Found out I could play augmented reality games on my Nokia phone so I spent the whole afternoon playing an old (circa 2008) AR game called Tower of Defence. Graphics and gameplay is unsophisticated but the AR is very cool.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zyWVH6jkDHg[/youtube]
Augmented Reality has been around for many years and is a technology that combines real-world and computer-generated data. The gaming industry was probably the first to exploit AR. Games have been developed using AR like the one above and many others. It’s a fascinating technology that is also useful in education and business. Brands like Ford and Topps have used AR in their marketing. There are AR business cards too but the most impressive AR app I’ve seen so far is Layar for the Android phone:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b64_16K2e08[/youtube]
These are all old news but worth looking at again because we will see AR used more and more. Coming to the Apple iPhone 3Gs soon is:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cH6r2tIaRXU[/youtube]
The Layar and AcrossAir’s AR app are not first of it’s kind. A Japanese company called Tonchidot first came out with this for the Sekai camera and demo’d a concept at the 2008 TechCrunch50 Conference (2009 update). What I find really cool about the Sekai camera is the crowd-sourced content. This app will debut on the Apple iPhone 3Gs after the next OS update in September (AR only works on the iPhone 3Gs). Take a look.:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgTwSXK_5dg[/youtube]
Apple does not have any AR apps at the moment and only just released the iPhone SDK 3.1 b3 with AR friendly API to developers.
For the latest updates on AR, follow @AugmentedAdvert on twitter.
More on AR:
Five Addictive Augmented Reality Gaming Apps Wired. July 28, 09
