iPhone in iPhone app is useless, but mesmerizing
Here’s the premise: you take a good old fashioned augmented reality setup, the likes of which we’ve seen all over the land, and attach a three-dimensional, rotatable iPhone to it. Not impressed yet, are you? Neither were we, but there’s some secret sauce to this one: you can actually launch apps on the simulated iPhone. That extra layer of interactivity makes the video after the break a lot more fascinating than it has any right to be, though it’s worth pointing out that we don’t think the apps are actually usable — they just give the illusion of launching. Anyhow, don’t wait around while all the cool kids are watching it, go have a gander yourself.
Continue reading iPhone in iPhone app is useless, but mesmerizing
iPhone in iPhone app is useless, but mesmerizing originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Dec 2009 06:01:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
The Desperate Puppy in the Window, Digitized [Art]
Projected against a shop window in New York, Sniff is a 3D animated dog. He’s just a computer-generated rendering, sure, but he’s got personality—he reacts to your gestures, follows you around, and presented with a group, chooses favorites.
The sidewalk in front of the store has been fitted with small infrared lights, and the installation with infrared cameras; this is how Sniff, an art project designed by Karolina Sobecka and Jim George, knows where its audience is, and can anticipate which direction they’re moving.
Some might see a playful interactive exhibit here, but I see something more insidious. Walking by confused, platter-eyed puppies every once in a while is a part of city life—each time you do it, you make an easy—but still present—decision not to buy that dog that evidently loves you more than anything, for some reason. With Sniff, you don’t have a choice: he seems to like you, but you physically can’t take him home; likewise, there no risk that your walkby buddy is going to get incinerated at a shelter, because he isn’t real. Technology, you’ve stolen the richness from our relationships to dogs that aren’t ours. Thanks. [Sniff via Urlesque via Neatorama]
Posted: October 15th, 2009
at 2:17pm by John Herrman
Topics: Augmented Reality, Dogs, Infrared, Jim George, Karolina Sobecka, Sniff the dog, Virtual reality, art, sniff
Layar now adding layers of augmented reality to iPhone
Since your Android handset-owning friends and colleagues can’t have all the phone, Layar has finally made the leap to iPhone. It’s now available in the iTunes app store for the enticing price of nada, with its own third-party ecosystem to boot — only iPhone 3GS customers need apply, though, since without the magnetometer this is kind of a wash. We’ve only spent a few minutes with the new version, but it seems like much of our initial impressions from August seem to hold true, for better and for worse. But don’t take our word for it, download away! [Warning: iTunes link]
[Via Wired]
Filed under: Cellphones
Layar now adding layers of augmented reality to iPhone originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 14 Oct 2009 22:21:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Posted: October 14th, 2009
at 11:21pm by Ross Miller
Topics: Apple, Ar, Augmented Reality, AugmentedReality, Iphone3gs, IphoneApp, app, iPhone, iTunes, iphone 3gs, iphone app, layer
Augmented reality telescreen harasses onlookers
Hand from Above from Chris O'Shea on Vimeo.
This commissioned work by artist Chris O’Shea has an enormous hand alternately crushing, picking up, and tickling passersby. It certainly is reminiscent of the Kids in the Hall sketch with the head crusher (which I have embedded below for your convenience). It appears to work more or less automatically, effacing people it picks up or shrinking them. Not the hardest thing to do (especially with a decent background image) but, I imagine, difficult to do dynamically like that. All in good fun, though.
If you’re in Cardiff or Liverpool during the next couple weeks, check this thing out.
Android’s Best Augmented Reality App Hits the iPhone [IPhone Apps]
Layar, the first camera-based AR app to really blow us (or anyone) away, has quietly slipped into the App Store. As with the Android version, the app overlays all kinds of information onto a live view of the world around you.
Since OS 3.1 dropped, giving devs (almost) open access to the iPhone’s camera we’ve seen a minor avalanche of augmented reality apps hit the store; some have been interesting, like Yelp’s, but most feel a little bit like tech demos. Layar, for what it’s worth, has grown up since we last saw it: now you can overlay all kinds of data, from geotagged Wikipedia entries to Flickr photos to local Tweets.
You don’t need a 3GS to use it—UPDATE: Oh, maybe you do—but without the compass function you kind of lose the WTF LIFE HUD appeal, and the app feels more like a party trick than a useful tool. Layar is live (and free) in the App Store as we speak. [Layar via Gadget Lab]
Posted: October 14th, 2009
at 5:59pm by John Herrman
Topics: Ar, Augmented Reality, Layar iphone, Smartphones, apps, iPhone, iPhone Apps, layar, software
