....http://gigantico.squarespace.com/336554365346/2009-11-02T08:32:00ZSquarespaceTwitter Lists & AR Peepshttp://gigantico.squarespace.com/336554365346/2009/11/2/twitter-lists-ar-peeps.htmlChris2009-11-02T06:33:47Z2009-11-02T06:33:47ZThe amount of client work I’ve had over the last several months has monopolized most of my time, and I’ve found myself micro-blogging on Twitter more than the in-depth articles I write here at GigantiCo.
About two weeks ago Twitter began rolling-out “lists” to a small group of users to beta test. I was notified that I was chosen for one of these pre-launch accounts. I went about setting up a variety of lists, most notably one for Twitter accounts related to Augmented Reality — companies with related technology, bloggers, programmers, hardware, software — anybody who had anything to do with AR technology.
This weekend I began to hear from friends that I needed to have a look at Read Write Web. I was both flattered and humbled to learn that Marshall Kirkpatrick has named my “Augmented Reality Peeps” one of the Top 10 Lists You Should Follow on Twitter.
]]>Long Live the QR Codehttp://gigantico.squarespace.com/336554365346/2009/9/29/long-live-the-qr-code.htmlChris2009-09-30T03:17:01Z2009-09-30T03:17:01Z
Some Background
QR Codes are a form of 2D barcoding technology widely used in Asia, especially Japan, as well as parts of Europe. These codes are placed on printed marketing materials, and when a user points the camera on their phone at the code and clicks, the phone reads the barcode and takes the user to a website (they are also widely used for things like phone numbers, digital coupons, and the like). Despite many years of use abroad, the technology has never seen mainstream adoption in the US.
The Case
In brevity, Dan argues that this failure of adoption in the US market is because there is no use for them here. He states (without siting a source) that phones with full keyboards have greater market share in the US than they do in Japan, and by extension that Americans are happy to type URLs into their phone and hence have no use for QR Codes (To be fair, he also states that carriers in Southeast Asia, “ensured that reader applications were installed on every device.”).
What I Have to Say About That
I completely disagree with Dan’s reasoning for QR Codes failure in the US, but I do agree with his advice to marketers (for now) to stick with URLs, at least until the related industries get their collective act together.
Speaking for myself, I’d much rather point my camera and click to get to a mobile website than type it in manually on a chicklet size keypad. And I’d speculate that, given the option, most other users would as well. The problem is a failure of adoption on the part of carriers and handset makers who have not chosen to include the software as a preinstall or even better, as part of the phone’s OS in the US market.
What Dan describes is not a preference on the part of Americans to manually type in URLs, but a high barrier to first-use. Once the app is installed, they never have to do all that work again. But it is a huge hurdle to expect of the user — a multi-step process — to download the software and install it on their phone, in order to use it for the first time. That is a failure of leadership and initiative on the part of both the mobile advertising industry, and of the carriers and the mobile manufactures.
As it is, individual campaigns have been burdened with the responsibility to introduce and educate about the technology: Each campaign that implements a QR Code has to promote not just their product/service, but also promote and educate the user about the technology. And then the onus to download and install the technology is on the users themselves.
So I disagree with Dan’s reasoning that the failure of adoption of QR Codes in the US is because users are just fine with typing URLs into their phone’s keyboard. But I do think, for individual campaigns right now/today, that URLs are the best stop-gap solution.
Another oversight of the argument is that it doesn’t even address the matter of US market penetration for mobile phones with qwerty keyboards vs mobile phones with cameras. For some sobering numbers: Mobile phones with full keyboards (including touch screen keyboards) make up 16% of the US mobile market vs ~80% for phones with cameras (Keyboard Source: Wireless Federation. Camera Source: I pulled it out of my, er, recollection).
There needs to be a coordinated adoption initiative among related industries so that campaigns can focus on their marketing goals instead of educating the public about the technology.
Furthermore, as marketers are aware, most short URLs are taken. Campaign specific URLs are generally longer, for the simple reason of availability. To make them easier to remember, smart marketers will opt to use a memorable phrase, tag line or slogan as the URL for a campaign. Given the choice between typing in an entire phrase on a phone size keyboard vs clicking one button, I’d say the QR Code wins hands down… if only the related industries could collectively get their act together.
