One Week, Two Meetups

NYAR - Augmented Reality New York Meetup

Tuesday night was the first Augmented Reality New York Meetup. There were five quick presentations, and each was followed with a few minutes of Q&A.

• Patrick O’Shaughnessey of Patched Reality - The 5 Lives of Criss Angel
• Ohan Oda of Columbia University - Goblin XNA
• Steve Henderson of Columbia University - Talk Maintenance
• Noah Zerkin, Inventor - The Zerkin Glove
• Ori Inbar of Ogmento - Put a Spell (spelling game), and Vampire Academy

There were no arrangements for anyone to film the Meetup presentations, so I made a few sample clips with my iPhone, and used them to make the teaser clip above (feel free to embed it and share it to help promote the group). Subsequently I have volunteered to bring a video camera to future events which we intend to stream on the web. The first two presenters I did not think to make a clip of, as I had already seen these projects presented before — I’ve already posted a video of Ohan Oda’s Goblin XNA presentation from the New York ARDevCamp; and Patrick O’Shaughnessey gave me a demo of his 5 Lives of Criss Angel AR puzzle over lunch, after the Emerge - Augmented Reality Unconference at Web 2.Open last month.

The real “Meetup” starts after the presentation, of course, where it’s all conversation with other people that share a passion for augmented reality.

I met Chris Brady of Chart Venture Partners and we discussed what kind of AR opportunities look ripe for their firm’s investment (Answer: Software based technologies with a short time-horizon to goto market. Most interested in software that has military and commercial/industrial applications but are staying aware of potential consumer possibilities. *Chris, let me know if I’ve got that right, or feel free to comment to clarify).

Tish Shute and I debated the possible mid-term ramifications of Google’s and Apple’s maneuvering in the mobile space, the mistakes of Nokia’s AR efforts and the long-term fate of the desktop/laptop computer form-factors in the coming mobile dominated world. We also talked about a comment I left on the blog of her friend David Oliver, and why Apple needs to have a search strategy. Tish made me an invitation see the work she’s been doing with augmented reality over the Google Wave Federation Protocol, and I gave Rob Kelley a crash course in the state of the industry and recent patent filings regarding augmented reality eyewear.

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Brandhacker Meetup

On Monday night I went to see Joseph Jaffe speak at the Brandhacker Meetup. Jaffe is a wonderful presenter and it was nice to see him speak to a small crowd. Being Mr. “Join the Conversation,” the dialog was primarily Facebook, Twitter and user generated content focused, quite a world apart from the mobile AR circles I’ve been in for much of the past year. He was also promoting a new book he has coming out in early February titled, “Flip the Funnel”. I had a good conversation with a fellow named Stan Phelps who is writing a book under the working title of Purple Goldfish. Stan pointed me in the direction of B. Bonin Bough. I’ll see what comes of that conversation, and perhaps leave that story for another day.