I have been so busy working on Augmented Reality Event, Jun 2nd, 3rd, Santa Clara, CA, in recent weeks that I have barely had time to post!  But it’s getting hard to contain my excitement about ARE2010.  If you haven’t already seen the sneak preview of the schedule  – see here.

Augmented Reality Event will be an unique opportunity to see how the complete vision of AR is emerging, one that will include visual recognition of real life objects, sensors to enable interaction with physical objects, and the long anticipated, comfortable, sexy, AR eyewear.  Six companies with be presenting and exhibiting AR glasses and HMDs at Augmented Reality Event.

Keynote luminaries will include: Bruce Sterling, “AR Prophet,” Will Wright (Spore, The Sims & now AR and The Stupid Fun Club), Jesse Schell (who will give the AR follow up to his now viral Dice talk), and Blaise Aguera y Arcas (Microsoft, Bing), whose talk on augmented reality maps was one of the most popular talks at TED this year.

Over 40 AR companies from all over the world are represented, and there will be speakers from Qualcomm, Google, Microsoft, Nokia, Intel, and Nvidia.  Over 80 augmented reality experts and entrepreneurs are presenting, including a AR titans, Total Immersion and Metaio.   Mobilizy, Layar, Ogmento, TagWhat, Tonchidot, and Zenitum (just to name a few of the stellar augmented reality start ups coming – for more, and a list of speakers see here) will demonstrate AR is not just a vision, but actually drives significant businesses today,

Five Augmented Reality industry start ups will be on the hot seat in a Launchpad competition with $10,000 prize for the winner, thanks to the generosity of  Qualcomm, a leading developer and innovator of advanced wireless technologies, and the featured sponsor of Augmented Reality Event.  Zenitum, a leading augmented reality company, with a technology portfolio that includes both location and advanced vision-based sensory input is the Gold sponsor for ARE2010, and Adobe are sponsoring the ARt Gala & Reception.  Many thanks to the sponsors for making ARE2010 possible.

Readers of this post can use my discount code TISH245 to register here for a $245 price for the whole 2 day event.

But just to add some balance to my total enthusiasm for the rocket like trajectory of augmented reality in recent months, this post will also look at an area that has been, to date, disappointing for AR developers.   While Nokia will have a couple of speakers at ARE2010, and certainly they have a very impressive history in augmented reality research, they have not delivered the magic brew to attract the augmented reality developer community.   Will this change with the release of the N8 (see video opening this post)?  I wanted to find out if AR developers see a light at the end of the tunnel with N8 as a platform for AR.  So I asked some AR developers and entrepreneurs, “How attractive is the N8 for the AR community?”

Nokia’s apparent nonchalance about augmented reality is in sharp contrast to the bear hug shown in this Verizon Droid Augmented Reality Ad featuring Layar!  As Bruce Sterling notes,

*Hollywood-up for Layar by cooking up some o’ those big-time sci-fi production values.
All magic, all the time, Mr. Roboto.

And it is clear that everyone has high hopes that iPhone SDK 4 delivers fully for AR developers this time! For more on this listen to @chrisgrayson’s 3rd video on Mobile AR here.

But before I get back to my question about the AR community’s thoughts on N8 as a platform for augmented reality, let me crow just a little more about the upcoming awesomeness of Augmented Reality Event.  As the chair of the technology track, ARE2010 is on my mind night and day at the moment!

The tools for the kind of augmented reality we have always dreamed of  – the zero click interface to a heads up, hyperlocal view, bringing you computing anywhere, anytime, with anything, are evolving fast.  Powerful algorithms for search, and machine learning, combined with cooperating cloud data services, will soon be bringing apps that learn by context accumulation to your AR view (see Siri).  Google Goggles, who will have a speaker at ARE2010, have already announced their intent to open APIs, putting a vital tool of visual search in developer’s hands.

A bunch of technologies are maturing these days and helping bring AR to consumers.  Mobile devices that pack all the ingredients for AR, location-based services, see thru video goggles, visual search, innovations in 3D mapping, Simple Geo’s innovative a approach to aggregating geo data, and the next generation of “Street View” such as Earthmine, and, very importantly, open standards and software for AR that will bring many new opportunities for creativity, and monetization.   These are just some of the aspects of this energetic technology convergence that will be represented at  Augmented Reality Event.

In the area of open standards, I am especially excited about the debut of Polaris at Augmented Reality Event.  Polaris is an AR browser, from Blair MacIntyre and the Georgia Tech team, based as much as possible on existing standards and tech.  More on this and ARWave in another post!  Also, I am excited to be demoing ARWave at the Com.Geo 2010 conference, June 21 – 23, in Washington.  Again more on this later.

But for now back to my question opening this post:

“Are Nokia back in the AR?”  and “How attractive is the N8 to the AR community?”

First I asked, my co-chair on Augmented Reality Event, Ori Inbar of Ogmento – one of the augmented reality start ups who’s star is on the rise, and Ori (also known for his writing on Games Alfresco) is one of the key thought leaders in the emerging augmented reality industry.

Ori Inbar:

“Well, the hardware spec is impressive – but that’s not what makes it a good AR device. What’s really important is reach, distribution, and ease of development – areas in which the N8 still has a lot to prove.

- Will the N8 become as prevailing as the iPhone or lead Android phones or will the Nokia landscape remain fragemented with too many variants of phones to support?

- Will the Ovi store pick up steam and become a lucrative chanel for selling apps?

While we wait for these questions to be answered – we’ll keep developing games for Android and the iPhone “

So there you go.

Ori is right that augmented reality developers like the hardware specs.  Here are some comments from Patrick O’Shaughnessey of Patched Reality, Peter Meier, Metaio, and whurley of Chaotic Moon and Robert Rice, Mirascape.

Patrick O’Shaughnessey:

“Looks like it has everything one would want to make both looking glass and magic mirror AR, and built-in face recognition software to boot!  I wonder if they allow you to use both cameras at once making AR video conferencing possilbe?”

“Dedicated graphics processor with OpenGL 2.0 enables 3D graphics” nice!

“Looks like it also does Flash (Flash Lite 4.0, anyway). Not sure if Flash Light provides access to the camera. Could be a nice way to do quick and dirty POC’s on the device”

Peter Meier:

“Metaio thinks the N8 is a very promising device for AR. Especially in Europe we expect a lot of reach.  Symbian is hard to develop for, but on the other hand is much more efficient in terms of real time performance than Android and less restrictive on APIs than iPhone.”

whurley:

“It looks really great and perfect for ar in many regards.”

“clarity of a 12 MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics will give the Nokia N8 some clear advantages in the AR world.  The clarity of this camera will allow for more advanced applications of augmented reality such as image/object recognition”.

“At first glance this is definitely very impressive from a hardware specification. I am surprised though, at the lack of buzz about the device. I have heard virtually nothing about it in the usual sources I monitor, and I wonder about the marketing.

Given the technical superiority and the difficulty Nokia has had penetrating at least the North American market, maybe something catchier like the GR-8 (Nokia Great) or M8 (Nokia Mate) might be a bit more user friendly and easier to market. I particularly like “Nokia M8″…take it with you wherever you go, can’t live without it, etc.

Anyway, as awesome as the specifications are, I would like to echo some of the other comments here…tools, community, ease of development, etc. are critical parts of the ecosystem that would make this ideal for AR development, above and beyond the pure hardware specs. I think Nokia has to really re-think some of its strategy to engage consumers, attract the developers, and establish a new beachhead in North America.”

Talking with Michael Halbherr at Where 2.0

I talked to Michael Halbherr briefly at Where 2.0 before the release of details on the N8, so, of course, he was unable to be as explicit as he might have been about the N8.  Below is a lightly edited transcript.  At Where 2.0, Michael Halbherr  gave a clear explanation of  Nokia’s emphasis on a global strategy.   And, as this blow by blow account on the Google Earth Blog noted, “They’re doing some cool stuff with their handheld maps. In particular, their Ovi Maps (turn-by-turn navigation) are now completely free and becoming very popular.”

But the question remains:  Where is AR is on the Nokia roadmap?

Michael Halbherr (Nokia) on stage at the O’Reilly Where 2.0 Conference 2010 in San Jose, California. Photo by James Duncan Davidson. See Where 2.0 Flickr set here.

Tish Shute: Can I ask you a few questions about Augmented Reality?

Michael Halbherr: So for me augmented reality and mixed reality is essentially a way you search.  So when you look at where we come from, as the company that acquired Gate 5, we believe the phone is essentially the gate that basically combines or connects your virtual and your real world in both ways.  So we can have virtual overlays on top of reality, and you can also record and push it back.

But when you look at the way we do it, I think it is actually an extension of mapping, right?  So you will have the map, which is an abstraction of reality, and then basically with a flick you can go to real reality.  And I think to really understand what you see, you need to actually really know what you see, and an image doesn’t do that.  But if you have compass, and GPS, and 3D models, which is what Navteq is capturing, we can actual do line of sight calculations and you can really say, “OK.  He is looking at that building.” And you can click on the building because you have that understanding.  And you can combine that.  And that leads to a completely new way for how people interact with their environment.

So the here and now, and me here and now, and what next is a key innovation in our focus hereafter.

Tish Shute: I suppose for AR enthusiasts we were all disappointed when we saw the N900 with Maemo, which was very exciting as an operating system, didn’t have a compass.

Michael Halbherr: Yeah, but you know, that is just a matter of timing.  At the end of the day, Meego is our, I think, high-end push.  You will see this Mego device have what you need it to have.  So I wouldn’t worry too much about that.  We are building all the  phones, and everything has everything.

I think it is not just Meego.  It is the whole thing around it.  It is the QT, it is the web run time, it is the whole Meego system.

Tish Shute: Yes we have used QT for some development on the ARWave project, it is very good.

Michael Halbherr: Yeah, and the web run times, it’s open…So Nokia is about open and emotional.  Others are maybe open and more utilitarian or closed, and we are more open and more emotional.  And I think that is what we want to basically do with this platform.

And we are working very hard.  And so whatever I say has been built almost a year ago.  So there is a lot that we are building that we don’t talk about before we announce.  And we try to do this as a global offer, so we can’t launch a little service in the US, which maybe is a problem for us.  But we are basically building complete solutions for global markets.

Tish Shute: Yes.  And when I heard you talk just now on Nokia’s global strategy just now, it all fits in.  But from the point of view from someone who lives here in the US, it seems Nokia is disappointing us.

So is Nokia enabling augmented reality in any ways that noone else is?   I mean if you are interested in augmented reality, the backend and data is vital, e.g. the Navteq part.  And Apple has excited us with the amazing performance of their hardware, and they have taken steps like controlling the manufacture of their chips, powerful cpu and gpu is very important for augmented reality experiences too? Is there a need for a chip set geared to augmented reality specifically?

Michael Halbherr: I’m not sure you have to go that far.  I think at the end of the day it is the data, right?  The map data and the 3D data that is actually extremely important.

Tish Shute: Yeah, I agree with you that the data is vitally important.

Michael Halbherr: Because at the end of the day, when you have a real abstract view, it is really important, because the camera or the view is only a viewer, right?  And people don’t really know what they see.  It is just they plaster on it believing that the person sees what he sees.  So I think real augmented reality or mixed reality is really basically having a real picture, but having, actually, the understanding of the 3D logic of the picture.  And for that, you need to capture the data which Navteq is doing.

Tish Shute: The original dream of augmented reality is 3D media and graphics tightly registered to the physical world.  But actually, it is the data…being able to integrate the streams of data and sensor fusion techniques that will make this interesting and possible right?

