. Do you really want to buy the Apple iGlasses and only see AR content that is compatible, where your best friend has a pair of WinGlasses and sees something entirely different? No. The hardware, and the client software (what people are calling the ar browser now) will become common and it won’t matter what brand you use, they will all be accessing the same content.

But at least for the forseeable future, we are building software for specific hardware, and the sexiest mobile on the block is the iphone. The second someone comes out with something much better and the paradigm shifts (software driving hardware instead of vice versa) everything changes.

Tish: How is the quest for sexy AR eyewear going.  I know we were checking out the Japanese eyewear with Adam Johnson from Genkii just now.  For the Neogence project – as you are going for a fully developed model of AR doesn’t this necessitate going beyond the iphone and getting the hardware companies moving on the eyewear?

Robert: The guys making wearable displays really need to get off the pot and stop paying lip service to mobile AR. If they don’t do something quick, I,  and others, are going to be scouring the planet looking for someone capable of building the lightweight stylish wearable displays with transparent lenses we are begging for. We aren’t going to be waiting around for hardware anymore. The AR Pandora’s box has been opened. I should note that many of us (AR Consortium members) have had less than pleasant experiences or communications with the half dozen companies or so that are making wearable displays. Either their visual design is terrible, the materials feel flimsy, the field of view is limited, or the companies are preoccupied with other business and government contracts. Any attention to the growing AR market is an afterthought and in a few cases condescending. AR is going to be a billion dollar industry in a very short time, and these guys are just leaving money on the table. If they were smart, they would be begging the CEOs from the AR Consortium to fly out to their offices and collaborate on building a pair of wicked sick glasses. The smart phone manufacturers should be doing the same thing, but I have to say that they at least seem to have some ambition and zeal to create better devices, so I can’t really complain too much there.

Anyway, to answer the rest of your question, we have to assume that the hardware guys, especially regarding the eyewear, is going to take a long time to develop and release the things we need for the ultimate AR experience. So, our goal is to start building things now for what is available. That means scaling things down and handicapping what AR can do, so it works on the “sexy” iphone. The important thing though is to start creating applications -now- so when the glasses are commercially available, there will be a wealth of content for people to access and use on day one.

As long as Apple isn’t playing nice, it is going to hurt everyone. Is it any surprise that they shut down Google Voice? There is a huge opportunity for someone to step up and leapfrog the rest of the industry. Give us the hardware and we will create amazing software for it. Don’t compete with the iphone, surpass it.

Tish: What is the state of play of current AR technology and toolkits?

Robert: The current crop of AR technology and toolkits is absolutely critical for this stage of the industry, and everyone should be leveraging it as much as possible. I talk down marker and image based tracking a lot, but I also like to point out that it is the necessary baseline that the industry is going to be built on. The problem is that there is only so much you can do with marker driven apps, and as creative people and marketing types start conceptualizing about all sorts of cool stuff for the future, they risk setting the expectations too high. It is one thing to show someone the future, it is another to say this is the future and its happening right now. This is why I cringe everytime I see a conceptual video presented as “our product DOES this” instead of “our product WILL DO this.” Something that simple can still cause the butterfly effect of raising expectations too high and contribute to overhyping.

Tish: One of the things that seems very exciting about the new Ogmento partnership is that experienced content producers  Brad Foxhoven and Brian Selzer from Blockade are now taking a leading role in AR.  What are the most exciting directions for content that you see emerging for AR in the next 12 months?

Robert: Virtual (well, augmented) pets, and multiuser mobile AR games (2-4 people) are probably going to lead in the next 12 months for content. Easy, accessible, engaging.

Tish: And are you at Neogence also involved in content partnerships?

Robert: Yes, we are in the process of finalizing some content partnerships with an eye for long term relationships. We are specifically looking for partners that want to find substantive ways to leverage AR technology, and not use it as a superficial gimmick or attraction that wears off after five minutes. I’m still cringing over the Proctor & Gamble Always campaign with AR.

Tish: So back to your observation about some of the tricky problems re creating a true global massively multiuser, ubiquitous, mobile AR platform – what are some of the main obstacles to this mission in our view? (aside from getting investment!)

Robert: Trying to explain it to people. The technical problems we can handle or have already solved. But trying to communicate what exactly we are doing is still tough. Not because it is overly complicated, but rather because it is so new and different. People are having a hard time grasping augmented reality beyond marker/webcam.

Tish: Which AR tools are most important right now?

Robert: Content is critical right now to show what the technology is capable of and to continue building the presence of augmented reality in the public mind the big benefit to integrated / unified platforms now is speed of development for content. I think that the flash artoolkit = papervision is rocking the planet right now. It is accessible, easy to learn, and lets people create something very quickly. More tools and middleware are coming out and this increases options for designers and developers.

Tish: What are your favorite papervision apps?

Robert: Hrm, I don’t have a favorite papervision app just yet, although I think the tech is solid. I expect to see a lot of stuff built on that platform in the near future. Especially as more ad agencies get on the bandwagon and start telling their IT guys to learn how to program flash so they can make something. Have you seen www.ronaldchevalier.com Not so much for the actual AR stuff, but because the whole thing is just brilliant. Its exactly like some cult figure spiritual guru would do with AR. I wish I had thought of it first actually. This is probably one of the best -seamless- implementations of AR in marketing where it fits…it isn’t just jammed in there for the sake of saying they used AR.

Tish: Do you think Apple is going open the iphone to the full potential of augmented reality anytime soon – a lot of expectations have been raised?

Robert: Apple is like that guy has a party at his house and owns this really awesome state of the art home theater in his basement, but makes everyone watch a movie in the living room on a regular TV with a VCR.

