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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Talking with Robert Rice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tish: Which AR tools are most important right now?

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

Tish: What are your favorite papervision apps?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Robert: Absolutely.

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

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

Tish: What applications would the accurate gps enable?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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