Michael Halbherr: Again, it is overlaying virtual elements on real elements.  It is like you are taking your glasses and now you can see information attached.  And of course, you need to make sure it is not overloaded, and that everybody works with it, and it is precise.  So that is basically it.  So I think that is why we are investing a lot in the precision of the maps and the 3D elements of the maps.

At this point we had to leave our seats has the set was being broken down for the next event at Where 2.0.  Check out all the videos for Where 2.0 here,  it was a watershed event for all things hyperlocal, geo, and augmented!

ISMAR 2009 -  was an extraordinary mix of  high geek, academic eminence, gungho Dutch Cowboy entrepreneurial spirit, German engineering and industry, brilliant artistry, and invention, all fueled by a sense, and a very active presence in the case of Diamond Sponsor – Qualcomm, that the big technology players are waking up to augmented reality.

In the picture sequence above (click on photos to enlarge),  Noora Guldemond, Metaio, demonstrates Junaio (coming to an iphone near you Nov 2nd) to Dirk Groten, CTO of Layar (top left photo).  One of the nice social features of Junaio is that users can share the 3D augmented scenes they have created.  Noora is demoing this capability to Dirk, and as you can see he cracks up when he sees the  scene Noora has stored on her phone.  Dirk and I both recognize that this cute little dinosaur augmentation (close up above on bottom left) must have been created by Peter Meier, CTO of Metaio, during the Interoperability and Standards workshop earlier that day.  Metaio it seems were discussing standards while enjoying some 3D augmented back chat.

Both Dirk and I were active participants in the workshop too.  But little did we know that Peter Meier had introduced his little 3D dinosaur into our discussion while we diligently, and sometimes heatedly, debated the merits of XMPP, Wave Federation Protocol,  KML, ARML, VRML, X3D, and  more!  The photo I took is on the bottom right of the four pics above. It was probably taken very shortly after Peter’s augmented Junaio scene.  Of course there is no little dinosaur in my pic of  Dirk Groten with Joe Ludwig and Markus Tripp of Mobilizy who were discussing AR standards oblivious to Peter’s virtual pet in our midst.

I must say I had noticed an impish look on Peter Meier’s face (see photo above on the left – Peter is wearing glasses and holding a phone).  And Markus Tripp, of Mobilizy  revealed a little bit of gaming of his own, when he let out that, in part, ARML is a provocation.  But Peter was clearly unfazed and enjoying himself.  Dirk, tasked to summarize our discussion, stalwartly maintained an optimistic but serious tone fitting for a standards discussion:  “There is a willingness to standardize….,” he began (pic above on left – click to enlarge and read text).

But it was a little 3D dinosaur that, perhaps appropriately, had the last laugh. Fitting, as I am not sure whether anything anyone says about AR standards at the moment will hold up.  But, as Ori commented in his great post – an epilogue for ISMAR 2009, the vibe was “Peace and Love” in AR Browser land (although Chetan Damani of Across Air was not in the standards discussion because he attended the UX/content? workshop instead).  But as they say, “all’s fair in love and war.”  And it is my feeling the games have barely begun!  There are many players (virtual pets included) waiting in the wings. I met some at ISMAR, and they are just itching to join the frey.

Ori Inbar, Ogmento and Robert Rice, Neogence Enterprises, both founders of the AR Consortium, made great efforts to set our young industry off on the right foot -  in the  spirit of coopetition (a neologism coined to describe cooperative competition). See Curious Raven for Robert’s conference observations, and Ori’s post on Games Alfresco for more about Mobile Augmented Reality at ISMAR 2009.  The Mobile Augmented Reality Workshops were driven by an indomitable spokesperson for the new AR industry, Christine Perey.  Christine not only helped motivate discussion on the issue of oxygen to the system, i.e. business value, but also she was a very generous connector at the conference.

What’s Next From Augmented Reality’s Top Chefs?

As Ori pointed out, Kent Demaine, oooii (pic above is from the oooii web site), Minority report VFX designer was hanging out at ISMAR 2009 and he came to the panel I was on: “Augmented Reality in Sports,  Entertainment and Advertising.”  We chatted afterwords about instrumented environments and how this is such a key to development interesting augmented experiences.  Also I mentioned how back in the day I was involved in some of the early development of motion control software.  And it was great to hear Kent say they were still finding motion control cool at oooii.  As Ori notes, he is the “guy with the most enviable AR credentials in the world (the guy who designed VFX for minority report),” and oooii is busy and hiring.

One of the highlights of the Arts, Media and Humanities track for me was meeting Jarrell  Pair. He really brought the best out in panelists with his well tuned questions.  The recording of ISMAR was comprehensive and videos should be up next week.  I will post the slides on Ugotrade of my presentation:  “The Next Wave of AR: Shared Augmented Realities and Remix Culture.”.

“Mixed and Augmented Reality: ‘Scary and Wondrous’” – Vernor Vinge

“Imagine an environment where most physical objects know where they are, what they are, and can, (in principle) network with any other object. With this infrastructure, reality becomes its own database.  Multiple consensual virtual environments are possible, each oriented to the needs of its constituency.  If we also have open standards, then bottom-up social networks and even bottom up advertising become possible. Now imagine that in addition to sensors, many of these itsy-bitsy processors are equipped with effectors.  Then the physical world becomes much more like a software construct.  The possibilities are both scary and wondrous.” (Vernor Vinge -  intro to ISMAR 2009)

Vernor Vinge’s short intro to ISMAR 2009 (which can be downloaded with the ISMAR 2009 schedule here) captures the essence of the “Scary and Wondrous” dawn of the age of ubiquitous computing and mixed and augmented reality.  It is definitely worth a moment to download.  The future of augmented and mixed realities, as Vernor Vinge points out, is tied up in a “tension between centralized and distributed computing” that “will continue long into the future.” One of  my fascinations with Wave is that it offers a tantalizing opportunity to explore augmented reality in an open distributed architecture.

At ISMAR, I talked with as many people as possible about the AR Wave project – see my post here for more about Wave enabled AR.  Many people were very enthusiastic to join the AR wave and the only thing I really lacked was about 100 invites to hand out!

“Everything, Everywhere – making visible the invisible”

Some of the areas that I would have liked to see given more attention on at ISMAR were sensor networks, data curation, and user experience.  Not that these areas were entirely neglected with Pattie Maes, MIT as a keynote speaker, and Mark Billinghurst presenting on some fascinating work on social augmented experiences and user experience.  I highly recommend catching up on these and other ISMAR presentations when the videos go up.

And, I was very happy to meet and talk to Sean White whose work at Columbia University is one of my inspirations (for more about Sean’s work see here or click image above):

“the confluence of powerful connected mobile devices, advances in computer vision and sensing, and techniques such as augmented reality (AR) enables exciting new opportunities for interacting with this hidden network of dynamic information and shifts the locus of interaction from the desktop computer to the world around us”

And I had several very interesting conversations  at ISMAR about developing social augmented experiences that connect us to a physical world that is becoming “much more like a software construct” (Vernor Vinge).  Dirk Groten, CTO of Layar mentioned a few interesting projects Layar has up their sleeves, including something  Layar may be cooking up with The RoomWare Project.

The picture above is of RoomWare’s Social RFID Installation for Media Plaza in Utrecht (read more here).

Demos Galore!

In the demo rooms, Noah Zerkin (pic below left) pretty much single handedly carried the AR flag for a growing community of augmented reality Makers and Hackers.  But his presence was much appreciated, and he tirelessly demoed The Zerkin Glove. See the first of what may be several posts from Noah on ISMAR here.

And I got to try out the Vuzix goggles (picture above on right).   This was my first experience playing an AR game that was smart about real world gravity. It’s  “an augmented reality marble game that uses gravity as a game controller” – see Ori Inbar’s write up here.  It was a very compelling experience and I have to say I didn’t really notice the shortcomings of the Vuzix goggles while I was absorbed in the game. And  I turned out to be quite good at the game too. It is intuitive unlike the kind of  rule based games I never have time to learn properly.  But what is so special about this project is the tools that it is built with are open, and available for all, and affordable (see this list on Games Alfresco).

It was a great pleasure to meet Prof. Steven Feiner (picture on below the left) who heads Columbia University’s brilliant AR research team at The Columbia University Graphics and User Interfaces Lab.

Ori Inbar (pic below on right) also spent a lot of time in the demo room showing off Ogmento’s lovely AR learning game that delighted attendees, “Put a Spell: Learn to Spell with Augmented Reality.”

For a round up of  what’s next for augmented reality head mounted displays check out, Games Alfresco here, and Thomas Carpenter’s excellent review of the head mounted displays.

Ori Inbar on Games Alfresco asks is “Microsoft – the new big player to watch?”   “Georg Klein, inventor of PTAM-on-an-iPhone (and the smartest Computer Vision guy on the block)” has joined Microsoft to make Mobile AR.

The picture on the left above shows Georg trying out ARhrrr with Blair MacIntyre.   And on the right Blair is demoing his marker card pack to Senior Vice President of Cypher Entertainment, David Elmekies.  Yes ISMAR was abuzz with demos. See this post from Gail Carmichael for more video demos.

Next Year ISMAR 2010 in Korea!

At the banquet, I managed to find a seat at a table with Sean White (at left in photo above with Christine Perey to his right) and the Columbia University team.  The banquet culminated with the “Past and Future of ISMAR” Panel chaired valiantly by Jay Wright of Qualcomm.  We were asked to offer our input for ISMAR 2010.  I offered up an idea that I have been nurturing for a while now -  to stage a “Green Tech AR Competition.”  Perhaps, I suggested, we could base the competition around a conference (ISMAR 2010 in Korea?) and set up a target rich, instrumented environment for the occassion.  I think the Arduino open hardware community and AR developers have a synergy that is just waiting to be explored!  And, if we add the innovators of data curation to the mix, e.g., Pachube, AMEE, and Path Intelligence…(Markus Tripp left ISMAR to speak on a Web 2.0 Summit panel, “Humans as Sensors,” which also included Path Intelligence, Deborah Estrin on “participatory sensing,” and the brilliant work of Di-Ann Eisnor, Platial, on “Transactional Cartography”).  Anyway a big Green tech AR competition could get people working together across the broad spread of AR terrain on some of the sticky problems of user experience.  And, with a high level of support from Smart Phone companies, HMDs manufacturers and the chip makers we just might come up with some extraordinary magic.

The devil of course will be in the details.  But a competition like this could not only motivate key players to come together in the spirit of coopetition but also be an opportunity to show the world the power of AR to make visible the invisible ecosystems that are so important to the health of our planet.

One of the notable presences at ISMAR 2009 was the Qualcomm team.   Jay Wright’s presentation (an exclusive for ISMAR) not only outlined AR for 2012, but Jay also talked about some “close to the metal” innovation that we will see from Qualcomm very, very soon!  I had some time in the press room with Jay and his team prompted by MoMo’s Yuri van Geest.  When I twittered about Qualcomm’s presentation at ISMAR, Yuri replied:

vangeest “@tishshute: good stuff, hopefully you will integrate the neat new solutions and ideas in your talk in November ;)”

I will be presenting at MoMo #13 on AR, open AR, future of AR and GeoWeb,  and hopefully will bring some good news from Qualcomm too.  Anyway Jay seemed to like the idea of a Green Tech AR Competition, even though I did stress that I thought it needed some serious sponsorship and BIG prizes.

Where’s the beef? Tracking and Mapping at ISMAR 2009

On the flight from NYC to Orlando and ISMAR’o9 I dozed (I had been up late preparing my presentation) and I watched the Dew Tour Pro Skateboard competition and Top Chef on the Food Channel.  In this particular episode of Top Chef, the aspiring chefs were all given a brown bag of ingredients by an already famous chef who then judged whether the contenders managed to make a delicious meal with their allotment which was notably lacking in key ingredients of haute cusine.

