Augmented Reality is Here
If you like cool technology that looks like it could have come from the future then this is for you. Augmented Reality (AR) uses the combination of real-world and computer-generated data to blend computer graphic objects into real-time footage. The best way to understand this is to take a look at a few examples:
New York Nearest Subway
The acrossair iPhone app overlays directions to the nearest subway station on live video using GPS and compass data to guide you. Forget boring 2D tube maps but just be careful you don’t trip down the escalator while using this! There’s also a version availiable for the London Underground.
AR Business Card
This ingenious concept shows how a business card has been designed with a symbol printed on one side which can be tracked by a camera to spatically overlay a video message (or just about anything else). Make magazine has an article which shows how you can do something like this yourself. If it was combined with QR codes (visual hyperlinks) the applications could be even more interesting (update: looks like someone has already done it).
Sekai Camera
The Sekai Camera iPhone app from Tonchidot in Japan, which first wowed the audience at the TechCrunch50 conference, takes AR to a new level with functionality that allows you to tag and view contextual information about anything in the world through the live camera window. In essense it combines virtual worlds with the real world using the iPhone as a viewer. It’s usage is almost endless and ranges from being able to see product information, to restaurant reviews, directions and notes from your friends but basically anything you can think of.
The video above is worth watching alone for the hillarious presenter answering questions at the end. “Remember look up! Not look down. Please don’t forget imagination!“. I can’t wait to play with this once it’s availiable.
Much of the innovation we’re seeing can be attributed to the combination of a number of key technologies packaged in todays smartphones: video cameras, GPS, digital compass’, accelerometers, touchscreens, and 3G/wifi/bluetooth. One thing which will have to improve is battery life if this becomes popular as currently you’d be out of juice in a couple of hours or less.
AR Translation (idea)
I’d love to see an application where you could point your camera at some text in a foreign language and it would do OCR then auto-translate it into your language. I’ve created a basic mock-up above. There would probably be quite a bit of heavy lifting involved in getting the character recognition working but could be extremely useful. Anyone interested in a collaboration to make this a reality?
Augmented Reality is opening an exciting new world of possibilities which people are only just beginning to realise and explore. The list of current and future applications on Wikipedia are enough to inspire anyone and once the viewing tech is built into your specs we’re only one step away from having a working holodeck (see concept video below)!
This is going to be big (if we don’t all die from information overload first).
Lumix LX3 First Impressions
My primary camera of choice for the past four years has been my trusty Nikon D70s. It’s a wonderful camera and I’m not getting rid of it any time soon but because of its size/weight it’s not always ideal for carrying around and taking quick snaps or shooting video (impossible). At the other end of the spectrum my iPhone’s camera isn’t up to the job of anything other than grainy low resolution photos – good enough for making a visual note of something but nothing more.
Photo by Daniel Y. Go
Enter the Lumix LX3, a new high end compact from Panasonic which has been getting rave reviews. I’ve been wanting to get a compact for sometime but none offered quite the right balance of manual control, superior picture quality and HD video (more on this later). The LX3 sports an impressive Leica DC Vario-Summicron 24-60mm f/2.0-2.8 (35mm equivalent) lens, 10.1 megapixel censor, choice of shooting aspect ratios (4:3, 3:2, 16:9), full manual control, RAW recording, and the ability to shoot 720p HD video at 24fps.
Photo by Daniel Y. Go
Unfortunately it didn’t arrive in time for my previous weekend excursion so I’ve not had much opportunity to put it through its paces fully yet but my first impressions are excellent. The body feels robust and the controls intuitive – whilst it came with a weighty manual I only read the first couple of pages to get up and running. The screen is bright and the are menus easy to navigate.
I’ve been particularly impressed with its ability to shoot in low light – the above shot was taken through the window of my apartment hand-held on auto.
I also wont feel like such an idiot getting out my camera to take snaps of my food now!
GO! GO! PiKAPiKA!!
We interrupt our usual coverage to bring you one of most unique short animated films I’ve seen in a long time from some very creative folks in Japan (all made without a single drop of CG):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zp-65Lwmh8
Using stop-motion animation and time-lapse photography techniques the film was shot in Tokyo over a period of 10 nights, using 77 people, different coloured flashlights, and a digital camera with a long exposure to capture over 16,000 frames (behind the scenes). It’s no small feat for a semi-amateur production and the end result certainly has the wow factor.
A group in Germany called Lichtfaktor do something similar for a living and have made some seriously cool tv ads which you can find on their website. It would appear to becoming a bit of a fringe art form with some calling it “light writing” or “light graffiti” but a whole lot less destructive than its spray-on counterpart (interview)!
You’ve got to wonder when Sony will commission someone like this to do a Bravia advert for them – it certainly has all the right visual elements to go with their “colour like no other” campaign.
Photo by Lichtfaktor
Painting with light is something which anyone can try fairly easily themselves, still images being the simplest. You’ll need a tripod and a camera which can do exposures of 10-30 seconds at around iso100 with as small an aperture as possible (plus a whole lot of practice and patience!).