Namanh Hoang
| 04 December 2009
So here at the office Matt Brechbuhler and I began experimenting with augmented reality about a month ago. We posted our original experiment which was the iphone test we conducted to show how the AR system don't rely on any proprietary code embedded into the print document, it is just simple image recognition at the simplest level. This is a continuation on our experiments exploring what we are capable of accomplishing with augmented reality and how easy it is to accomplish. 
With all this hype about twitter, one really underrated technology advancement is augmented reality. The most popular applications of this thus far has been primarily in viral campaigns and toys such as those popularized by the new Avatar Movie action figure toys which come with an i-Tag. If you don't know what augmented reality is, its basically involves overlaying digital graphics or data over real-time actions or objects. The Avatar toy example allows users to hold up the i-Tag to a webcam while on the Avatar toy site and then a 3D model of the toy appear on the card in your hands. It allows you to turn the 3D object around in real time and even interact with it such as pushing virtual buttons on the card to initiate actions such as melee or firing actions. However, augmented reality isn't a new concept, in fact it's been around for years, primarily by the military for devices such as H.U.D. or eye wear.
Recently with all the hype about the new Microsoft Tablet Computer "Courier" and the reactive rumors about Apples Mac Tablet have gotten everyone buzzing about how it will work and more importantly, will it be yet another failure in computing as have most tablet incarnation in the past. The Courier seems to really have dumbed down the features and operating system to something that resembles a netbook, allowing users to accomplish basic computing tasks such as email, web browsing, communications and simple drawing and writing. Additionally although Apple has made some great advances in portable communications with the advent of the iPhone, images floating around of a bigger iPhone would signal a really bad step for Apple into the tablet realm, let pray it isn't a glorified iPhone.