This metaphor of  trying to cook up a great meal while perhaps missing the staples is apt for the current early stage of commercial augmented reality.  And when I arrived in Orlando, not only were the Dew Tour pro skateboarders staying at the same hotel as ISMAR, but ISMAR itself felt remarkably like an Augmented Reality Top Chef Coopetition.

Much of ISMAR was dedicated to the task of  providing the meat and potatoes of Augmented Reality, solutions to mobile tracking, mapping and registration, particularly in the Science and Technology track.

Industrial and Military Augmented reality solutions I found out, typically, solve the tracking problems by using fixed mounts which clearly wouldn’t translate well into the AR everywhere with everything mobile consumer culture expects.

In the picture on the left Fabian Doil stands by the VW engine that provided some of the outdoor targets for the ISMAR tracking competition.  On the right is a picture from the VW’s presentation on their research and development of AR.

I followed the tracking contest, organized by Daniel Pustka and Fabian Doil of Volkswagen, quite closely. And I learned a lot in the process. While  it is clear there has been progress in AR mapping and tracking, we still have a ways to go.

But hanging around the Tracking Competition was a good way to find out the state of play of this crucial part of the AR dream.  For example,  a little tidbit I learned is that Michael Goesele who has been reconstructing “high-quality geometry models from images collected from the internet (so called community photo collections, CPC)” is soon to be at the Institut Graphische Datenverarbeitung where top contenders in the tracking contest – Harald Wuest  and Folker Weintipper (in the foreground of the photo at the left and right respectively) are also to be found. [update Harold and Folker were the winning team see here for details of scoring and results!] Otto Korkalo and Tuomas Kantonen of VTT, Finland, Augmented Reality team are in the background. They have been working on the joint IBM, Nokia and VTT project that brings, Avatars and People Together for Virtual Meetings in Physical Spaces.

The picture on the right is another team that were doing very well. If my notes serve me well (and please forgive me if they don’t. I came back with my card wallet overflowing!) the photo on the right showsChristian Waechter (on the left) and Peter Keitler (on the right) of the Technische Universitat Munchen.

Germany is certainly leading the way in industrial AR. And I learned how small businesses like Metaio get to work with top research institutions and big companies like VW, thanks to very strong German funding program for AR and VR. The current iteration of a series of funding programs is  called Avilus.  Avilus  is putting 42 million Euros into AR and VR this year alone (click on the slide below to see more about Avilus ).

I wish we had the equivalent of Avilus here in the US.  But there is no equivalent to Arvilus for AR here, and  no AR is  being developed by the US car industry either it seems.  But look at the slide above to get a taste of some of the cool stuff Metaio and other small AR and VR businesses do for VW through the Avilus project.

I also got to meet many people from one of the world’s most important AR hubs -  The Department of Informatics, Technische Universitat Munchen, including Prof. Gudren Klinker on the far right in pic above.  And from left to right, Fabian Doil (VW, co-organizer of contest), Sebastian Lieberknecht , Selim Ben Himane (Metaio), Tobias Eble (Metaio).  Prof. Klinker is the engine behind much of German innovation in AR.

Metaio was one of the few teams to rely mainly on markerless tracking which in this contest was very challenging because of the very different light conditions (see pics below) between the windowless interior and dazzling Florida sunshine outside (pic on the right shows targets under ideal lighting conditions).  Many people in the US may be  familiar with Metaio’s consumer applications, like Junaio,  but thanks to Germany’s efforts to nurture augmented and virtual reality they are also respected software developers in industrial AR.  And I suspect that Metaio will spearhead markeless tracking in consumer AR too.

This post as usual has already expanded to something much longer than I originally attended – pretty typical for me! There is much I have not been able to cover including some of the interesting contributions by augmented reality artists at ISMAR – again I recommend the upcoming videos.

But I cannot end without a hat tip to, Oriel, Nate et al. who won the best student paper award for AR Sketch – again please see Games Alfresco for more on this (pic below from Games Alfresco). AR Sketch, Ori notes, is featured “in our top post and popular video.” And

“Their work is revolutionizing the AR world by avoiding the need to print markers – or any images whatsoever.”

Above is an image above  from Total Immersion’s augmented reality experience developed for the “Networked City” exhibition in South Korea, – “a fun scenario created for a u-City’s infrastructure and city management service”

“To the naked eye, the exhibit looks like a bare bones model of a city. But when visitors put on the special AR goggles a whole new world unfolds – as graphics overlaid on the city model.” (Games Alfresco)

“The Networked City,” is a large scale augmented virtuality of a scenario for a networked city. But my guess, reading the     Korea IT Times, is the plan is to move from an augmented virtuality to an augmented reality as Incheon Free Economic Zone  (IFEZ) realizes its vision to become a leading u-City – where reality is turned “inside out” (see Inside Out: Interaction Design for Augmented Reality ).  If you are not familiar with South Korea’s u-Cities, check out this post for a short primer (and note Google Trends search on Augmented Reality shows  South Korea leaving everyone else in the dust).

Ubiquitous computing and augmented reality are like adenine and thymine – a DNA base pair.

A sky view of Incheon Free Economic Zone (from Korean IT Times). For more on the IFEZ vision to become a leading u-City see here.

Korea IT Times writes about the u-city concept:

“Korea began using the term u-City after accepting the concept of ubiquitous computing, a post-desktop model of human-computer interaction created by Mark Weiser, the chief technologist of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in California, in 1998. There have been a lot of research in this field since 2002. As a result, many local governments in Korea have applied this concept to various development projects since 2005 based on a practical approach to it.”

The back story to many of my recent posts, including this one, is an understanding of a relationship between ubiquitous computing and augmented reality that emerged, for me, in a February conversation with Adam Greenfield, Towards a Newer Urbanism: Talking Cities, Networks, and Publics with Adam Greenfield.  In cased you missed it, here is the link again because I think it holds up very well considering the rapid developments of recent months.  Also, importantly for this post, it includes a discussion of  moving on from Weiserian visions.

Adam Greenfield’s Speedbird is one of my key sources for understanding “networked urbanism,” and the list he makes of the elements of networked urbanism here (also see the comments) – is my mantra for thinking about the DNA base pair relationship of augmented reality and ubiquitous computing.

Adam Greenfield’s, “summary of what those of us who are thinking, writing and speaking about networked urbanism seem to be seeing” is:

1. From latent to explicit; 2. From browse to search; 3. From held to shared; 4. From expiring to persistent; 5. From deferred to real-time; 6. From passive to interactive; 7. From component to resource; 8. From constant to variable; 9. From wayfinding to wayshowing; 10. From object to service; 11. From vehicle to mobility; 12. From community to social network; 13. From ownership to use; 14. From consumer to constituent.

Augmented Reality – Making Visible the Invisible

The screenshot above is one of  the coolest “making visible the invisible” AR applications. It was developed at Columbia University Graphics and User Interface Lab where Steven Feiner is Director (see the deep list of projects from the lab here).  This app “shows carbon monoxide levels projected over New York City. The height of each ball reflects concentrations of the pollutant.” Credit: Sean White and Steven Feiner  (via Technology Review).

The recent emergence of “magic lens” augmented reality apps for our smart phones – Wikitude, Layar, Acrossair, Sekai Camera, and many others now, have given us a new window into our cities. But we are yet to realize the full potential of the AR/ubicomp base pair that can “make visible the invisible” and give us new opportunities to relate to the invisible data ecosystems of our cities, not merely as a spectator experience,  but as an interactive, in context, real time opportunity to reimagine social relations.

Mark Shepard says in his curatorial statement for, “Toward the Sentient City:” (Much more soon on this very significant exhibit which runs from Sept. 17th to Nov. 7th, 2009.)

“In place of natural weather systems, however, today we find the dataclouds of 21st century urban space increasingly shaping our experience of this city and the choices we make there.”

Augmented Reality, as Joe Lamantia points out, is becoming the great “ambassador of ubiqitous computing.” AR is. “…mak[ing] it possible to experience the new world of ubiquitous computing by reifying the digital layer that permeates our inside-out world,” and we are only just glimpsing the razor thin end of the wedge in this regard.

I am still working on my Gov 2.0 Summit write up  and, amongst other things, I will talk about how an emerging new social contract around open data, here in the US,  will put augmented reality  apps center stage  – “doing stuff that matters.” At Gov 2.0 Expo Showcase Tim O’Reilly tweeted:

Tim O’Reilly Really enjoyed @capttaco (Digital Arch Design) @ #gov20e: “Augmented Reality could be a new public infrastructure” http://bit.ly/18iCx

Also see Tim O’Reilly and Jennifer Pahlka on Forbes.com discuss the The “Web Squared” Era -  “the Web Squared era is an era of augmented reality arriving (like the sensor revolution) stealthily, in more pedestrian clothes than we expected.… …our world will have “information shadows.” Augmented reality amounts to information shadows made visible.”

Again there is back story to how I came to think about Information Shadows in relation to augmented reality.  So in case your missed it the first time, here is the link to a conversation that began in a hallway meeting between Tim O’Reilly, Mike Kuniavsky, ThingM, Usman Haque, Pachube, and Gavin Starks, AMEE, at ETech earlier this year,  “Dematerializing the World, Shadows, Subscriptions and Things as Services: Talking With Mike Kuniavsky at ETech 2009.”

Slide from Augmented City Lab @ Picnic ’09

So What’s Next for Mobile Augmented Reality?

These videos from Daniel Wagner’s team from Graz University of Technology showing Realtime Panorama Mapping and Tracking on Mobile Phones and Creating an Indoor Panorama in Realtime, as Rouli from Games Alfresco points out,  indicate that there is a lot in store for us at ISMAR09.

We may not be so impressed by directory style/”post it” AR anymore, as these applications have become common place so quickly!  But while these early mobile AR apps may be disappointing in relation to some futurist visions of AR – merely AR/ubicomp appetizers,  there are still good implementations of this model coming out (see new comers to the app store Bionic Eye and RobotVision). And Layar, always on the ball, has upped the ante for the new cohort of AR Browsers with Layar 3D.

But as Bruce Sterling notes here:

*In AR, everybody wants to be the platform and the browser, and nobody wants to be the boring old geolocative database. Look how Tim [creator of RobotVision] here, who is like one guy working on his weekends, can boldly fold-in the multi-billion dollar, multi-million user empires of Apple iPhone, Microsoft Bing, Flickr, and Twitter, all under his right thumb

(watch video here)

But if  you looking for something more from AR, you probably won’t have to wait too long.  The two pioneering companies in AR, Total Immersion – founded in 1999, and Metaio – founded in 2003 are both coming out with “mobile augmented reality platforms” in a matter of weeks (see press releases here and here).  And both companies, it seems, will deploy much more sophisticated AR rendering and tracking than we have seen to date.

I approached Bruno Uzzan, founder and CEO of Total Immersion, for an interview as part of my look at the new industry of augmented reality through the eyes of the founding members of the AR Consortium. These consortium members are some of the first commercial augmented reality companies.

The interview below with Bruno began early this summer and then we both went on vacation and it picks up after the announcement of the partnership between Total Immersion and Int13.

The significance of this announcement is that Total Immersion is now positioned to take the augmented reality experiences they have developed for a number of top brands onto multiple mobile platforms with, “Int13′s very clever embedded solution that allows our [Total Immersion's] solutions to work across many [mobile] platforms,” while Int13 gets to extend their reach.

Total Immersion has a 50 person R&D team and their two main focuses have been, firstly getting:

“Augmented Reality to work with as many platforms as possible – PC, Mac, Mobile, Game Consoles, all those are the platforms that we are targeting. We are currently doing lot of work in the R & D team in cross platform compatibility….”

and, secondly:

“Our R&D guys are working on the real world interacting more with the virtual world.  And I have started seeing some results which are pretty much crazy and this will be ready for next year.”

