Augmented reality is a field of computer research which deals with the combination of real-world and computer-generated data (virtual reality), where computer graphics are blended into real footage in real time. An augmented reality user might, for instance, wear glasses through which he could see the real world as well as computer-generated images projected on top of the world, and interact with them in real time.
One of AR’s most interesting characteristics is how it makes possible a transformation of the focus of interaction. The interactive system is no longer a precise location, but the whole environment around the user. Interaction is no longer a simple face-to-screen, or hand-to-screen, exchange, but dissolves itself in the surrounding space. This has connections to the notion that in the future we will move from millions of computers connected by the Internet to one huge computer that is the Internet. Every device will be a window into it.
In mobile computing, there are already AR applications available. Nokia has been developing a service called Point and Find, which will let users point at landmarks with the phone camera to slurp down info about the landmark from the Internet. The service, which Nokia plans to launch together with its new N97 smartphone, sounds similar to the idea of Wikitude, an application which is already available for the new Android-powered G1 phone. It pulls information about the landmarks that appear in the phone camera from Wikipedia. Imagine traveling through Europe, and pointing the phone at the scenery around you. The application tells you that Napoleon once spent a night in the old house you see in front of you.
For the iPhone, there is Sekai Camera, which also lets the user to see online information about the places and objects that appear in the phone camera. And the Nokia N95 features some augmented reality marker-based games. Other current and future applications of AR technology are, for example, in visualization of building architecture, in emergency services, entertainment and education at museums and exhibitions, and in virtual conferences in holodeck style, allowing computer-generated imagery to interact with live audience.
Karri Ojanen
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No kidding, Augmented Reality is going to be fascinating. Imagine taking wikipedia and overlaying that on a city, point your phone at something and fine out all about it. Not only that, point at something, tag it, review it, take a picture, all geo tagged and visible to anyone else pointing their phone at that thing.
I know the guys on the point and find project it is very cool stuff, i’ll be very interested in seeing that launch.
(most people know this, but yes I work for Nokia but not on any of those projects)
No kidding, Augmented Reality is going to be fascinating. Imagine taking wikipedia and overlaying that on a city, point your phone at something and fine out all about it. Not only that, point at something, tag it, review it, take a picture, all geo tagged and visible to anyone else pointing their phone at that thing.
I know the guys on the point and find project it is very cool stuff, i’ll be very interested in seeing that launch.
(most people know this, but yes I work for Nokia but not on any of those projects)
Seemingly that Nokia research project which I bumped into back a few years ago has come to fruition. At the time when I was at the MediaLab at the UIAH we were having a course on learning in NewMedia from which I came up with an idea which lay a bit on the side track of the course’s goals. “Shedlight” involved being able to scan the environment for annotations which were could be seen through the phone’s camera display. Geopositioning would of course be done by either GPS or cell tower triangulation but the real novel idea(which my tutor didn’t believe me) was the get the directional position, i.e. compass directions, through motion tracking the sun’s position to the horizon. An old scout trick taken into the mobile era.
Afterwards I got to learn that Nokia research had a similar on-going project, namely Mara, but also there was a mobile game for the 3650 called Mosquito which enabled the low-in-CPU phone to do motion tracking.