Augmented Reality

Apple iPhone Apps reports on new iPhone features, attributing credit to an anonymous leak from inside Apple. I would like to focus on one specific feature. They report, with skepticism:

-Revolutionary combination of the camera, GPS, compass, orientation sensor, and Google maps

The camera will work with the GPS, compass, orientation sensor and Google maps to identify what building or location you have taken a picture of. We at first had difficulties believing this ability. However, such a “feature” is technically possible. If the next generation iPhone was to contain a compass then all of the components necessary to determine the actually plane in space for an image taken. The GPS would be used to determine the physical location of the device. The compass would be used to determine the direction the camera was facing. And the orientation sensor would be used to determine the orientation of the camera relative to the gravity. Additionally the focal length and focus of the camera could even assist is determining the distance of any focused objects in the picture. In other words, not only would the device know where you are, but it could determine how you are tilting it and hence it would know EXACTLY where in space your picture was composed. According to our source, Apple will use this information to introduce several groundbreaking features. For example, if you were to take a picture of the Staples Center in Los Angeles, you will be provided with a prompt directing you to information about the building, address, and/or area. This information will include sources such as wikipedia. This seems like quite an amazing service; and a little hard to believe, however while the complexity of such a service may be unrealistic, such is actually feasible with the sensors onboard the next generation iPhone.

And why “unrealistic”? Every piece of this technology already exists in the wild. This is not a great technological leap. This is merely smart convergence.

There are already two applications on the Google Android platform that have these features. One is a proof-of-concept called Enkin, developed by Max Braun and Rafael Spring (students of Computational Visualistics from Coblenz Germany, currently doing robotics research at Osaka University in Japan). The second, Wikitude by Mobilizy, is already in full-blown commercial release (an Austrian company, founded by Philip Breuss-Schneeweis and Martin Lechner).

WIKITUDE DEMONSTRATION:

ENKIN, PROOF-OF-CONCEPT:

It is only one short step further to let users geo-tag their photos. Many social photo/map applications available for the iPhone already incorporate such a feature. Building this into the realtime viewfinder would not be a great challenge. By example, the proof-of-concept for this already exists in the form of Microsoft’s Photosynth (silverlight browser plugin required).

Social Media apps could tap into this utility to network members in real space. At the most basic level, Facebook and/or LinkedIn apps could overlay member’s with their name and profile information.

The next logical extension of this will be to place the information directly into your field of vision.

The OOH marketing opportunities are immense. Recent campaigns for General Electric in the US, and the Mini Cooper in Germany show where this is going. Suddenly the work done by Wayne Piekarski at the University of South Australia’s Wearable Computer Lab is no longer so SciFi (now being commercialized as WorldViz). At January’s CES, Vuzix debuted their new 920AV Model of eyewear, which includes an optional stereoscopic camera attachment to combine virtual objects with your real environment. Originally scheduled for a Spring release, their ship-date has now been pushed back to Fall (their main competitor, MyVu, does not yet have an augmented reality model). If the trend finally takes, expect to see more partnerships with eyewear manufactures.

Initially through the viewfinder of your smartphone, and eventually through the lens of your eyewear, augmentation will be the point of convergence for mobile-web, local-search, social media, and geo-targeted marketing. Whether Apple makes the full leap in one gesture with the release of their Next-Gen iPhone, or gets there in smaller steps depends upon both the authenticity/acuracy of this leak, and the further initiative of third-party software and hardware developers to take advantage of it. Innovation and convergence will be the economic drivers that reboot our economy.

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EDIT: The only capability Apple actually needs to add to the iPhone in order for this proposed augmented reality to be implemented is a magnetometer (digital compass). Google Android models already have this component. Charlie Sorrel of WIRED Magazine’s Gadget Lab has separately reported this feature through leaks of a developer screen shot, and on May 22nd Brian X. Chen, also reporting for WIRED Magazine’s Gadget Lab, put the probability of a magnetometer being included in the new iPhone at 90%. Once the iPhone has an onboard compass, augmented reality features will begin to appear, whether through Apple’s own implementation or from third party developers.

UPDATE: Since the time of this writing, the iPhone 3GS has been released, and it does indeed include an magnetometer.

New Year Endorsements

Putting a wrap on 2008, I set a goal to get my own online efforts organized. I had websites scattered across several different hosting providers. In conjunction with the launch of my new website, this was the right time to review my existing arrangements. Having done so, I’m now making some new year endorsements.