Pandora’s Box – Shared Augmented Realities

Spes or “Hope”; engraving by Sebald Beham, German c1540 (see Wikipedia article on Pandora’s Box)

There are many weaknesses to the mobile smart phone AR experiences we have now, and the lack of near field object recognition (to date), and difficulties with accurate positioning aren’t the only ones.  Note re solving positioning problems in mobile AR, we are yet to see AR  leverage public libraries for analyzing scenes like Flickr’s geo tagged photos, see Aaron Straup Copes’s work on “The Shape of Alpha.” And for more on this my post here.

But, as Joe Lamantia points out:

“One of the weakest aspects of the existing interaction patterns for augmented reality is their reliance on single-person, socially disconnected user experiences.”

In my view, The Pandora’s Box of Augmented Realities is an open, distributed, multiuser augmented reality framework, fully integrated with the internet and world wide web.

As Yochai Benkler has pointed out many times, and argues again in, Capital, Power, and the Next Step in Decentralization, it is “open, collaborative, distributed practices that have been at the core of what made the Internet.”  We have to try to make sure that open, collaborative, distributed practices are at the core of mobile augmented reality.

Can Google Wave be the basis for an Open, Distributed, Multiuser Augmented Reality Framework?

I have been exploring the idea of using Google Wave protocol as the basis for a distributed, multiuser open augmented reality framework with a small group of AR enthusiasts and developers. And I am happy to say the proposal is beginning to get fleshed out a little.  New collaborators are welcome both for “gear heady” input and use case suggestions (but re the latter, you can’t just say everything you see in Denno Coil..!).

This effort started with Thomas Wrobel’s  proposal for an Open AR Framework prototyped on IRC – see here, and click to enlarge the image above of, “Sky Writer: Basic Concept for an Open Multi-source AR Framework.”

But recently we began looking at the Wave Federation Protocol.  And, if you check out this post, and this post, you may get a glimpse of why Google Wave protocol might be a good basis for an open, distributed, AR Framework.  You will notice, if you study what Google Wave has done with the XMPP protocol, that many of  the elements of networked urbanism that Adam Greenfield describes resonate strongly with what is being attempted in Wave.

But enough said for now!  Regardless of the details of implementation,  Google Wave or an AR protocol built from scratch (phew! the latter does seem like a lot of work) -  an open, distributed, multiuser AR framework integrated with the internet and web would explode the potential of AR, creating new possibilities for data flows, mashups ,and shared augmented realities.

And we are excited by Google Wave because, as Thomas puts it:

“The really great thing wave does ….(aside from being an open standard backed by a major player…hopefully leading to thousands of worldwide servers )….is that it allows anyone to create any number of waves, set precisely who can view or edit them, and for them to be able to be updated quickly and continuously (and even simultaneously!) Better yet, changes will (if necessary) propagate to all the other servers sharing that wave. It does all this right now. From my eyes this does a lot of the work of an AR infrastructure already.

I cant see any other protocol actually doing anything like this at the moment, although correct me if I’m wrong, as alternatives are always welcome :)”

Also, Thomas notes, “even the playback system (that is, the ability to playback the changes made to a wave since its creation) …this could give us automatically some of the ideas Jeremy Hight has mentioned in his visionary work here,  and here on “the geo spatial web, interlinked locations and data, immersive augmentation and open source geo augmentation.”

One of the many reasons why an Open, distributed AR Framework would be so cool is it would open up all kinds of possibilities for GeoAR by providing the over-arching standard protocol for communication of updates necessary for the substandards that will facilitate GeoAR.

Also important to note is the  Wave Federation Protocol allows anyone:

“to run wave servers and become wave providers, for themselves, or as services for their users, and to “federate” waves, that is, to share waves with each other and with Google Wave. – “the federation gateway and a federation proxy and is based on open extension to XMPP core [RFC3920] protocol to allow near real-time communication between two wave servers.” See Reuven Cohen’s blog for more here and here, “HTTP is Dead, Long Live the Real Time Cloud.”

Still some people have expressed concern that an AR Framework using Google Wave protocol would give Google disproportionate influence.   Will Google-specific functionality be an issue?  How much stuff is Google specific just because no one else is using it (yet)? And how much is Google specific because it holds no value to anyone else but Google? These are some of the questions that have come up.

You are going to see a variety of suggestions for standards and specs for open AR coming out out in the next few months which as, Robert Rice of the AR Consortium points out is: “a good thing, we need that competition early on to settle down on best case.” Recently,  Mobilizy have offered up an ARML (“an augmented reality mark-up language specification based on the OpenGIS® KML Encoding Standard (OGC KML) with extensions”) for consideration see here.

So it is, perhaps, also important to note, that an Open AR Framework should be neutral/transparent to techniques of  “reality recognition,”  and methodologies of registration/tracking, allowing various ones to work on the system as new techniques evolve, and to support as many evolving standards as possible.

Augmented Reality developers, like Total Immersion and others with powerful rendering/tracking AR software, should be able use an Open AR Framework to exchange the data which their tracking will use. And the tracking/rendering problems they and other researchers have solved are much harder than figuring out data exchange on on a standard infrastructure or protocol!

So I pricked up my ears when I heard Bruno Uzzan, CEO of Total Immersion -  the first and currently the largest augmented reality company, with a 50 person R&D team in France and offices in LA, where Bruno himself is now based, say: “Total Immersion is  only months away from launching shared mobile augmented reality experiences using near field object recognition/tracking across multiple platforms” (for more details read my conversation with Bruno Uzzan below).

I was happy when I asked Bruno about the possibilities for developing an open, distributed, multiuser augmented reality framework fully integrated with the internet and world wide web (possibly using Google Wave protocols), and he replied:

“I think this is feasible. I think that’s doable, that’s just  in my opinion. I mean some people might have another kind of opinion but I think that that’s definitely doable.”

Total Immersion – working with the “symbiosis between augmented reality and brands”

Total Immersion has created many of the best known and most ambitious augmented reality experiences for major brands to date, including Mattel’s new AR toys to be released in conjunction with the James Cameron film Avatar, and AR baseball cards for Topps, video here (or click screenshot above), and the UK’s first augmented reality books.

Bruno founded Total Immersion 10 years ago when he was just 27. And the kind of conviction it took to survive as an augmented reality business in the decade before augmented reality captured the world’s attention is remarkable.

AR’s first steps out into the world after 17 years as predominantly a lab science maybe “wobbly” (what new technology isn’t), and sometimes gloriously kitsch – check out this riotus video of the 3D Interactive Live Show Total Immersion produced in Korea (also see the Total Immersion Augmented Reality Blog for more on the TI’s turn key  Interactive 3D Live Show Solution).

As Lamantia points out here, ” projecting mixed realities into public, common, or social spaces makes them social by default.”

However, the potential for shared location based augmented reality experiences is as yet untapped.  So I see the entry of the most experienced commercial augmented reality company into mobile as pretty interesting.   While  smart phone AR still has significant limitations, and it certainly does differ from some of the futurist dreams of AR (see Mok Oh’s post here on his disappointment in this regard), it is significant that Total Immersion is committing to becoming a leader in mobile AR.

Our smart phones, the powerful networked sensor devices that so many people carry in their pockets, have proved themselves a “good enough for now”  mediating device for early manifestations of the ubiquitous computing and augmented reality base pair.  And now AR and ubicomp is mixed in the  rich, messy soup of everyday life, commerce, business, marketing, art, entertainment, and government, we should get ready to see these technologies grow up fast, and unfold in some surprising ways that lab science didn’t necessarily predict.

And, perhaps, the new dialogue between scientists and entrepreneurs may spur both communities to outdo themselves.

Particularly, as Joe Ludwig notes: “It seems to me that the biggest disconnect between the academics and the entrepreneurs is that they disagree on how far we are from the finish line.”

See the comments’s on Ori Inbar’s post, Augmented Reality Entrepreneurship: Natural Evolution or Intelligent Design?, for  a courteous but spirited discussion on the potential benefits and frictions of the newly expanded AR community of  researchers and  entrepreneurs.

As Blair MacIntyre (see my long conversation with Blair here) notes:

“not all academics and researchers are only interested in the traditional models of impact. Case in point: I wouldn’t be building unpublishable games, nor investing so much time talking to the press, entrepreneurs and VCs if I did not believe strongly in the value of the impact I am having by doing that — and I know others with the same attitude.”

In this vein, check out the Marble Game (video here) developed by Steve Feiner and his team at Columbia U. It’s enabled by Goblin XNA, an open source AR framework built on top of Microsoft’s XNA, which powers XBox live games, Zune games, and some Windows games. For more about Goblin XNA and AR from Columbia U see here.  (Hat tip to Brian Jepson for this link)

While we are still waiting for the kind of sexy AR specs – nothing totally game changing in Gigantico’s AR eyewear rounup (maybe note this Apple patent), that might get wide adoption. But at least researchers are not afraid to explore the possibilities of AR Goggles.

But how far are we now, with or without sexy goggles,  from a fuller expression of the base pair DNA of ubiquitous computing and augmented reality?

We may have a LAN of things before we have an Internet of Things

The picture above is a workshop I attended at Conflux last weekend – Fish ‘n microChips, with Natalie Jeremijenko. We are at the site of the Amphibious Architecture project (a commissioned work for Toward the Sentient City) and “a collaborative project with xClinic, The Living and other intelligent creatures.”

We are probably as far off some grand futurist visions of ubiquitious computing as we are some of the futurist visions of augmented reality. But as it turns out that may not be a bad thing! Recently, @mikekuniavsky noted in a tweet:

“Another argument for the LAN of Things before the Internet of Things: http://tinyurl.com/lgp9uq”

Bert Moore, in the article Mike linked to points out, the grand vision of an “internet of things” with everything connected to everything  can “distract people from thinking about the benefits of RFID in smaller, more easily implemented and cost-justified applications.”  The same argument I think applies to sensor networks and augmented reality.

In New York City, a series of commissioned works for the Architectural League of New York’s exhibit, “Toward the Sentient City” are giving us the opportunity to dip our toes into the ocean of a “networked urbanism.”   For only a small budget, two of the five commissioned works, Amphibeous Architecture and Natural Fuse demonstrate how sensor networks can allow us to explore new kinds of communities – connecting people to environments in interesting ways to create new forms of social agency.

“Amphibeous Architecture” -  from The Living Architecture Lab at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (Directors David Benjamin and Soo-in Yang) and Natalie Jeremijenko, Environmental Health Clinic at New York University, uses a skillfully built (electronics and water are notoriously hard to mix) array of partially submerged sensors to pierce the blinding, reflective surfaces of the rivers  surrounding Manhattan and to create a new two way relationship with the ecosystem below – the water, our neighbors the fish and even a beaver that lives in the water surrounding Manhattan.

Image from Toward the Sentient City

In a similar spirit, “Natural Fuse” – Usman Haque, creative director, Nitipak ‘Dot’ Samsen, designer, Ai Hasegawa, designer, Cesar Harada, designer, Barbara Jasinowicz, producer, creates a network of people and electronically assisted plants to explore what it takes to work together on energy consumption and to experience the consequences of “selfish” and “unselfish” behavior interactively before it is too late to modify our actions.

The “Greedy Switch“ from Natural Fuse on the left. On the right “The System” – click to enlarge.

Much more to come in another post on these works, and “Toward the Sentient City.”  Also an update on how Pachube – an important part of both these projects and a very important contribution to ubiquitous computing because it creates the opportunity to connect environments and create mashups from diverse sensor data feeds – has matured since my interview with Pachube founder, Usman Haque, “Pachube, Patching the Planet,” in January this year.

