Mobilistar Co-Founder, Tracy Falke

Tracy Falke, co-founder of Mobile Augmented Reality start-up Mobilistar, has written a visionary piece on Bruce Clay’s blog entitled “The Future of Augmented Reality and Visual Search“.

It’s target audience,  digital and search marketers, are being given a wonderful insight into the future of search thanks to this article.  In it, Tracy likens the current state of AR & visual search technology to the eyesight of a newborn. Not ready for mainstream yet, but when it hits it will revolutionize the way humans and data interact.

There’s some great quotes taken from Eric Schmidt talking at the DLD conference about Augmented Humanity. I also added my own thoughts:

“The dominance of desktop systems in the search arena is rapidly drawing to a close. Their lack of portability, of context-awareness, reducing them to “dumb” WWW terminals useful only in office environments. We’re on the cusp of a new world order where handheld devices and wearables will become the primary discovery and information retrieval mechanism. By 2020 between 50 and 500 billion objects will be networked. Current search taxonomy will fail and, arguably, is already. A sleeker, smarter, more natural search interface will be required – one that enables you to touch, swipe, drag, gesticulate, talk and interact with the world around you. Augmented Reality will provide that interface.”

If you would like to hear more from Tracy, make sure you follow @Tracy_Falke and head over to Mobilistar to sign up to our Augmented Reality newsletter which provides market stats, recent news of our work and insights into the AR industry.

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Over the last few months, we’ve been checking out the Popcode Augmented Reality platform, which has been developed by students at Cambridge University. One of several new AR platforms to emerge over recent months, Popcode runs on both Android and iOS devices.

Like Qualcomm’s AR Platform, Popcode uses Natural Feature Tracking (NFT). An image is used to trigger the AR experience, rather than a fiduciary B&W marker-based augmented reality solution. Almost any kind of image can be used. This is great news for marketers, developers and consumers. Gone is the need for customised packaging and, most importantly, the need to be in front of a webcam, sat at your PC. We love to imagine using AR to trigger immersive experiences in a store or from a magazine advert, not just to marvel at augmented reality technology, but generate revenue. AR offers a wide range of new revenue streams: Advertising, Content Downloads, virtual goods and immersive brand experiences.

Unfortunately, distribution of Popcode Augmented Reality applications is not possible outside of the entertainment category due to licensing issues, but that didn’t stop us from downloading the developer kit and testing out some concepts.

At the end of last year, we went along to the Science Museum with a rather well-known UK celeb, James May of Top Gear. We explored the concept of using Popcode to create an Augmented Reality Museum Guide. The paid app would have given museum visitors a unique AR experience. Watch this space, as museums + augmented reality have a very bright future.

Popcode Video| Mobile Augmented Reality | Museums | James May

Popcode Video| Augmented Reality Packaging Solutions by mobilistar.com

Augmented Reality Packaging and Merchandising Solutions

The second concept is an Augmented Reality Packaging Concept. This is our first draft and includes some basic animation and a link to like / rate or buy the product.

Because there are no 3D capabilities on the Popcode platform, we have since honed and improved this concept using the Qualcomm AR SDK

Qualcomm AR Video | Augmented Reality Packaging

We have also recently used Popcode commercially on behalf of a client to augment T-Shirts, keep an eye out for details soon.

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We have developed a series of tried and techniques for promoting layers. Have a look at what we have achieved with Funda, the largest real estate company in Holland

Traffic for the Funda Layer

But, I hear you say, Layar is growing the number of users – so doesn’t that growth just reflect more users on the platform? No, here’s 2 reasons:

1) There are more Layers built every week – so more competition.

2) I’ll share some stats from our own, as yet un-optimized, layers:

Non-Optimized Layer #2

Non-Optimized Layer #3

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The app is the first of its kind in the world and was built by Howard Ogden of Augment Reality in conjunction with Polydor Records to celebrate the succe­­ss of the recently re-released Stones’ masterpiece Exile on Main St.

Using their phones, people with the app will be able to ‘stick’ virtual posters to the places they pass. Attached to the posters they can add a comment, one of 28 tracks from the double album and a short video clip of the band. Friends or passers-by with the app will be able to look through their phone screens and see all the posters left by other users within a 2km radius. They can then listen to the tracks stuck to the posters, watch the video, comment on other people’s posters and leave their own.

