Mobile Visual Interactivity

So what is augmented reality (part 1)?

2009-06-21T16:28:00.000-07:00

Augmented reality (AR) is getting a lot of attention in mobile right now but there's a lot of confusion over the meaning of the term. This is part 1 of a short primer.

Traditionalists consider the term to refer to the compositing of live video with computer generated graphics such that the digital elements appear to be attached to the real world. Wikipedia supports this definition [ref]. One of the leading companies in this technology space are Total Immersion. This is a great place to go for examples of AR. For the developers out there one of the standard SDK's used in AR is the AR Toolkit, versions of which have been ported to some mobile devices. For the latest research in this field the annual ISMAR conference is a great source.

Similar technology is also used extensively in film post-production to mix digital assets with live action footage. Traditionalist would not class this as AR since it is not a live, real-time application but there is a great deal of overlap in these problems. Some of my former colleagues have developed one of the main tools used today in this type of post processing [ref].

The term AR has more recently been used synonymously with "real world hyperlinking" where physical objects are linked to digital information using a variety of technologies including RFID tags, printed barcodes or object recognition. This is an abstration of traditional AR since it does not necessarily involve real time compositing of the digital information over live video data. It does keep the sense of the real world being augmented but may present the information in a different manner.

In part 2 I will comment on the technologies used in AR and in part 3 I will list some of the recent and more interesting applications using mobile devices.

Image Recognition Startup SnapTell Acquired by Amazon Subsidiary A9.com

2009-06-16T15:28:00.000-07:00

TechCruch reports the acquisition of SnapTell by A9.com. This is the third notable acquisiton in the mobile image recognition field that I am aware of.

In a series of mobile marketing focussed acquisitions, NeoMedia Technologies acquired Lexington based mobile visual search company, Mobot, for $10M in cash and NeoMedia stock in Feb 2006 [ref]. The marriage was not to last and the company was sold back to the founders by the end of the year [ref]. Commentators blamed significant falls in NeoMedia's stock price preventing the deal being sustainable.

The following year Nokia entered the mobile image recogniton space with the acquisition of California based Pixto [ref]. Pixto came out of nowhere on my radar. Did anyone know this company ... they clearly had something of interest to Nokia? Nokia has now built their Point-and-Find technology around this.

Conclusions?

The space is beginning to mature with the technology getting traction and acquirers identifying the strategic value. There are a number of technology providers out there and the list is growing slowly but the opportunity is huge. It's anyones game.

Ogilvy Interactive Darts

2009-01-19T16:15:00.000-08:00

The Ogilvy Innovation Lab in London is demonstrating how to create engaging consumer experiences using photo messaging and image recogntion. Mobile Acuity built this technology demonstrator allowing you to play darts with your camera phone ... and even win a drink at the Ogilvy bar!

Vodafone Music Award - You Rockstar

2008-09-18T17:02:00.000-07:00

Using your camera phone to turn your mates into rockstars! A successful campaign for Nokia Interactive and Vodafone.

Nike PhotoiD

2008-06-16T16:25:00.000-07:00

A great use of the camera phone for engagement by Nike and digital agency AKAQ.

"Nike fans will be able to create their own trainers based on colourful pictures they take on a camera phone in an innovative pan-European mobile marketing campaign by the sportswear giant" [ref]