In the picture above Natalie Jeremijenko, and Jonathan Laventhol give the Amphibious Architecture sensor array a last look over, as it will soon be lowered into the East River. Jonathan is on a busman’s holiday to help out at the pre launch of Amphibious Architecture, nr Manhattan Bridge, NYC.

I was very happy to get  a chance to talk to Jonathan Laventhol - more on our conversation in another post. Jonathan Laventhol is CTO of Imagination – one of the world’s leading design, events, and branding agencies. We talked about the importance of  Pachube, which Jonathan called the “The Facebook of Data,”  and  how the symbiosis between brands and augmented reality, and healthcare applications, would  be key to augmented reality emerging into the mainstream.

Natalie Jeremijenko’s workshop at Conflux on the social negotiation of technology and how “everyware” can give us the chance to experience new forms of agency and connection was a totally inspiring.  And I will cover this too in another post.  I have so much awesome stuff  to write about at the moment!

None of the projects in, “Toward the Sentient City,” included a mobile augmented reality, or “magic lens” component, but they all pointed to why “enchanted windows into our newly inside-out reality” are going to be so important. And why the DNA base pair of ubicomp and augmented reality can really do stuff that matters.

Shangri- La – “Transfigured City”

Screenshot from Shangri-La episode Transfigured City

In my AR Consortium founder member interview series, I have found that, understandably, the visionary founders of these first augmented reality companies are a little reticent about sharing their full vision.  They are basically on stealth mode in this regard.  So as you will not, from my interview with Total Immersion founder and CEO, Bruno Uzzan, get a fully drawn scenario of his vision for a next generation of shared augmented reality experiences, here’s a really interesting anime episode from the anime Shangri La called, Transfigured City, to mull over instead.

As you can tell from this rather long and circuitous intro to my my conversation with Bruno Uzzan, I  have been investigating shared augmented realities pretty intensively recently. And Mike Kuniavsky pointed me to Shangri-La, and Transfigured City, in a conversation with Mark Shepard, after Mark’s presentation at Conflux, Sentient City Survival Kit.

Mike Kuniavsky with Tod E. Kurt is founder of ThingM, a ubiquitous computing device studio. Also Mike Kuniavsky researches, designs and writes about people’s experiences at the intersection of technology and everyday life – see Mikes blog Orange Cone.  And I interviewed Mike at Etech- see here.

In Transfigured City, the “Metal Age” group has to figure out how to share and communicate in a city transfigured by augmented realities/virtualities, where no-one sees the same place in the same way.  Only one character can figure out from her previous experience of the city the relationship between the transfigured city and how it used to be.

The conversation I had with Mike Kuniavsky on The Transfigured City continued at a picnic in Washington Square Park the next day with Elizabeth Goodman, who I met at Etech when she gave a brilliant presentation, Designing for Urban Green Space.  We covered so many areas at the picnic related to ubiquitous computing and augmented realities that this conversation probably deserves a post of its own (my writing to do list is growing longer!).

The Plot Synopsis for Shangri La:

“In the mid-21st century, the international committee decided to forcefully reduce CO2 emission levels to mitigate the global warming crisis. As a result, the economic market was transferred mainly into the trade of carbon. A great earthquake destroys much of Japan, yet the carbon tax placed on the country is not lifted, so Tokyo is turned into the world’s largest “jungle-polis” that absorbs carbon dioxide. Project Atlas is commenced to plan the rebuilding of Tokyo and oversee the government organization, which the Metal Age group opposes due to its oppressive nature. However, Atlas is only built with enough room for 3,500,000 people and most people are not allowed to migrate into the city. The disparity between the elite within Atlas and the refugees living in the jungles outside of its walls set up the background of the story.”

Talking With Bruno Uzzan

Tish Shute: We won’t have fully opened the Pandora’s Box of Augmented Realities until we have ubiquitous, shared augmented realities, will we?

Bruno Uzzan: Yes. The most important for augmented reality is the experience we want to share. Now we are working on the cell phone, we can potentially do some marketing components that we already have developed now on cell phone. Done. It’s working.

But the most interesting part of it is how these new components [cell phone AR] will be used for marketing campaigns by brands. And we are also pretty much well positioned to transform some of the AR that we currently have working on Mac and PC and to transform these to applications working on mobile devices.

Tish Shute: We haven’t really experienced yet what it means to actually share mobile AR experiences?

Bruno Uzzan: It’s hard — we did a Facebook app. It’s a first try, it has a way to go.  But to go more and more into social, is the way forward for us – to share and expand AR experiences. But yes, I mean what you’re seeing is how two people on two different applications can share that same expanse.  For sure we are going in that direction. We are currently working on those kind of solutions. How people can share and experience together at the same time. That’s how we start creating excitement in augmented reality, and it’s coming up.

It’s a new market and there’s so much more in store for augmented reality. You know, some people are telling me, don’t you believe that augmented reality is a gimmick? It will be a trend for a few weeks or a few months and then gone? I say, you’re kidding me. This is only the beginning. I mean I can assure you that the applications that are on the market today are one percent of what we will have five years from now.

Tish Shute: I agree.

Bruno Uzzan: And I’m sure that augmented reality will be a part of a lot of components that we are currently using today – GPS, web browser, glasses, I mean there are so many applications that will come up shortly. This is only the beginning. I’m completely convinced that augmented reality will be in three years from now what virtual reality is today, which is a billion dollar market.  I know that it’s not just a gimmick of a few weeks or a few months, because so many brands are jumping into it, spending money, exploring solutions.  I know that it’s not just short term -what they are willing to do and we are willing to do, but also middle and long term. And that’s what makes this adventure pretty much unique and what makes creating a cutting edge technology, very, very much exciting for us.

Tish Shute: First could you explain more to me about your partnership with Int13. I am not sure I understand what is in the arrangement from Total Immersion’s POV. I mean what happens re your own mobile software development? Haven’t you only been licensed the Int13 SDK for a limited period of time and have limited access to all it’s power? Stephane from Int13 said to Ori on Games Alfresco, here, “we have licensed the SDK4 for two years,” and then Ori asks, “but you have basically kept the power to yourselves, right?” So if they are the only ones that can enhance it and develop the software, where will  TI be in two years in mobile if you haven’t really had the chance to develop your own software .

Bruno Uzzan: Actually it’s a real win-win situation. Int13 is a very small company and they have so many requests they can’t possibly fulfill them all. So  this is a way for both of us to be, as quickly as possible, the first mobile provider for all the requests we have. Also they give us exclusivity so nobody else can use INT13 SDK for such applications.  I think that it is a good partnership,

And concerning our own mobile application… First of all we have currently some mobile applications working. But with Int13 we have a mobile solution that can work on many different devices. That’s a fact and that’s working. And, believe me you will hear from us a lot more about this soon. We are fully independent on our mobile development. The reason we closed the partnership with Int 13 is  to be able to deploy mobile in a broad way.

I mean you know that the difficulty with AR mobile is that each separate device needs some customization. Working on the iPhone is different from working on the Nokia, different from working on the Palm; it’s different from working on the Samsung. Each of them have their own operating system inside and so we were interested in Int13′s very clever embedded solution that allows our solutions to work across many platforms.

The reason we are working with Int13 is that we are able to work on so many mobile devices, thanks to Int13. And in the mobile AR race that we are currently in, the next two years will be extremely important to us…

Tish Shute: OK, that definitely clarifies it a lot. So Int13 has done an embedded solution to allow TI developed AR solutions to work easily across many devices?

Bruno Uzzan: Yes  they have kind of an embedded solution, a way to address extremely quickly new cell phone… But, currently on our side, we are in discussions with a mobile company… and that only refers to some very specific mobile devices.  And what they have is also a way to embed deeper our technology into mobile, so that we can have quicker… applications that work on a large number of cell phones.

Tish Shute: So, basically it means you don’t have to go through some complicated negotiations with each of the cell phone companies, is what you are saying?

Bruno Uzzan: Not only negotiations, but also hard development. You know? Working on the Windows mobile is completely different from working on the Palm OS. You know, that’s different! Its a big work, to have a mobile application working on many other devices. So, INt13,  provides us a way for us to save some time and some development cost too.

Tish Shute: And Int13 doesn’t have powerful AR development tools like D’fusion right?

Bruno Uzzan: Right! That’s right. That’s why we say it’s a true win-win solution. They can benefit from our work too. And we can benefit from their work, in order to deploy quicker and faster mobile solutions.

Tish Shute: Now, the second thing is… there is a lot of debate and disagreement about how far mobile augmented reality is from delivering something more that the “post it” approach that has been much publicized in recent months, via all the AR browser apps.

But from my understanding from the conversation we had earlier this summer (see below), Total Immersion is targeting a much higher level of mobile augmented reality than we’ve seen to date?

Bruno: Yes the browser apps we have seen are a kind of augmented reality, but not exactly the way we see it. Let me explain you why. With this kind of application it’s true that you can overlay 3D-information and video. That’s a fact. So, in a sense, that’s augmented reality. But the way that they are working on the position of the 3D on that video is that they are using compass and GPS-information.. so it means that this AR solution will work only on some building and some physical objects that are FIXED. In a fixed and known position.

So you want to go to a theater?

The theater is here, for sure it will not move, so you know the position of the theater, and that’s a fact that you can superimpose an object on the theater. That’s what can be done currently. What we are achieving and what we are doing on mobile is more than that. We want to be able to port our solution with trading cards, with brands, into a smart phone.

I’m assuming that you want a can, a drink can, to be able to trigger an experience. The only way you can do it is to be able to understand what the can, it is. And the current solutions that are out there can’t do that, it’s impossible.

Tish Shute: Right, yes. There’s no near-field object at all in these early browser apps.

Bruno Uzzan: And the solution we have is that we can recognize a can and then — in a very, very precise way and that activates geo-location, so we can superimpose 3D. I mean in that case, it opens up all the applications that we currently have, so they could work on mobile.

Tish Shute: So for example, if you’re working with a soft drink company, people can trigger that experience wherever they see that can?

Bruno Uzzan: Correct.

Tish Shute: Yes. Yes, I assumed that was what you’re doing

Bruno Uzzan: We believe — and maybe that’s not the case, but we believe that our marker-less tracking technology is pretty much unique on the mobile devices.

I haven’t seen yet, from anyone, a full augmented reality mobile solution working.

I really see AR being part of the Web 3.0 next generation. I mean the vision I have is that, you know — today, when you want to have information, you go on a website and then you find your information. AR — and the future is that I think it will be part of the opposite. You want to have information about a product, you just show it to your computer and the information will automatically pop up. I see here a new way to market some key messages, a new way to get information is that some physical product by themselves could be a way to get information, and you don’t have to search anymore for them, it’s coming out to you.

AR is definitely for me, one of these components. Another thing that AR is a solution, another thing that AR itself will create these kind of results in how information is being displayed. But I’m seeing  here a way that could be part of a new way to have access to information. And that’s part of the vision I have. Whatever, if it is through mobile phone or web or PC, Mac, whatever, I really believe that now this kind of new generation of receiving information will come shortly and could be a kind of a new — could be part of the new 3.0 generation of the web.

Tish Shute: My friend Gene Becker did an interesting post recently on some of the current limitations of mobile AR where he pointed out the problem of:

“Simplistic, non-standard data formats – POIs, the geo-annotated data that many of these apps display, are mostly very simple one-dimensional points of lat/long coordinates, plus a few bytes of metadata. Despite their simplicity there has been no real standardization of POI formats; so far, data providers and AR app developers are only giving lip service to open interoperability. Furthermore, they are not looking ahead to future capabilities that will require more sophisticated data representations. At the same time, there is a large community of GIS, mapping and Geoweb experts who have defined open formats such as GeoRSS, GeoJSON and KML that may be suitable for mobile AR use and standardization.”