Where I agree with Dan is that using URLs for a campaign today is the smart choice. The responsibility for educating the public should not fall on individual campaigns and the responsibility for installing the software should not fall on individual users, and until that problem is addressed, typing in a URL is the best option.
I do think Dan picked the right execution to criticize, but for different reasons — the choice of channel. This appears to be a magazine print ad. I would suggest that OOH is a more appropriate channel for such a mobile code implementation.
One More Thing
I have an intuition about this Ford campaign. The particular example given in this Ford ad is technically not a QR Code. The term QR Code specifically refers to an open standard bar-code created by Denso-Wave of Japan. What is shown in Dan’s example is actually one of Microsoft’s proprietary HCCB Codes. Microsoft is attempting to take on the QR Code open standard, and my intuition is that they may have subsidized this Ford campaign. While I personally prefer to see the adoption of an open standard, at least the campaign would make a lot more strategic (and tactical) sense for both parties involved if this turns out to be the case. But that’s speculation on my part.
]]>Eye for an iPhonehttp://gigantico.squarespace.com/336554365346/2009/9/20/eye-for-an-iphone.htmlChris2009-09-20T21:09:13Z2009-09-20T21:09:13ZThis article picks up from my last piece, “Terminator Vision.”
Eyeglasses, as we know them today, have been around for about 800 years, give or take. In-eye lenses, for just over a hundred and modern contact lens for about 50. In our time of exponential technological advancement I don’t expect to wait half a century for this technology to mature, but we’re going to see augmented reality optics in a form-factor similar to eyeglasses long before we’re placing them directly onto our cornea.
I do, however, believe that the “through the looking glass” trend of AR applications for mobile devices that are coming on the market today will be a short lived, stop-gap solution until the adoption of AR eyewear. If mobile AR indeed takes off (and I believe it will), people will quickly tire of holding their smartphones out in front of their faces. This will ultimately lead to interesting partnerships between fashion eyewear manufactures and consumer electronics companies, not unlike the partnership between Nike and Apple in the personal fitness electronics space. For now we have several electronic manufactures, many who are most use to dealing with military clients, doing their best to design consumer focussed video eyewear. With mixed results.
Vuzix, the only manufacturer already in the market with a consumer level AR offering, is due to launch two new stereoscopic pairs with AR functionality before the holidays (Wrap 920 and Wrap 310 shown on top row, above). The launch date was moved back once, the 920s were originally planned for a Spring debut. Vuzix technology is similar to that used in standard video eyewear, but an attachment will add cameras to “see” in front of the lens, and play the camera’s video feed with data overlaid— not dissimilar to the AR apps currently available on the Android and iPhone now.
This is also the method that had been employed most extensively for augmented reality in commercial and research environments. WorldViz sells a VideoVision attachment for the NVIS nVisor. While these are state of the art in the AR eyewear space, the attachment alone costs about $12,000.00, and this does not include the NVIS unit which itself cost between $20,000.00 to $30,000.00, depending on the model. And neither price includes the software to run this rig. That’ll cost you extra. Sensics also has a commercial-grade offer in this space. While I don’t know anything about their pricing, I can vouch that they are equally as fashionable:
Besides their, um… avant garde styling, what distinguishes the Sensics and WorldViz/NVIS units from consumer-grade offerings is that both of these models display in HD. The experience is immersive. If you’ve ever played with regular (non-AR) video eyewear (whether 3D stereoscopic or simply 2D video glasses), you’re likely aware of the disappointing resolution. In the sub-$750 market, 640x480 is still standard fair. If you’re willing to spring for $1000+, then 800x600 is the top end of the consumer market. Resolution for the Vuzix Wrap models has not yet been disclosed (nor has the price), but I speculate that they will likely be 800x600.
Recent advancements by OEMs like Kopin (supplier to Vuzix, MyVu and others) and eMagin have increased microdisplay resolutions up to 1280x1024 on screens smaller than 1 inch. Both are now offering paired assemblies for stereoscopic eyewear. Kopin is actively seeking partnerships to take their newest technology to market in consumer products, while eMagin maintains their own consumer devision (branded 3Dvisor), marketing HMDs for the gaming market.
