AR.m-ato.me » Corporate AR

What is “Beyond”?

Aya — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 23:11:33 +0000

Lots of things happened while I was gone. While catching up on the latest AR news from the past couple weeks, one word kept coming up over and over again.

BEYOND

I think “beyond” and belief are closely connected: beyond implies belief in the existence of *something* outside a perceived boundary. When there are multiple pieces of evidence of things existing in this “beyond”, belief solidifies and is reinforced by our experience. Augmented Reality by nature is dependent on “beyond” and belief — it’s what makes magic, it’s what seduces, it’s a promise of some payload (information or other). When augmented reality is a window to this “beyond”, what could solidify the belief that something is there more than the ability to have multiple synchronous windows?

I really like this idea. It’s saying loudly and clearly “The data is here! The objects are really here! You don’t believe me? Take a look at all these other windows!”

“Beyond” is a driving force; a siren. The data we cannot see creates a new Manifest Destiny calling us to stretch our territory from the real into seemingly uncharted augmented land… an untapped source of some awesome potential.

Well? Maybe it’s not that exciting. The augmented land so far *is* charted, carefully crafted to maximize its utility, maximize brand loyalty, maximize tourist information, or maximize my social media presence. Even so, I like where this is going. To infinity… and beyond!

Bending space and time, one mall parking lot at a time

Aya — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 19:51:23 +0000

First thing I pulled from my fishing nets this morning was a nice matome/roundup of computer vision demos on Youtube which included a demo for “BriefCam”. The narration was a bit painful to go through, but the demo itself was impressive. BriefCam indexes, summarizes, and compresses events in video logs from surveillance cameras in a way I can’t quite explain ((maybe that’s why the narration was in staccato)), and most certainly sparked my imagination in terms of the future of computer vision capabilities in augmented reality environments — particularly the possibilities of compressing perception of time.

Fujitsu’s [New Generation Experience]

Aya — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 20:12:40 +0000

I’m not sure when exactly this page was put up (last-modified date is in October), but this is the first time I’ve come across this page from Fujitsu Japan’s website. In the about section of their site, Fujitsu overviews several design concepts and areas of research they intend to cover for the year. 2009 was the AR-heavy “New Generation Experience” proposal which consists of 3 topics of research, 5 key concepts, and 20 sample scenarios. I’m sad to say I didn’t catch this before, because they put a lot of effort into slick diagrams I would have loved to see about 6 months ago. The research topics are pretty broad, bland, and what you would expect of any consumer electronics company, but the key concepts and scenarios are pretty fun. Let’s dive straight in, shall we? (I don’t see any English version of this page so I will do my best and translate and summarize.)

5 Key Concepts

01 Intersection of the real and virtual worlds: Seamless transitions between the virtual and the real through a collective of technologies called augmented reality.

02 Becoming 2D, 3D: Product design has previously been focused on 3D objects, but now is concentrating on being thin and simple like the iPhone, flat and functional like the Suica.

03 Data Becoming Objects: While industries work towards paperless offices and digital documents, there is a need for a materialization of data in some form: widgets, or digital photo frames.

04 Aesthetic balance of Digital and Analog: Although we are a society in pursuit of convenience, our instinct for human experience is inescapable. Retailers will need to provide new services and forms of human experience to fulfill the needs of digital society; balance of digital convenience, and analog warmth.

05 Value Created by Green [Eco] Movement: “Eco-activities” used to only be a part of efforts towards Corporate Social Responsibility. Now, there are efforts to be a source of direct solutions, products and services to solve these eco-related problems, such as 3D hologram technology to replace business related travel.

Following this are the 20 sample scenarios. In my next post, expect more in depth discussion of these scenarios, plus translations of some of their diagrams. Scenario titles link to their respective pages on the Fujitsu website (in Japanese).