Bruno Uzzan: That’s interesting. I mean — I know exactly what his is referring to. He is mainly referring to a localization and how you can have a quick, accurate localization.  If you look at current solutions, and you look at this 3-D superimposing on the video, the 3-D is shaking a lot. I don’t know if you see that in some of these early efforts.

It’s hard to use because the 3-D, you know, is  part of the magic of augmented reality, that is when the 3-D is being inserted in a very easy way and smooth way in your solution. Here, when you see this overlay, 2-D or 3-D overlaid on the video, it’s shaking a lot. One reason for this is that the GPS compass is not accurate enough to coordinate the perfect location of the user. And here, what Gene says is interesting. I think we are addressing this localization issue in a pretty smart way.

But to be frank with you, I don’t believe mobile augmented reality in the extremely short term — I’m talking about three weeks, one, two months is mature enough for good AR applications.  It will be shortly.  But for now it is more proof of concept than a true and easy application to use.

But we are starting to see a lot of new application coming out, but I really believe that marketing and entertainment are the two key markets for AR right now.

I’ve been working ten years in augmented reality. And, eight years ago, when I was talking about augmented reality, I was E.T., you know? Nobody understood what I said, and I thought it was crazy. And now, today, yes it’s completely different.

Tish Shute: The Pandora’s Box of Augmented Realities, in my view, is an open, universal and standard, distributed, multiuser, augmented reality framework fully integrated with the internet and world wide web. I have been looking into Google Wave protocols as a basis for this would you be interested in this? Do you think it is feasable?

Bruno Uzzan: I think this is feasible. I think that’s doable, that’s just  in my opinion. I mean some people might have another kind of opinion but I think that that’s definitely doable.

Tish Shute: Yes I suppose an open AR Framework involves cooperation and collaboration, it is more about business and politics than technological problems.

Bruno Uzzan: Yes!  Actually the Web is politics. Business is politics.

Tish Shute: I would be interested if anyone in your R&D team would be interested in looking at some of the ideas that are emerging in our little discussion of Google Wave and an Open AR Framework  to offer feedback. it is an interesting time now to input on the Wave Federation Protocol docs because nothing is set it stone right now.

Bruno Uzzan: Just shoot me an email, I’ll try to put you in touch with the right person and, and a team member that can input on this.

Tish Shute: For mobile augmented reality the best thing we’ve got now is the phone, right?

Bruno Uzzan: Right.

Tish Shute: And the only way we can use the phone is by holding it up, right?  Isn’t this a bit of an an obstacle as you introduce better object recognition and tracking?  People are going to have to stop moving to use their phone. What do you feel about that experience? Isn’t AR eyewear and essential part of a tightly registered AR experience?

Bruno Uzzan: We don’t do hardware and we don’t have the current solution for eyewear that would do all we need for a good mobile AR experience, so I guess we don’t have the current answer for that.  But we are beginning to see the next generation of this — of these glasses.

Tish Shute: But you’re happy enough with the mobile experience of augmented reality on smart phones that you’re investing in this next generation of software for this.

Bruno Uzzan: Yes, I know. We know that some application will not work on the iPhone. And yes, whatever you do, you still need to hold the iPhone, so it means that you can’t play with your hands anymore. So we know that partially, some AR solutions  we have on other platforms will lose the magical effectivities on just the iPhone.

But I’m starting to see on the market some glasses that could perhaps be not too expensive — that’s a challenge!  And easy to use — that’s another big challenge. And, that could fit on anybody’s faces and head — there’s another big challenge. So yes, I’m starting to see that, but so far AR glasses are only applicable for some very, very specific application, like design or theme park or, you know, some specific location where it makes sense to move forward with glasses.

I don’t believe that kids will use glasses for — in our toys and for games in the next months or maybe othe next one or two years. But maybe something will come out shortly and that could be a big breakthrough, and enable us to think another way. But  from what we have seen so far and from what we know in this hardware market, I don’t believe that currently there is a workable solution.

Note: The following section of the interview took place earlier in the Summer.

Tish Shute: You are the first commercial AR company  – you started in 1999 right?

Bruno Uzzan: Yes you are right. We started the extremely early in this augmented reality market. We were the first company worldwide to start doing augmented reality and to start promoting augmented reality. So it’s true, we are pretty old players although the market has been getting bigger and bigger for the last year and a half. So for a long time we were only in the market, and the market was not really there.

But for the past 8 months, the company has been growing really fast.

Tish Shute: Yes I’m sure. Congratulations for hanging in there long enough to get the pay off!

Bruno Uzzan: You know, my background is Financial. So I have been driving the company for many years in a very cash efficient way. So we have been waiting for the markets to reach maturity before starting make some investments. So that’s the reason we are still here, and that’s the reason I think we managed pretty smartly the cash that we raised for the company.

Tish Shute: Yes there is a saying that when a market takes off you can tell a pioneers because they are the ones with the arrows in their backs. But I am glad you are dodging the arrows!

Bruno Uzzan: You know, I’ve always driven the company with revenue. And because revenue was not there at the beginning I was extremely cautious about the cash. So now that the company is getting some revenue, for sure we are making more and more investments, and taking advantage of our situation as a worldwide leader of augmented reality.

This situation is not easy as it appears today but it’s now getting better, as you can see, AR, Augmented Reality, has very good momentum and we are benefiting a lot from all this momentum for augmented reality right now.

Tish Shute: You’ve been very involved in researching developing augmented reality tools. Are you still as active in the research area, or are you too busy keeping up with work for hire now, to be working on research and building new technology for Augmented Reality?

Bruno Uzzan: Both. First of all, we are part of lot of projects either directly with clients like Mattel or with some partners that are using our technology to promote and develop other AR projects. From what we he have seen, many, many, many, projects augmented projects have been done currently with our solutions.

To continue with your previous question. So we are being perceived as this leader in that space, and we  have some pretty heavy demand for our services. But we are coming up with new technology, of course, still connected to Augmented Reality.  But, our R & D is working in two different directions, which of course also bind together.

The first one is platform developments. So we want Augmented Reality to work with as many platforms as possible – PC, Mac, Mobile, Game Consoles, all those are the platforms that we are targeting. We are currently doing lot of work in the R & D team in cross platform compatibility.

Tish Shute: Robert Rice said recently, “markers and webcams equal Photoshop page curls…”

Bruno Uzzan: Yes. There are so many concerns with markers. The quality is extremely bad. As soon as you hide a part of the marker, a slight part of the marker, you’re dead. You can’t track any more of the object. So compared to our solution where I want to say play with cards or where you are going to play with a Mattel toy, even if you hide a part of the toy, it’s still working.

Tish Shute: But you haven’t offered the public an SDK to your engine right? Basically the way people get access to your tools is working in a partnership with Total Immersion right?

Bruno Uzzan: Correct.

Tish Shute: Do you think in the future you might open your SDK? Are you considering that?

Bruno Uzzan: Yes, it would be interesting.

Tish Shute: So that is something we can see coming soon?

Bruno Uzzan: Maybe, because it’s true that Total Immersion is starting to be mature enough for these kind of tools. The only thing is that we have to respect good timing for that.  It’s a big decision. You know what I mean?  It is a big, big decision. We would then compete with others using our technology.

Tish Shute: Oh I know, it is a big decision when you have so much skin in the game! But it would be nice to have your SDK being THE platform for AR, wouldn’t it?

Bruno Uzzan: It is a really big decision that we can’t just take like that, you know.  There are a lot of friends who told me you have to be extremely careful about timing. This timing is pretty much connected to the maturity of the market. For sure, we see the market being more and more mature. But, there are a lot of low hanging fruits we still want to address

To get the best value possible for all the publicity we have and all the clients we have now.

Tish Shute: Yes, I know. You’ve been in this game so long. Now, there is an interesting question here though about tools and platforms because you know, A.R., augmented reality has already expanded  beyond its kind of original purist definition. And when I talk to people  about augmented reality, there are actually lot of different ideas and priorities of where the tools should go right now. You know, obviously we have these kind of browser-like applications, but these browser like applications are not dealing with recognizing near field objects yet.  What are your priorities for tool development and what are your priorities for AR development in the future? What areas are you going to focus on? Oh dear that is a rambling question!

Bruno Uzzan: [laughter]  So, one of our first priorities is we need to create our software with one development, one installer, one software that can be spread on different platforms. The same application, the same software can be used either on a PC, Mac, phone or console. So that’s a lot of work, because that means that our platform has to address many many different devices and that’s a big priority for us because we received this request from our clients. We want to be able to use one application on many different platforms and devices. So, that’s the first one.

And the second one is to add more and more interactivity between the real and the virtual world. So, we are working on some improvements to add some real components that will interact with virtual, and that also part of our big strategy and direction and these two worlds can more and more be bridged together, linked together so they can interact  one with the other.

Our R&D guys are working on the real world interacting more with the virtual world.  And I have started seeing some results which are pretty much crazy and this will be ready for next year.

There are so many different directions for interaction between the real world and virtual world to develop.  I’m sure ten years from now you’re going to have AR applications everywhere.  Its not just temporary fashion stuff or a gimmick for few months. I mean we are getting there, its getting stronger and stronger and we are getting a good adoption rate from our consumers. They like it, they test it, they play with it and brands wants more, people want more and its getting bigger and bigger.

Tish Shute: Yea and I totally agree, its not a gimmick because the interaction between “virtual” and “real” enhances the magic of both. Another question about you RandD operation. Is your R&D still in France or have you moved totally out to LA.

Bruno Uzzan: We are 50 people in France and I started this LA office two years ago and I moved permanently two years to LA. So I’m now permanently located in the US to take care of the US office, knowing that revenues are really getting bigger and bigger in the US. So it means that we are getting a lot of traction, working with large company and now I’m currently located in the US.

Tish Shute: My sister lives in Paris. Could I visit your R&D lab at some point? I’d love to visit!

Bruno Uzzan: Yeah sure sure sure. I mean if you want to go. You won’t have access to all the research. But if you want to go out and meet all the team please do.

Tish Shute: I’d love to.

Bruno Uzzan: No problem. Shoot me an Email you and I will introduce you to Eric Gehl, COO, he is the COO of the French team. And he can definitely take care of that.

Tish Shute: That would be fun. Thank you!

Recently, AR browser applications have really caught the imagination of the web community, eg., Layar and Wikitude?  Where do you think the most important market for AR is at the moment, entertainment,  green tech, business, education?

Bruno Uzzan: I think that all that you mention will be important. The first one that did grab my attention is entertainment particularly dual marketing, because they always searching for new ways to interact with players or the consumers.  But it’s just the tip of the iceberg, you know, I mean medical applications could be huge using augmented reality. Education, and edutainment is definitely using more and more augmented reality components.  And I will just be submitting with big companies – that are considering using augmentation for education. Museums are very important too. Also augmentation as a kind of free sales tool, you know there are so many applications, design, architecture – so many directions that it’s hard to say today which one will take the lead.

But I do believe that on the short term the ones that are really really moving fast are the entertainment business and the digital marketing business.

Tish Shute: What do you think are the biggest shortcomings with current augmented reality and what are the obstacles that no one has solved yet?

Bruno Uzzan: I think the cell phone is not fully ready for augmented reality – a lot of people are working on that but there are still a lot of constraints to get the augmented reality working on a cell phone and I think that from what I heard a lot of manufacturers and a lot of companies are working from direction that are going to help us a lot to develop some great cell phone applications.

And I think that’s one of the biggest part of the game. All the applications that you see on cell phones so far are just gimmicks – the next big key is how to transform some gimmick cell phone application to a real, industrial, robust application that’s going to work on a cell phone. So I think that’s a big challenge for this year.