While there are many industrial applications for this technology in the fields of architecture/engineering, aviation and other training environments (not to mention entertainment/gaming), most of this research has been funded by military contracts. Peter Wood, a CD I worked with in the past, once said, “How great it would be if we could gain all the technological advances of World War III without having to fight it.” At risk of opening a debate over military policy, the reality is that (as has always been the case) a great number of recent technological advancements spring from research initially financed by military contracts and military related research. Indeed, as with most of these companies, Kopin’s largest clients are US military contractors.
What I find most interesting in this space is that, much like the market in TV displays, there are currently many different technologies emerging that are going to compete with one another. This should be a boon for the consumer— resulting in faster innovation and lowering costs.
Lumus Optical has another approach. Lumus, the Israeli supplier of military video components, has engineered a solution that projects a partially translucent image onto the inside of a specially designed eyeglass lens. The model (shown at top with the two Vuzix models) is a functional concept pair. Lumus is attempting to partner with consumer retailer who could buy the lens assembly, and incorporate it into their own form-factor.
In 2008 Apple was awarded a patent for a translucent augmented reality eyewear design that cleverly employs prisms and mirrors to move a laser projection from between the lens, and cast it onto the lens facing the eye. Apple, true to its culture, has not said a word about the filing or any forthcoming products employing such technology.
Microvision, manufacturer of laser pico-projector components, has also been awarded video vision patents, theirs for retinal laser scanner technology, over a decade ago now. With an existing clientele primarily in military suppliers, their pico-projectors have begun making inroads into consumer mobile devices. Perhaps encouraged by this consumer market success, they are aggressively seeking partners to take their eyewear technology into the consumer space.
Another technology with tremendous promise is transparent (and flexible) OLED. Everyone from Samsung to GE to Kadak to Philips and others have been experimenting with lightweight, flexible and transparent OLEDs. The potential here is obvious, as it is not difficult to imagine simply building a transparent curved OLED into the lens of a pair of glasses, obviating the need for much of the engineering gymnastics required to get the other display types in front of the eye without creating unnecessary bulk and obstruction. Thus far I’ve not seen a single prototype employing this technique, though the Samsung representative touting the technology in the video (below) made at the 2009 CES does mention it as a possible application. The second video is a demonstration by Sony of the malleability of their flexible OLED.
Unlike some other overhyped memes of the moment, these are proven technologies, some of which are already on the market, others that we can expect to see on the market in the next 12 to 24 months.
To read about the evolution of Virtual Reality eyewear, with an overview of virtual world marketing techniques, read the GigantiCo article, “Virtual Reality: Part 1”.
I’ve just witnessed one of the fastest meme-burns I’ve ever seen.
I learned about these video contact lenses from a New York Times article posted to Kurzweil AI back in April (And Washington University’s original press release dropped on January 17th.). I confess, I even tweeted this story myself back in June (while attending CAT, in response to a comment made by Mike Geiger). But the story laid dormant for most of the last six or seven months. Until a few weeks ago when IEEE Sprectrum did an in depth, four page story on the technology that was picked up by Dana Oshiro at ReadWriteWeb. With RWW’s large readership, the story took-off on Twitter. By Thursday WIRED Gadget Lab jumped on the bandwagon and set Twitter and the tech/media blogshpere ablaze. Robert Rice, Chairman of the AR Consortium, threw some cold water on the euphoria, in an attempt to reel people back in to reality… to little effect. I don’t wish to in anyway downplay the research being done by Babak Parviz and his team. Incrementally this will improve, and when it does I’ll be first in line. But that is at least a decade if not more away.
I write this as a sort of prologue to my next story, one I’ve been researching for a while, regarding Augmented Reality eyewear, I invite you to follow on to the next article, “Eye for an iPhone”.
I interviewed artist Sophie Kahn for the Fall 2009 issue of H+ Magazine. The new issue is now available to download. This is also the first issue with national print distribution. You should be able to pick it up soon at magazine shops and booksellers nationwide.