They need to get over themselves and quit being a wet blanket. Otherwise, we are taking the beer and pizza we brought, and going to someone else’s house. Sorry, the Apple thing is a bit of a sore point with me.

Tish: But will people leave all that candy and soda at the appstore?

Robert: I tell you what though, there is an opportunity for certain mobile phone manufacturers to give me a call and start talking to Neogence and the other members of the Consortium. We have some ideas and specs that could have a radical impact on the mobile market and stuff the IPhone in a box. Hint hint.

Tish: So what is your vision for the ARconsortium.  I know it kicked off with a letter to Apple about the video API.  What is the next step? There was a lot of hope that this year would be big for MIDs but this really hasn’t happened yet – do you think there is hope for a MID take off despite the lousy economy?)

Robert: MIDs? No, not yet. smart phones are too lucrative and too hot. It isn’t time yet for the MID to go mainstream. For that to happen, there needs to be a driving need (cough ubiquitous AR cough)

The AR consortium is mostly an informal affiliation. I expect that representatives from each member will probably meet at every significant conference to catch up over drinks. We are also going to be planning for our own members conference at least once a year. That will happen after we expand the membership though.

The main idea behind the consortium though was to open up a channel of communication between the CEOs so we could work together on standards, solving problems, collaborating, forming some partnerships, and using the collective to bang on the doors of companies like Apple and others. There is power in a group.

Tish: You mentioned there is a whole long conversation we can have about getting the eyewear.  As you point out true AR eyewear changes everything.  Can give a little road map of where this has to go?

Robert: There are essentially four or five main approaches, depending on whether or not you make the lenses special or if they are just plain. You would normally want them to be plain so people with prescription lenses wouldn’t have problems and would have the option to switch them out. Some types use a more prismatic approach for top down projection, or a corner piece mounts lasers and bounces them off the lens into the eye.  Another approach is embedding OLEDs or something else into the lenses themselves.

I really like the Lumus approach, but their product design isn’t quite there yet. If the wearables don’t look cool, people won’t use them. To be honest, if I had the money, I’d probably ask the Art Lebedev guys to design them based on someone else’s optical engineering. They designed the optimus maximus old keyboard…   brilliant industrial designers, loaded with engineers too. If these guys couldn’t build the glasses and make them look damn bad ass, I’d be shocked. Heck, I bet they could build the next gen MID while they were at it.

Tish: Getting the hardware innovation and software innovation feeding into each other would be really great.

Robert: Absolutely.

Tish: That would push the eyewear forward too wouldn’t it?

Robert: All it takes is one, and then the competitive landscape would fire right up.

Tish: What applications would the accurate gps enable?

Robert: Everything. for example, you know exactly where the phone is and where it is facing, that means you can put it on a table and hit a button, then move it somewhere else and do the same thing in a few minutes, you have a nearly accurate “mental” model of the whole place now you go back and start dropping virtual flower pots everywhere.

This is one area where I think the smart phone guys are missing the boat and taking the cheap route. It is possible to have very accurate GPS (down to a six inch area) with better chips and firmware, but it is cheaper to stick in old tech. Most apps today dont need that hyper accuracy, so they aren’t bothering. Mobile AR though, thats a different story.

With that level of accuracy, you would know exactly where the mobile device is, so all you would need to know is the direction it is facing (orientation), and you could solve one of the problems with registering exactly where 3D objects and augmented media is (it is more complicated than I am describing it, but we don’t need to get into that much detail here). You wouldn’t need markers anymore.

Tish: Isn’t Wikitude doing this with Wikitude.me their tagging app.?

Robert: Not really. That type of approach is on a very large scale using the accelerometers compass and GPS to determine where you are and what is in the distance. They (and others like Layar) don’t handle “near” AR. They effectively poll your GPS and then check a database to see what is nearby and what degree/distance it is and then they draw a representation on the screen. They don’t even need a mobile device’s camera at all.

Even if they did things up close, its still based on finding landmarks or on things that are broadcasting their location. For example, if they were standing near me, they might get “robert, 37 degrees, 15 meters away” but they wouldn’t be tracking me exactly as I walk around or have the ability to overlay graphics on ME.

Tish: I retweeted your #ar marketing using ARToolkit + flash (markers/webcams) = Photoshop pagecurl <six months. Bad design kills innovation. I know you like Dr Chevalier though!  What are some of the other AR marketing projects that you like. What would you like to see in terms of innovation in the next 6 months?

Robert: The marker/webcam approach is already becoming overused and cliche (tremendously fast). Older readers will remember the ubiquitous photoshop page curl that adorned nearly every website and graphic on the internet back in the day. It was horrible. Yes, the Dr. Chevalier stuff cracks me up.

I want to see some big companies or ad agencies really try to do something different with AR, preferably mobile. Take some risks, do something different. Don’t follow the crowd. Innovation? I want to see some wearable displays with transparent lenses, I want a mobile device specifically designed for ubiquitous AR, I want to see some experimenting with AR in the green tech sector, and I’d like to see someone get that GiFi wireless technology from that researcher in Australia and jam it into a smart mobile. I would also like my flying car and lunar vacation now, thank you. It is almost 2010 and no one has found that black obelisk yet.

Tish: So a few closing thoughts! What do you see as the next big thing? Hopes for the ar consortium?  Biggest bstacle for commercial AR?  And what is the coolest thing you have seen this year?!

Robert: The next big thing is what I’m working on hahaha. I hope the AR Consortium will grow and be the active catalyst in making AR mainstream, practical, and world changing.

The biggest obstacle is making sure that the right funding finds the right developers to develop the right technology and create kick ass applications.

The coolest thing I’ve seen this year would probably be the facade projection stuff (see below): Now, imagine that, but without the projector. Thats part of what I envision for AR in the future.