MediaTemple for Hosting
My research on hosting providers eventually led me to MediaTemple. So far I’m very pleased with their entry level Grid-Service package that includes hosting for 100 domains, 100 GB of storage, 1 TB of bandwidth and 1000 email addresses, for $20 a month or $200 a year. Their dashboard has the slickest interface I’ve seen in the business, and they also have a sweet iPhone version to manage your websites on the go. Their customer support has been impeccable. I actually got a recording that told me, “your approximate wait time is… one minute.” The other three times I’ve called a technician has answered on the first ring without even going into a queue!

GoDaddy for Domain Registrar
Several years ago I had a similar issue consolidating my domain registrations. I went with GoDaddy, and I’ve been pleased with the decision. The interface is well organized, and has plenty of automation tools to manage my domains. Though the up-sell e-commerce efforts on their website can sometimes be overbearing, their email and phone support are top notch. Amazingly, they’ve also managed to take a service which has, for all practical purposes, become a commodity and add premium value to their offer. They don’t do this to command a higher price— they do this all-the-while remaining one of the industry’s most price competitive vendors. It is no surprise that they remain the world’s #1 registrar. Their cheesy marketing efforts not withstanding, I chose to stick with GoDaddy.

Clicky for Site Analytics
The next service providers on my list to research were site traffic analytics tools. I was using a very dated stats service I’d been with since the 90s. I knew there were better products on the market, but stayed with them out a familiarity. After checking out many products in a very competitive market, I narrowed it down to two choices— Clicky and Mint. Clicky’s filtering tools and iPhone integration were persuasive, but its built in ability to track Flash events and file downloads was the deciding factor. It also doesn’t hurt their case that their interface is smart and slick and easy to get to the information I need quickly.

Squarespace for Blog Platform
There was no debating my choice to stick with Squarespace for my blog platform. I cannot evangelize their their product enough. My site here is but a tiny glimpse of the platform’s capabilities. If you haven’t yet had a look, take a peak at their homepage video demo. To call Squarespace a blog platform is almost an insult. It is a very robust content management platform with the best user interface and customization tools on the market anywhere at any price.

Viddler for Online Video
Earlier this year I switched to Viddler for all my video content needs. It produces better quality video, and less bug-prone uploading than YouTube, and the uploads are exponentially faster. There are also tools for book-marking the timeline, and other value added features, as well as a slicker interface and more professional looking video controller than YouTube. It also gives users the opportunity to monetize their video content with a commission on ad sales run with their video, and several parameters of control over what ads will be run with their content.

Tramsmit for FTP & AASync to Archive
These last two products I’m going to endorse are not web services, but I don’t want to neglect mentioning a couple of the support applications that I depend on to get work done. A hosting provider is useless without file transfer capabilities. For this I use Transmit. It was not a recent decision, I made the move a couple of years ago, but I did audit my options as part of my overhaul. Much like my recent step up the ladder with my stats platform, I had been using a legacy FTP app out of mere familiarity, and finally got around to upgrading to a top flight product. More recently I began using a very minimal backup application called AAsync to archive my files, including my websites, to an external drive. It isn’t a solution that I would expect to scale, but for a small operation like myself, it is very efficient for my needs. It has an intuitive interface that is super easy to use— I tell it what I want to back up (down to the level of individual folders), from which drive, to which drive. I set it on a timer, and don’t have to think about it again. If I’m not here and the computer is off, it will start up the computer itself, and run its backup routines completed automated.

So that wraps up my web service endorsements for the new year. I’ve never felt like I had my online efforts so buttoned up as I do today. Pretty much across the board, competition has driven improvements in quality. If you have not recently audited the offerings of your current providers against the competition, the new year could be the time to do so.

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SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION™
At that, I will segue back into the launch of my new website, the original impetus for this overhaul. There are still several more projects I need to load into the portfolio, and like every site, it will always be a work in progress. My next step is promoting the site, which I can start by inviting you to have a visit at: ChrisGrayson.com.

Applications used in the making of the new website include: PhotoShop, Illustrator, Flash, Swift 3D and BB Edit; as well as Pages, InDesign and Word for the downloadable PDFs and DOC file.

I owe a special thanks to my friends on Facebook who helped me bug test the new site. I’m on a Mac, and don’t have access to a PC in my home office. So I did a little experiment— I called on my Facebook friends to assist me in cross-browser/cross-platform bug testing, and a dozen or so jumped right in to lend a hand. A few glitches, that could have been embarrassing oversights, were found and addressed. Chalk another one up for crowd-sourcing.

Happy New Year, Everyone!