Group items tagged

Background on Augmented Reality. Reading for 9/14.

For those of you interested in trying out a bit of augmented reality at home, try out this green energy augmented reality application available from the GE web site. You will need a printout of the glyph (the black square design provided on the web site) and a webcam in order to get this to work. Audio volume adjust according to the distance of the glyph away from the webcam. This little AR app was designed using ARToolKit originally created by Dr. Hirokazu Kato.

Augmented Reality Sample created for General Electric using ARToolKit. You will need a webcam and a printout of the glyph (the black box design that the AR object will need to anchor to).\n\nI can't directly anchor to the augmented reality sample, so please bring your mouse pointer down to the bottom of the browser window to where it says, "Navigate the Smart Grid," and click the augmented reality icon on the far right of the navigation bar that appears.

This article from the Economist gives a background on augmented reality, and explores future prospects: 2D bar codes, the evolution of Google Latitude, the future compass enabled Iphone.

I like the way the Nokia researcher describes "virtual reality" dividing into "augmented reality" (real world with layers of additional information) and "augmented virtuality" (virtual game worlds being made more information-rich). Helpful distinction.

"Virtual reality never really died, he says-it just divided itself in two, with AR enhancing the real world by overlaying information from the virtual realm, and VR becoming what he calls "augmented virtuality", in which real information is overlaid onto virtual worlds, such as players' names in video games... its potential is huge."

A high school student devised an augmented reality interface to transform medical education--the phrase "kids these days" doesn't even begin to cover it.

A look back at augmented reality from a 2002 Popular Science article about Columbia University's Mobile Augmented Reality System (MARS).

One potential use of augmented reality: To frighten and confuse innocent bystanders

During our augmented reality online discussion, I had mentioned the usefulness of creating an augmented reality application for those wishing to do mechanical work on their vehicles. The marines are nowing making use of an augmented reality application that does just that.

The developer kit would especially be helpful to developers planning on using the device to develop augmented reality applications. Typically, augmented reality refers to an enhanced (and, sometimes, fantastic) vision of reality.

This would also be very powerful for engineering applications, virtually "adding" prototypes from solidworks or 3D modeling programs to see their impact on objects or spaces. I also see a cool educational aspect where students could build theoretical bridges, building models, or art installations to see how they would impact the real space they might inhabit.

This article describes Google's first large scale attempt at an augmented reality game taking place on City Streets via smartphones. I find it especially interesting to think about the educational value of such a platform.

I also saw this earlier. very interesting stuff.

Augmented reality on Sesame Street? Pretty incredible! I do wonder how kids will interact with this type of technology at such a young age. 

This article outlines various augmented reality apps that are being used in classes. I've actually used Google Sketchup when teaching, giving students an opportunity to design their own buildings and use it to study geometric properties. It was very cool.

This article features an augmented reality reading app for preschoolers and kindergarteners that includes teacher resources such as video tutorials and lesson plans.

is augmented reality helping in this situation, or glitz?

Augmented Reality pioneers Metaio hardly qualify as a startup these days (being incorporated since 2003 and funded by a stream of project work from the likes of Volkswagen and IKEA), but they behave very much like a startup and are constantly inventing new systems for their considerable augmented reality SDK.

On augmented reality: "Though it might be a buzz term in education circles, don't assume that AR is just another fad. After all, profound learning occurs when students create, share, interact and explain. AR not only changes the environment around children, it also allows kids to construct their own exciting learning worlds as small as the atom or as big as the cosmos."

Article from Usable Knowledge regarding augmented reality from the perspective of Mr. Dede himself!

Esquire releases an augmented reality magazine this month.

Popular Science magazine also used AR on the magazine cover earlier this year.

A fascinating video about using an existing technology (wireless headsets) as a vehicle for an emerging technology (augmented reality).

Thanks for sharing. The prediction of the device "watching and learning about you and then making suggestions as to what it should program" is a little to "Big Brother" for me and then there's the consideration as to what happens if the device is lost - will someone who picks it up have access to your information, or will it be "smart" enough to know that it is no longer with its original owner? Interesting things to think about.

Logical Choice Technologies has released an update to Letters Alive, an augmented reality education app for kindergarten and preschool. Letters Alive is a reading curriculum for preschool and kindergarten (and grades 1 through 5 for remediation and ESL) that consists of augmented reality-infused animal cards, augmented reality-infused word cards, software, teacher resources, and student activity sheets.

This is incredible. They REALLY took the AR capabilities and built out a robust curriculum. They didn't just stop with what I have seen as a "typical" use of AR (making the image or the letter appear as 3D objects), rather, they made the cards interactive and educational with sounds, changing color, sentence structure, punctuation, etc. Incredible!

Going back to our discussions on augmented reality, here's an app that takes us a step closer to the kind of future that was shown in a video in one of Professor Dede's presentations - instant translation!

I wonder if this type of technology might be augmented to "replace" physical QR codes and instead, if you hold up your phone to a building name plaque (e.g.Empire State Building) - could you get statistical/historical data associated with just the name text?