Congratulations to Ken Goffman (aka. R.U. Sirius) for the success of this venture. It is the right magazine at the right time and is really taking off.
]]>Place-Aware Mobile ARhttp://gigantico.squarespace.com/336554365346/2009/8/24/place-aware-mobile-ar.htmlChris2009-08-24T06:11:02Z2009-08-24T06:11:02Z
When discussing Location-Aware Mobile Augmented Reality with clients or friends they are often initially mystified by how it works without using any form of tagging or QR codes. In short, this video is a visualization of the first conversation I usually have when the subject comes up. I’ve created it as a simple explanation to demystify the technology for those who are just becoming familiar with it.
The visual shown is not of any specific AR application, it is only meant to be a general representation of the underlying technology.
Mobile Augmented Reality continues to gain momentum and mindshare, amazing for a technology that few people have actually had the opportunity to experience yet for themselves. That’s about to change.
Up until now, most all mobile AR development has been done on the Android platform. On June 19th Apple launched the iPhone 3Gs. The uninitiated can be forgiven for thinking that the news was about video, and faster processing. Those who have been following AR knew better. The true significant hardware advancement was the addition of the magnetometer, more humbly known as a digital compass.
The magnetometer, together with the accelerometer (combination velocity motion meter and digital level meter), and the GPS, is the third and final electronic component to make the device completely location self-aware: it knows where in the world it is from GPS, It knows what direction it is facing from the magnetometer, and it knows what angle it is tilted at from the accelerometer. Only with this full set of components, combined with a live video feed, is the device able to support augmented reality applications. But that last caveat threw cold water on AR developers looking to release iPhone apps to take advantage of the new hardware. The iPhone has had the technical ability for a live video feed since the launch of its first version, but the API has not been available to developers. It was as if the new hardware was just a big tease.
An API (Application Programming Interface) refers to the “calling convention” that a programmer uses to access a feature in the operating system of a piece of hardware. For reasons of security, or propriety, the OS/hardware developer (here speaking of Apple) may choose to keep certain features off limits to third party developers. Much to the chagrin of the programming community, Apple has not yet made the API to the live video feed publicly available. Developers can technically access it, but it is a non-public API. In an open system this would not be an issue. But Apple keep notoriously tight control over their platform. Because applications for the iPhone are sold through the app store on iTunes, Apple can gate-keep which apps are made available to the public. And Apple will not approve apps for inclusion that attempt to access unapproved APIs. This tight control over Apple’s walled-garden has held back the release of AR apps that wish to take advantage of the new compass hardware.
On July 2nd a group of prominent iPhone software developers wrote an open letter to Apple diplomatically imploring them to make the live video-feed API accessible. Subsequent to this, the developers of AR apps brought together for the letter organized themselves into the AR Consortium, largely towards the goal of developing standards as well as provide a forum within the AR developer community to share ideas.
On July 14th I met with Ori Inbar, one of the members of the AR Consortium, and discussed these developments. In this conversation Ori shared with me the unexpected enthusiasm that their efforts received from Apple, who agreed to speak with them over their concerns. Apple was very supportive of AR development and future AR applications on the iPhone platform, but was holding off on releasing the live video feed API for some undisclosed technical reason. They were promised that an API would be made available at some point soon with much assurance that Apple was supportive of their efforts. But no timetable was given.
Later, on the same day as out meeting, Apple posted news on their iPhone developer site about the iPhone 3.1 SDK Beta (Software Developer Kit). It was in regards to new features that will be made available in the September release of iPhone OS 3.1— Specifically, it included access to API for the camera’s live video feed, finally making iPhone AR a reality.
The weekend of August 2nd saw iPhoneDevCamp 3, an annual gathering for the iPhone and iPod Touch developer community that is as much a training camp as a conference. At the event’s conclusion awards are granted. This year’s award for Best iPhone Open Source went to the iPhone ARKit, developed by Arshad Tayyeb, Charles Ruelle, Zac White and Chris Haseman.
