Category: observations

On the up – "ARToolKit is the world’s most popular library for augmented reality application development. With a ten-year development pedigree, an active community edition with thousands of users, and ongoing development incorporating the latest results of augmented reality research…"

Does what it sez on the tin.

Medical AR vision video depicting the ability to see 'into' a body using AR overlays. Not unlike MS 'future vision of personal health'.

"Thingiverse is a place for you to share your digital designs with the world. We believe that just as computing shifted away from the mainframe into the personal computer that you use today, digital fabrication will share the same path. Infact, it is already happening: laser cutters, cnc machines, 3D printers, and even automated paper cutters are all getting cheaper by the day. These machines are useful for a huge variety of things, but you need to supply them with a digital design in order to get anything useful out of them. We're hoping that together we can create a community of people who create and share designs freely, so that all can benefit from them."

Sterling comments on applications for AR by governments – surely something that would go disastrously wrong!

An entertaining article about 40 things about computing technology that have become redundant or simply don't exist any more.

AR t-shirts using FLARToolkit

RWW write-up on AR, giving a commentary explaining the whys and wherefores. The author runs the Bay Area Augmented Reality Meetup Group, so its a bit evangelical. Some interesting links to example services. Also commentary on 'ambient intelligence': "Ambient intelligence is a human interface metaphor. It implies that the connected devices around us are all connected to some form of intelligence. We see this when we drive through an automated toll system like FasTrak on the Golden Gate Bridge. Using the RFID tag issued by the bridge authority, the bridge knows who we are and what to do. We don't have to actively submit intelligence of our own: the ambient intelligence takes care of the job."

Streamy is an uber-aggregation service that plugs into the APIs of everything else and allows users to share content across all of the platforms/services they alredy use.

More commentary on AR, usual suspects – Layar, nearest tube station etc.

"IBM is involved in some very interesting projects at the intersection of two big trends we've been tracking in 2009: The Real-time Web and Internet of Things. They have a website devoted to this topic, called A Smarter Planet. As the name implies, it focuses on environmental matters such as energy and food systems. Sensors, RFID tags and real-time messaging software are major parts of IBM's smarter planet strategy. The catchcry for the site – Instrumented, Interconnected, and Intelligent – is about outfitting the world with sensors and hooking them to the Internet to apply the 'smarts.'"

"As promised in early June at the
E3 event, 360 Live users will see Twitter, Facebook and streaming radio service Last.fm available to their community as downloadable apps. Additionally, the existing Netflix application is expected to be updated to allow users to browse through titles directly from Live. With the promise of on-demand games, streaming videos, music and a new social media component, the Xbox community is about to look a lot like open source media center Boxee."

"This study explores how cloud computing technologies will become a disruptive force in the mobile world, making mobile apps more sophisticated and allowing them to be offered to a much broader audience of mobile subscribers. It details the mobile applications that will lead the growth, the key technologies, players and initiatives involved, new business models that will be introduced, and the barriers that must be overcome. Forecasts include subscribers and revenue by region and application category using mobile cloud applications."

O'Reilly web-squared report, that is a lot like ubicomp, figured as internet of things plus crowd-sourcing and web2: "If we are going to solve the world’s most pressing problems, we must put the power of the Web to work – its technologies, its business models, and perhaps most importantly, its philosophies of openness, collective intelligence, and transparency. And to do that, we must take the Web to another level. We can’t afford incremental evolution anymore."

RWW comment on O'Reilly's 'Web-squared' report: "To say that sensor data can be both machine generated (e.g. by RFID chips) and human generated is perhaps trying too hard to force the web 2.0 world into the new emerging Internet of Things. But that's neither here nor there. Where the 'web squared' report is spot on, is its point that applying collective intelligence to sensor data will be a rich vein of opportunity in the coming years. Clearly the web 2.0 philosophy can and will merge with Internet of Things."

"The dazzling new trend of "augmented reality" mobile applications, software that puts layers of information on top of a mobile device's camera viewer, is something that's left iPhone owners feeling out of luck. Now one company developing such an app says Apple has said the technology required will be officially enabled in the next version of the iPhone OS – which is expected out in September."