The Rolling Stones app opens a unique window on the world and creates a new way to experience the legendary songs. Through the screen of the phone, ordinary streets become galleries of rock photos and the ability to anchor songs to places makes journeys into spatial mixtapes where new songs are activated as you or your friend walk past certain points.

Exile on Your Street is also available as a website and Facebook app which will let you leave posters for your friends anywhere in the world – using a map to drop the posters and songs where you want them.

The 18 posters available come from a selection of photographs taken by Dominic Tarlé during the Stones’ stay in Nellcôte, France in the early 1970s, when they recorded Exile on Main Street. The video clip is from the DVD available with the re-released album.

To download the app you need a smartphone with the Augmented Reality browser Layar installed – available for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4 and Google Android phones.

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About Augmented Reality: augmented reality mixes virtual computer-generated content with reality; for example when images of the real world are overlaid with virtual images. The computer-generated content can be pegged to particular locations and made to interact with the real world.

About Layar: Layar is a platform available on iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4 and Google Android phones which allows developers to build apps using augmented reality.

About Howard Ogden and Augment Reality: Augment Reality is a company set up by Howard Ogden to create apps for Layar, it has been behind several of the most high-profile Augmented Reality apps to date including the Beatles AR app released in December 2009, Find a Property  and Dubai Metro.

http://www.augmentreality.co.uk/

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Exile on Your Street will available for free  on Layar, Facebook and the web  from 18:00 GMT Friday, 25 June

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Website: www.exileonyourstreet.com

Facebook app: http://apps.facebook.com/exileonyourstreet/

The Layar app:  http://m.layar.com/open/rollingstones

This was originally posted at http://www.augmentreality.co.uk/blog/exile-on-your-street-the-rolling-stones-augmented-reality-app-for-iphone-and-android.html

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As the Layar platform becomes more complex, and the number of Layers keeps growing we’ve heard many clients say that it is just too difficult to find individual Layars in the catalog – our Android Launcher App for Layar eases this problem for your customers by allowing them to have an app on their mobile desktop.

Once downloaded and installed the app will:

1. Check for an installation of Layar
2. If not installed a message will pop up pointing the user to the Layar Browser in the Android Marketplace.
3. Display a full screen splash image of our choice.
4. Loads Layar and automatically opens reality view of the associated layer.

No fuss, no searching… a great experience for your users!

Here’s show you some screenshots of the funda Android Launcher App:

The launcher gives you a presence in the Android Marketplace

Users can save a shortcut to the app on their desktop

A beautiful splash screen reinforces the branding

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This is big news! AugmentReality are the first of the premium Layar developers to offer a fully managed cloud based hosting system. For those projects for which even our ultra-fast dedicated server wont cope with, i.e. a Layar with intense use of Audio/Video/3D  internationally – this is the optimum solution.  Contact us for details.

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Highlights included:

Demo-ing to Larry Page – his comment: “That’s cool”

Trying out a pair of AR glasses Maaten Lens Fitzgerald had brought along (demo-ing them was not so fun!)

Trying out Google Earth hooked up to 8 flat-screen TVs and a control stick.

Hooking up Layar to our big screen in the event demo area… must remember next time not to demo with an iPhone with a broken compass!

Seeing a robot solve a Rubiks Cube!!

Here’s a few shots from the event:

Maarten with the AR Glasses

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The concept behind the layer is self-explanatory.  Load it up, view cool 3D objects and take screenshots. You can share the pictures via MMS, e-mail, Twitter, Facebook or just keep them to show your friends.

In the short time since launch the layer has climbed steadily up the “popular” list of  layers and is currently at 3rd position! The response has been amazing.

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A press conference at 9am officially marked the launch with a number of Prague’s jounalists in attendence. The app has been positively received and covered in several online reviews. Here’s a great video demonstration (in Czech) by mobilmania.cz with a feature testing the application “in the wild”:

European Directories Group VP of Mobile, Carey Bunks, said the following:

AugmentReality developed several layers for European Directories, and I am very pleased with the quality of the work delivered, as well as impressed by their very professional level of customer service. I can highly recommend AugmentReality to any company considering the development of a Layar layer.

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