It is still undisclosed at what date next month the 3.1 update will go public. And it currently takes two to three weeks for an iPhone app to make it through Apple’s review process for inclusion in the iTune’s app store. But by late September or early October iPhone AR apps should be flooding the market.
At about the same time as AR apps begin appearing on the market for the iPhone, several new Android models will launch in the US market. By year’s end Google expects between 18 to 20 models to be on the international market with about a third of those in the US, and the rest hitting the American marketing into early 2010 (including Sony-Erickson). The Android OS already has a significant number of AR apps available, this is due to the fact that the Android spec has long had the live-video-feed, GPS, magnetometer and accelerometer combo that makes this possible. On the feature front this means the iPhone 3Gs is Apple playing catch-up. But the Android platform has lacked the market share needed to mainstream the technology. Most, if not all of the Android developers are biting at the bit to port their apps to the iPhone, come September— Wikitude, Metaio, Layar, all the major Android AR developers have announced their intention to port their apps to the iPhone as soon as soon as the video feed API is made available.
Soon all mobile phones will be “smartphones.” Even the smartphones of today are already smarter than the average desktop system was a mere few years ago. These mobile devices have become the tip-of-the-wedge for ubiquitous mobile computing. While the touchscreen, and especially the iPhones multi-touch interface, is a leap past the interface conventions of past mobile devices, they still fall very short of the capabilities of a high-resolution computer monitor with full-stroke keyboard and mouse. And the AR apps coming online are going to quickly expose the limitations of this interface. In a short matter of time people will grow impatient of walking about holding their phones out in front of them. Bluetooth earpieces with accompanying microphones (with noise cancelation at that) are already widely available. The visual interface is now the weakest link. Such bluetooth devices will eventually evolve to take over all the responsibilities of not just hearing and speech, but sight as well. At that time the mobile device will remain in the use’s pocket, purse or possibly on their wrist.
The magnetometer compass was first described in 1833, about contemporaneous the earliest form of accelerometers. They’ve had two centuries to get better, smaller and cheaper. It would take another two centuries for the launch of the United States Air Force owned Global Positioning System (GPS) in 1995. Soon after engineers began laboratory experiments with these devices in convergence with one another. But it would take another decade before the components were cheap enough and small enough, and some people were clever enough, that they came together in a consumer level device.
To predict where these technologies are headed, look for potential points of convergence. Objects and yes, People, will be tagged and linked. Through AR the web will soon permeate the physical world. As the world of “things” become networked, AR will become the lens that we use to view this content, and lens is the appropriate term: The mobile phone screen as AR lens is a stop-gap solution that will only be used until consumer grade video eyewear provide a user experience that meets consumer expectations on quality and are esthetically pleasing enough to meet consumer fashion sensibilities.
And this is all coming over the horizon very quickly. The next 12 to 18 months are going to be a very exciting time in mobile computing.
]]>Monitoring Real Estatehttp://gigantico.squarespace.com/336554365346/2009/8/3/monitoring-real-estate.htmlChris2009-08-04T02:46:18Z2009-08-04T02:46:18Z
The productivity gains from investing in large monitor(s) easily outweighs their cost, especially as the price of desktop real estate continues to fall. Though most of the advertising industry has caught on, it occasionally astounds me to learn that there are companies (and even a few agencies) that have not received this wisdom.
The photo above is the desk of my home office (I provide this schematic to clients when I work offsite, if they inquire about my home-studio accommodations).
If you’re one of those unfortunate to have management that views screen size/resolution as some sort of luxury or worse, status symbol (like say, a chair that is comfortable and ergonomic), then below are some links you can use to bolster your case— Multiple studies on the productivity gains of using multiple and/or oversized monitors.
All of the research in the links below was done about two or three years ago, so price-per-inch for large monitors has fallen even more since this work was done.
