Augmented Reality

The 2nd International Workshop on Blending Physical and Digital Spaces on the Internet will be held in conjunction with the Future Internet Symposium 2009, September 1-3, in Berlin. From the OneSpace 2009 website: "One of the most important effects of the Internet and of the Web has been to relax spatial and temporal constraints on human activities – the so called “space-time collapse” – allowing fast global access to information as well as to physical resources and services.

Take a look at this project by Kit Webster. Here is what he send us:

"This is an early proof of concept for an art installation I am working on:
Rotation Mapping from Kit Webster on Vimeo.
Early stages of a rotation mapping prototype. Rear space is imaged producing transparency."

This ZDNet article reports "a team of scientists at the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Microsystems IPMS in Dresden, Germany, is working on a device which incorporates eye tracking to influence the content presented to the viewer. Without having to use any other devices to enter instructions, the wearer can display new content, scroll through a menu or shift picture elements simply by moving her eyes or fixing on certain points in the image.

“We want to make the eyeglasses bidirectional and interactive so that new areas of application can be opened up,” says Dr. Michael Scholles, business unit manager at IPMS.

From this ScienceDaily article: "The Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT just presented an Augmented Reality system for use under water. A diver's mask with a special display lets the diver see his or her real submarine surroundings overlaid with computer-generated virtual scenes.

In the pilot application, an AR game, the player sees a coral reef with shoals, mussels and weeds, instead of a plain indoor pool. Applications for professional divers are being investigated.

This ZDNet article talks about Microsoft's augmented reality new tool. From the article: "At TechFest, Microsoft’s annual research event, the company demoed its “Core Tools for Augmented Reality (AR),” software that superimposes data and graphics onto a display with real time footage, essentially linking the information world and the physical world.

This BBC News article talks about the Dynamic Respiratory Endoscope, an augmented reality system, which lets vets assess live pictures of a horse's airways as it gallops at full speed. From the article: "The pioneering equipment could replace traditional methods where a horse is examined while running on a treadmill.

The University of Glasgow's Equine Hospital acquired the endoscope as part of a joint venture with horse training firm, Mark Johnston Racing.

The instrument will be used in the university's newly-launched Performance Horse Clinic.

Dr Patrick Pollock, senior clinician in equine surgery, said: "Within the animal kingdom, horses are considered to be elite athletes because of their unique anatomy and physiology.

This Wired Gadget Lab post reports the University of South Australia's Wearable Computer Lab is building the 100-sq.meter AR visualization center to improve AR quality and serve as a 'magic box' for related visual technologies. From the article: "Augmented Reality projects have most recently focused on war games, but a new lab at the Mawson Institute for Advanced Manufacturing will bring this tech closer to home. More specifically, it should jump to the car showrooms of America within years, ultimately leading AR systems to become compelling presentation programs.

This Popsci.com article reports a new pair of specs may let you tag your world as easily as you tag a blog post. From the article: "Tagging has become a popular standard in Web content management. If you can enter a field of data somewhere, chances are good you can also attach tags. Tags let a user associate that data with a subject matter, much like a card catalogue in a library. When that user goes to retrieve the data, they need only remember a keyword or two to find it. All the posts on this blog, for instance, have tags to denote the topics covered. Social bookmarking sites allow users to tag their links. Photo sharing apps like Flickr do it as well. It's a helpful convenience for when you're out with a camera or in with a laptop.

Just imagine if you could tag everything you saw with your eyes in the course of a day.

This ScienceDaily article reports scientists at the University of Illinois have created the first mixed reality state in a physical system using a virtual pendulum and its real-world counterpart. From the article: "Through bidirectional instantaneous coupling, each pendulum "sensed" the other, their motions became correlated, and the two began swinging as one.

"In a mixed reality state there is no clear boundary between the real system and the virtual system," said U. of I. physicist Alfred Hubler. "The line blurs between what's real and what isn't."

This Journal article takes a look at augmented reality games that require students to uncover solutions in spaces where the real mingles with the virtual. From the article: "Researchers are ramping up traditional MUVEs, developing games that require students to uncover solutions in spaces where the real mingles with the virtual.

NOAH PATEL REMEMBERS the first time aliens descended on his math class at Thomas A. Edison Middle School in Brighton, MA.