Most of what we see now is just matching and overlaying some 2d components in a video. This is not what I call AR.  You’re far away – with this kind of application, you are far away from doing the registration that we need to do – you can’t do it. So here’s the challenge: “how can you get a Topps is an application working on cell phone. That’s the big challenge  How we can make that work!” You can’t today get a real AR Topps application working on cell phone because there’s no cell phone  that’s actually ready. But we are working on it and the first one that can make that work, it’s going to be huge.

When you are working with good AR components you need a lot of CPU and GPU programs. So today new cell phone have started to be more and more ready for augmented reality but you need a really good cell phone to make it work. You can’t choose an old cell phone to make it work because you have some recognition, you have some tracking, you have some rendering, so you can’t choose a Nokia cell phone two years old to make that work. For sure the newest iPhone is the one that can make it work, but that’s it for now. There is a lot of research – from large cell phone companies – to get more CPU and GPU into their cell phone.  But so far we are also waiting for these devices to be released to consumers.

Tish Shute: And the current economic climate has put a damper on MIDs hasn’t it. But who can tell? It depends what price points some new MID came out at right?

Bruno Uzzan: Correct.

Tish Shute: Yes,I agree. But basically what’s interesting, the interesting thing is, the iPhone can deliver so much of what is necessary and even if Apple hasn’t given access to the full power of the iphone to AR developers yet, there is really no going back now – the mobile augmented reality cat is out of the bag!

Bruno Uzzan: You’re right, you’re fully right.

I am kicking off what will be a series of  talks with key players in the rapidly emerging augmented reality industry with an interview with Ori Inbar, co-founder of Ogmento. For Ori’s full bio see here.  Ori not only has a passion for interactive entertainment and a commitment to developing augmented reality to, “free young and old from getting lost in front of the screen.” Ori also, as I noted in the intro to my first conversation with Ori in May, brings invaluable experience to the young augmented reality industry because he has already gone through the cycle of working in a very small start-up and growing it into a billion dollar business. Ori worked with Shai Agassi (Shai is now leading the world changing Better Place ) driving Netweaver from a mere concept to a “major, major business for SAP.”

I have been tracking developments in Augmented Reality pretty carefully since my post, “Is it OMG finally for Augmented Reality?: Interview with Robert Rice.” And I talked at length to Blair McIntyre on Mobile Augmented Reality and Mirror Worlds recently. These interviews, and my first conversation with Ori, are long in depth conversations. But, if you haven’t already read them and you want the full story, they may be a good place to start.

As Ori notes, the Google trend on Augmented Reality is really growing exponentially at this point, and recently there have been two high profile round ups in the New York Times here,  and one in Venture Beat here.

Ori comments (for more see full interview below):

“What was unique about the article in Venture Beat is that it was probably the first roundup of Augmented Reality companies. It wasn’t very comprehensive or detailed, but it might be a sign that VCs are getting interested in AR companies.”

I feel that now is an excellent time for a detailed and comprehensive series of interviews on the state of play for augmented reality. I hope to speak with all eight founders of the AR Consortium, Int13, Metaio, Mobilizy, Neogence Enterprises, Ogmento, SPRXmobile, Tonchidot, and Total Immersion. The recent founding of the AR Consortium focused on facilitation of, “faster market penetration, robust technical standards, and a strong focus on the end-user’s experience,” is an important development for augmented reality.

Ogmento co-founder, Ori Inbar, created augmented reality’s trail blazing blog, Games Alfresco, and Pookatak Games – now Ogmento.  Ogmento will bring out their first augmented reality game for the iphone later this summer.  But Ogmento also brings two important new facets to the rapidly growing augmented reality field. One is that Ogmento brings leadership from veterans of the entertainment industry into augmented reality development  – Brian Selzer and Brad Foxhoven from Blockade have partnered with Ori on Ogmento.  The other, a very exciting announcement from Ogmento, is that they will be acting as publishers for a fast growing cohort of augmented reality application developers. Ori explains, Ogmento will be helping, “AR development teams out there bring their concepts to the market.”

The emergence of a savvy publisher for augmented reality developers is a vital step forward for this emerging industry.  As Ori notes in the interview below:

“recognizing elements on product packaging, posters, games will kick off a frenzy of new consumer experiences before the end of the year mobile AR will take the center stage. Next year will be huge for these experiences.”

The first commercial and practical toolsets, SDKs, and APIs developers wishing to create AR experiences have emerged including AR engines with key development tools for markerless image recognition like Imagination and SRengine Lite (for more see these posts on The Future Digital Life and Games Alfresco).  Also the pioneering and the most used AR engine out there, ARTookit, now has a version for the iPhone. And Metaio has produced a powerful  modular development tool kit, Unifeye.  Wikitude (Mobilizy) and Layar (SPRXmobile) have caused a lot of excitement recently with applications that unlock the potential for a wide range of augmented reality browsing experiences. Notably, they have both opened up developer APIs for their mobile augmented reality platforms in the last couple of weeks (although Layar is only providing “50 developer keys to interested companies across the globe,” whereas the Wikitude World Browser APIs are open to all). Maarten Lens-FitzGerald explained:

“There will be more keys distributed by Layar.  We are starting with a small amount to make sure that the servers will be able to handle it. Biggest difference is that the Layar API is aimed at Business to Business market: Companies and or developers with major brands or other content and services which are relevant for the new AR world. They are able to get their own branded experience in Layar”

Wikitude, however, has introduced the vital component of user generated content. With Wikitude.me you can add your own tags now.

I just added my first tag to Wikitude.me and twittered from TweetDeck:

“Signed up for Wikitude.me today, very cool the world as a wikipedia platform.”

click on image above to watch the video

I have interviewed both Mark A. M. Kramer, Mobilizy and Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, Sprxmobile, for this series so I will be posting more on Wikitude and Layar soon. See Wikitude’s “World Browser” press release and video for more, and the video here for read here more about Layar.   I was very chuffed to hear from Maarten Lens-FitzGerald of Sprxmobile the other day that my Interview with Robert Rice, in January of this year, was a key inspiration for SPRXmobile to get started on the development of Layar.  I hope this series of interviews and the arrival of a world class augmented reality publishing team, Ogmento, will be the inspiration for many more game changing augmented reality projects.

Robert Rice (who founded the AR Consortium with Ori) is a key innovator in the field who is tackling some of the really hard problems of AR development. While we will have to wait until ISMAR in October to see demos of Robert’s AR platform, Robert explained in my interview with him (to be posted soon):

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

Augmented Reality and the Next Generation of Compelling Interactive Entertainment Experiences

Ogmento and the partnership of  Brian Selzer and Brad Foxhoven from Blockade with Ori Inbar is a very significant development for Augmented Reality.  I am very excited to be discussing Augmented Reality with Entertainment Industry veterans (interviews with Brian and Brad upcoming soon). Here is an excerpt from the beginning of my conversation with Brian.

“My first conversation with Ori was actually about my interest in Location Based RPG concepts. We had a long conversation about the possibilities with AR, and it was clear that we shared similar interests, but we’re coming from different complementary backgrounds. The idea of collaboration was exciting, so we just kept talking until the timing felt right. Now, with Ogmento we bring a unique blend of AR development experience with a deep backgrounds in AR technology, animation, video games, entertainment, social media, etc. I think this is a powerful mix that will allow us to do some great things.

It’s still so early, and things are just getting started in AR. There are only so many webcam magic tricks you can enjoy before you are ready for something else.

The location-based apps have the most potential in my opinion, which is why we are really focused on mobile AR. We have some board-game type projects, which do not instantly scream location-based gaming, but if you look at  something like the ARhrrr board game [for more see my interview with Blair McIntyre here], you can see how much more compelling it can be when the game invites the player to be actively moving around during the experience.”

Talking with Ori Inbar

Tish Shute: First I really want to catch up with you on your new venture – Ogmento.

Ori Inbar: It’s basically an evolutionary step. A little bit about Ogmento, I partnered with a couple of very strong veterans of the entertainment industry from LA, and we want to do two key things. One is develop augmented reality applications and games; and two, which is becoming really interesting lately, is to help AR development teams out there bring their concepts to the market.

Tish Shute: Your new partners are Brian Selzer and Brad Foxhoven. Are they both from Blockade?

Ori Inbar: Brad and Brian are both from Blockade and are leveraging their contacts and deep knowledge of entertainment companies and big brands they worked with over the years.

Tish: Sounds great to have a team like this getting into AR! How will you work with developers? Will you help them market their AR applications?

Ori: Exactly. In parallel to my blog becoming popular, it seems there’s a lot of activity picking up in the AR space. People are reaching out to us and are asking asking for help. So we started actually making that a part of our business. We help connect them with the right technologies if they need it or connect them with the right brands or companies and strategize with them on how to go to market and help publish their applications or games. So that’s becoming an exciting part of what we do.

Tish: It seems that great content rather than applications is going to be what drives the early AR market. What is your direction/vision for content development and what technologies are you focusing on: In my recent discussion with Robert Rice he asked the question: “The iphone…future or failure? With a 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? Shouldn’t 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?”

Ori: I can tell you that we’re now being inundated with requests for projects from all angles. Either from big brands, independent entertainment companies, all and everything in between. In terms of the hype it’s curving up. More and more people are hearing about it. In a sense we’re moving from a very strong push to a little pull. We’re starting to see some pull from people asking for development of AR projects.

In terms of technologies, what platforms to use? At this point we’re very open to picking the right technology, the right platform for each project. For example: Wikitude, or Layar, could be good for certain types of experiences, but they do not visually recognize elements in real life. So for that purpose you’ll need technologies from other folks like ARtoolkit or Imagination. We are basically picking the right tool for each job.

Tish: What distinguishes Imagination from ARtoolkit?

Ori: Imagination have been doing virtual reality and augmented reality for years now. They probably have the best augmented reality engine for mobile devices. It’s the only engine built from the ground up for mobile.

Tish: What about this whole issue of most of the world being Symbian and the U.S. being iPhone and possibly moving somewhat towards Android?

Ori: That’s right. We’re currently focusing on the iPhone because it’s the coolest out there and fits our target audiences perfectly, and there’s a pretty good market here in the U.S. which is currently our main target market. But you’re right, it could change tomorrow, when another major platform becomes popular. Another thing is that is attractive about the iPhone is that all of the iPhones are the same (although it’s now changing with the 3G-S). It’s very easy to develop an application and distribute it to 40 million people. But if you’re going into the Symbian market or Windows Mobile, it’s a nightmare. It’s not just the technical aspect of testing the app on all these devices but also the distribution challenge. Apparently there’s just no simple channel to distribute it across these various versions of these platforms.

Tish: That’s what stopped mobile gaming taking off until the iPhone wasn’t it.

Ori: Absolutely.

Tish: So this Austrian AR engine, Imagination, it must be for Symbian too, is it?

Ori: They have an augmented reality engine that works on P.C. webcam, Symbian, Windows Mobile, and now in the iPhone. You write the application once and theoretically it runs on all these platforms.

Tish: Any interesting development showing up on Imagination yet, or is it too early?

Ori: Our first game that we discussed [see my previous interview with Ori here] is actually going to be based on that engine.

Tish: Your game for pre-schoolers that we discussed before? What’s the release date for that?

Ori: We said it’s going to be released this summer and that’s still the plan, but it depends a little bit on Apple. You’ll be among the first to know when it’s in the app store.