]]>The coming OS Warshttp://gigantico.squarespace.com/336554365346/2009/8/3/the-coming-os-wars.htmlChris2009-08-03T10:54:08Z2009-08-03T10:54:08Z
When, in the late 80s, Apple saw a need for a suite of business software for their new Macintosh platform, they decided to subcontract the development to a software company named Microsoft. The RFP was for three applications: a word processor, a spreadsheet and a slideshow for business presentations. Much like their IBM deal for DOS, Microsoft proposed to develop the apps but retain ownership for a good deal less money than selling it to Apple outright. In 1989 Microsoft released Office for the Macintosh, containing Word, Excel and PowerPoint. A year later, they introduced the same package for their own OS, Windows. While Apple made a premium product with a proprietary OS, Microsoft developed their Windows OS with similar Mac like graphical interface features, built to run on the same x86 (PC compatible) architecture that had made their MS DOS the default industry standard… and now running the same suite of business software available on the Mac. This story will, of course, be common knowledge to most readers as it is among the most famous business parables in modern corporate history.
And history is known to repeat itself.
With the iPhone, Apple today reigns supreme. Just as the introduction of the Macintosh did to the personal computer market in 1984, the iPhone has single handedly reshaped the mobile phone market since its introduction. But things are about to get ugly.
In January 2007 Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. Within months, before the iPhone was even available for purchase, rumors had already begun to swirl that Google was in overdrive to develop a touchscreen mobile OS, but built on an open standard that could run on many different handsets. In spite of official denials, by fall photos of prototypes were beginning to leak. Initially slow to get traction, over the next several months multiple vendors will be introducing new models, and Google Android clones are about to flood the market.
Motorola, once a dominant force in mobile phones, has lost so much market share it may abandon the mobile market all together. It is betting the farm on Android. Or as Tal Liani put it, “Motorola has one bullet left in its gun.” Just a few years ago the Motorola razor was the top selling phone on the planet, and pwned its competitors in design awards as well. How quickly the mighty can fall.
The future is unwritten, and betting against Apple doesn’t look like a winner’s strategy. But then neither does betting against Google. One thing is for certain. The writing is on the wall, and Apple and Google are on a collision course in the mobile market that is about to look very familiar.
The name “iPhone” is a misnomer. It is not a phone. It is pocket sized computer that, among other features, also happens to include a phone. The Apple iPod-Touch is sometimes portrayed as a crippled cousin of the iPhone— an iPhone somehow lacking its primary function. A more accurate analogy would be that the iPod-Touch is a portable pocket computer, and the iPhone is a premium version of the iPod-Touch that happens to have one extra feature. This is not entirely semantic. The iPod-Touch can do everything the iPhone can do, including connected functions like browsing the web via a wifi connection. Even for iPhone users, a wifi connection is preferred for internet activity beyond a basic search. Most people that have an iPod-Touch have a home wifi, and wifi at the office is now pretty well standard. It is standard campus-wide at every university. In every internet cafe. Every coffee shop. Many parks. Shopping malls… Wifi connectivity is on it’s way to becoming ubiquitous throughout many urban areas.
But the iPod Touch doesn’t have a microphone… yet. At least not for, oh, another month or so. Leaks abound that, like the iPhone 3Gs, the new iPod-Touch will feature video, including both a camera and microphone. The first iPod-Touch with a microphone. Forget video, this opens the door to Skype style IP telephony— internet calls over wifi.
A reasonable long-term strategy for Apple would be the elimination of the “phone” all together. It is conceivable that the iPhone was merely the stop-gap all along. Use the carriers to gain market share, have two models— one with a phone, one without. Then when the phone version reaches critical mass, and wifi penetration meets critical mass, who needs the carrier anymore? At least in urban areas (where Apple sells the majority of their phones anyway). Need it for the wide spaces in between or simply en route? There’s a solution for that. Thank you AT&T for subsidizing the cost until economies of scale could bring the price down to earth (don’t complain, you made a good run of it).
Some may scoff at the idea that Apple would drop the phone version entirely. True, probably not anytime soon. But don’t be surprised if an iPod Touch with a microphone quickly begins to cannibalize iPhone sales. Recall that it wasn’t long ago that most scoffed at the idea of completely ditching landlines for mobile.
The amount of client work I’ve had over the last several months has monopolized most of my time, and I’ve found myself micro-blogging on Twitter more than the in-depth articles I write here at GigantiCo.
next several months multiple vendors will be introducing new models, and Google 