Tish: It seems at the moment the two main forms of AR are mainly tethered or marker experiences or kind of stepping stone apps like Wikitude and Layar that are markerless but mainly pull info from web to world rather than truly aligning graphics in a tight relationship to the “real” world. Although what differentiates Wikitude from Layar is that you can actually create content with Wikitude.me and add your own tags now. When are we going to see something that goes beyond the tethered experience and the “browsing” experience and get to the magic of AR in terms of tightly aligning media/graphics with real world objects?

Ori: That’s right. That’s one difference between Layar and Wikitude. Another is that Wikitude is actually being used across the world by what is it now 160,000 or 200,000 people and Layar only works in the Netherlands for the moment. That’s a big difference. But things are changing rapidly.

But there are a lot of new AR concepts being developed out there (and we are fortunate to be working with some of them).

We’ll still see many webcam campaigns for another year or so, but recognizing elements on product packaging, posters, games will kick off a frenzy of new consumer experiences before the end of the year mobile AR will take the center stage. Next year will be huge for these experiences.

But to address your question, you’re going to see two different types of apps. One is the so called browsers like Wikitude and Layar, which actually doesn’t comply with the scientific definition of augmented reality in the sense that you have to align graphics with real life objects (Azuma).

Tish: Wikitude and Layar are not the purist idea of AR and technically should they really claim the title “browser”?

Ori: Right. But I don’t think it really matters to users that find these apps useful. The second type of apps you’re going to see in parallel are those which recognize markers or natural images and soon any real life object – and overlay on top of computer graphics. I believe we’ll see more and more of that towards the end of the year.

Tish: And you think Imagination really does give people an engine that allows them to do image recognition more easily?

Ori: Yes absolutely. They do. We’re using it. Right now it’s not an official SDK, but pretty soon they’ll open it up and more and more people will be able to take advantage of it.

Tish: When do you think they’ll open it up?

Ori: You’ll have to ask them But there’s also the ARtoolkit – the most used AR engine out there, which now has a version for the iPhone. They also have a version that can track images, but it’s still not running on the iPhone. It’s going to take some time until these, as well as the products from Metaio, and other folks are going to catch up with them.

Tish: I want to ask you about the Cartoon Network AR campaign? I didn’t get a chance to look at it before I spoke to you. It’s still a tethered experience I think but there is a “next generation AR” claim?

Ori: I think in terms of the experience it’s trying to take it a bit further than what we’ve seen so far by creating an actual game. But you are still tethered to a PC screen which is not significantly different than playing a 3D game on a PC.

Tish: Then the other thing is did you get a chance to play with the iPhone video API? Is it accessible now? I noticed your blog on this.

Ori: It’s under NDA with Apple so we cannot really talk about the details. But it seems like it’s doing only half of what we need for AR. It’ll be useful for applications like Wikitude but not when you want to align graphics with live video.

But I’m pretty sure it’s going to happen soon and there’s no reason why it shouldn’t… It’s just that Apple’s policy is to never reveals their plans. We don’t know when it’s going to happen.

Tish: You basically think we’re going to have to be very flexible because it seems as a developer the iPhone is obviously the only place to get easily to a market. But in terms of developer you do have to make some serious decisions and there are some interesting MIDs and new Android platforms coming out aren’t there?

Ori: Last year I thought MIDs would make a big difference in the AR world but they didn’t. Not in terms of adoption and not in terms of the number of MIDs that we expected to be released this year. Some companies are trying to resurrect it for next year… or later this year. I think the high price is going to be a barrier for adoption.

Tish: The economic climate hasn’t been good for it. Which bring up another question, now that people are really catching on to AR, should there be a partnership with the hardware people to get some of the hardware that really will make AR rock n roll moving e.g. accurate gps (Robert mentioned to me the idea of creating pseudolites = ground based differential GPS with <10cm accuracy hotspot say in partnership with Starbucks, for example).  And it seems to be that there definitely needs to be an eyeware push now we have seen close but not yet perfect prototypes from companies like Vuzix and Lumus. Will Ogmento,’cos you are going to be involved in lots of cool projects focusing on content, partner with the hardware people and get it moving along in that area?

Ori: That’s absolutely right. For ISMAR this year we’re planning some panel discussions with industry leaders as well as hardware companies to define the ideal mobile  device for augmented reality. These discussions are already happening. But I don’t think companies like Intel and others are paying enough attention to it just because they don’t see the demand yet. I believe that with more content and apps in the market, they’ll realize they can’t wait any longer and will accelerate their decision process and act.

Tish: But it does seem to me – one would have to be an Ostrich not to have noticed the excitement that relatively trivial Augmented Reality apps have stirred up. It’s something that people get is a cool and engaging experience and right away they like it. Although we haven’t seen a popular game yet have we?

Ori: Exactly. It’s gaining mindshare but it’s still very low on most people’s radar and there’s no market right now. You can’t even size the market. Before they invest a lot in this concept they’ll want to see some ROI.

Tish: So that’s the plan then. You’re basically hoping at Ogmento to make some popular iPhone apps? That’s really the first step?

Ori: Yes. That’s true. That’s what we think is going to trigger the other parts of the industry to contribute and to invest.

Tish: Right. Because ultimately a partnership between content and hardware – each enables investment and ROI in the other, its a synergistic combo. You need the big content to push the hardware companies, and you need the hardware to get the really dynamic content.

Ori: You are so right. It’s multiple elements in the industry that have to come together. You have the technology companies like Imagination and Metaio, then you have content companies like what we’re trying to do; the hardware vendors and the large content providers. Those brands that we’re trying to go after and educate them about the potential of AR. All these pieces need to come together for this market to ignite.

Tish: So is Ogmento talking to major content franchise owners or are they coming to you?

Ori: It’s both ways actually. Mostly we’re still educating. That’s one piece of the puzzle, the other piece is connecting them with various AR developers out there who have great ceoncepts, but don’t have the expertise or connections to market it.

Tish: So Ogmento acts as an agency for them or how would you describe it?

Ori: It’s more of a publisher-developer relationship. Similar to the gaming industry where you have game developers and publishers.

Tish: At the minute are you working with any particular team or are you still in the early stages with that?

Ori: We have several projects in the early stages. Follow us on Ogmento.com or Games Alfresco to see the progress with these projects in the future.

Tish: Have you had seen anyone coming up with good ideas for a Green Tech AR application? Seems that visualizing emissions and carbon footprint for everything in our lives would be a big step forward in taking action to make the changes we need to avert a climate catastrophe – seeing is believing!!

Ori: Not really yet. I was kind of playing with this idea (see my previous interview with Ori here) about that but the technology wasn’t really ready for this kind of application. I think that when it happens this will be a very important area.

click the image above to see video

Tish: I was thinking if we could organize a prize, for development of really good Green Tech AR apps. that would help.  It is early for Green Tech AR because it really involves a level of instrumentation and visualization/alignment of media with nearby objects  that is hard to do at the moment (although the necessary instrumentation is on its way to becoming ubiquitous – see Google’s Android to invade homes and Touch Revolution household Android devices coming this year). And smart energy monitoring like Current Cost is already widely available in the UK.  AMEE – the world’s energy meter is integrated with Pachube and can be used to calculate the carbon footprint of a Pachube feed that is monitoring some kind of energy consumption.  And many people are interested (see Tom Raftery’s Green Monk post here) in this kind of application that will really advance the usability of much Green Tech. So we have some ground work for a competition already!  Particularly, I think, if the competition focuses on a target instrumented environment.

[Note: Pachube has produced a really nice augmented reality demo (see video above) where 3D Pachube visualisation data is overlayed in realtime ‘on top’ of Arduino sensor boxes around their office. The demo  “features the Pachube office carbon footprint wall with chalk-drawn augmented reality marker, for Dennou-Coil-style space-hacking.” The code is written in c++ using openFrameworks, ArToolKit and the ofxPachube library and is being cleaned up for public release soon.  As the Pachube team notes, this “could provide an easy way to inspect rooms (or streets) full of sensor and environment data via a camera (e.g. iPhone)… or even AR goggles!]

Ori: Yes a prize is a good idea!

Tish: What do you think would be a reasonable sum to get the right kind of developers into that?

Ori: I think fifty thousand is the minimum. Or a publishing deal.

Tish: $50,000 is the minimum. And how would you offer it?

Ori: A cash prize for the first place and a little bit less for the second and third.

Tish: I’ll start talking to people. Maybe Ogmento could help adjudicate it, if we can find a way to raise the prize money, would you be willing to help run a competition?

Ori: We would love to. Just like we discussed before, it’s a matter of understanding the  current technical limitations, and then designing something that works within those limitations and delivering an added value.

Tish: What have been the most exciting things that you’ve seen since we’ve last talked. What are the things that got you going wow this is moving forward?

Ori: First If you just looked at the Google trend on Augmented Reality, it has the right curve. It’s really growing exponentially at this point. Also I really like a couple of articles just last week, one in the New York Times and one in Venture Beat. What was unique about the article in Venture Beat is that it was probably the first roundup of Augmented Reality companies. It wasn’t very comprehensive or detailed, but it might be a sign that VCs are getting interested in AR companies.

Tish: Yes.

And, in a way AR is perfect because it’s suited to the kind of level of investment that people are interested in right now – relatively small scale investment. And what’s good about particularly say iPhone apps, you can do a lot with relatively little can’t you?

Ori: Yeah, I agree. But to answer your question, I think the most exciting thing that is happening is the (small) swarm of AR developers popping up in various corners of the world and are looking to bring their ideas and products to the market. I think that’s unique and we haven’t seen it until this year.

Tish: Why are we seeing most things coming out of Europe like Layer, Wikitude, Imagination?

Ori: It’s a true statement. You know what? I have no idea why. I really don’t know.

Tish: Is there anything special coming out of Silicon Valley that’s normally leading the field in these kind of things?

Ori: I can’t say, but at least…there’s Ogmento!

Tish: Yes! There is Ogmento. Right. But it is interesting isn’t it? I think I know the answer to my own question. It’s because mobile culture is very well developed in Europe and this is springing out of mobile culture.

Ori: There is another important initiative from the US – the AR consortium which Robert Rice and I have recently launched…

Tish: Oh yes I must ask you about that. And Robert’s been really working hard on the big problems of full on AR- massively multiplayer, 3D, virtual goods market, tight alignment of media/ graphics with real world objects, partnerships to move the hardware forward – eyeware etc.  I know he has some exciting demos planned for ISMAR 2009,  it’s just that he’s still under the radar.

Ori: Robert is going after the hard problems, which is good.

Tish: It is great. Actually  I just spoke to him today and it seems like he’s a few months off being able to show us something. He is working hard to push the hardware forward.

Ori: I think he is and he’s probably targeting existing platforms.

Tish: Which is were we get back to the snake biting the tail – great content need good hardware and hardware investment comes from seeing great content.  What does the current crop of AR browsers have to do to take it to the next level?

Ori: I think what they’re doing right now is a very good first step. Which is opening it up just like Wikitude and Layar. It’s kind of what made a difference for Facebook versus other social networks and for Twitter as well. Their approach as a platform is what made it so huge. The other step which Wikitude is doing with wikitude.me is allowing people everwhere to tag the world.

Tish: They’re the first who are doing that so far.

Ori: There were other attempts to provide ways to tag the world, but I think Wikitude is the first that is actually available on a global scale.

Tish: Have you had a chance to try out Google Wave yet – do you see some potential for some interesting AR integrations with Wave? I think Wave may be a big game changer in real time communication, if it gets mass adoption. It basically makes the web like a videogame – bringing a real time many participant shared interaction to the web. I have been exploring in the sandbox and there are some interesting possibilities for role playing games. It’s completely open so it could be integrated into an AR project.

Ori: I am going to have to look into Wave in the next few days.

Tish: So what should we look out for from Ogmento in the next few months? What do you want to develop next?

Ori: I have given some hints above – you’ll have to stay tuned to discover…