Augmented reality

Augmented Reality Graffiti Hits FourSquare in ARstreets iPhone App

The idea behind this app is that instead of tagging actual buildings, you’re tagging virtual buildings. Whether this will reduce crime (or actually encourage it) is undecided, but the app has a neat augmented reality Foursquare tie-in. The free app is only available in the US, where graffiti artists can daub their insignia on the…

Tech News Kat Hannaford

Magic Software Eliminates Objects From Reality Itself

Witchcraft! That’s what you’ll scream after watching how this program makes objects disappear from a live video—in real time. It’s the opposite of augmented reality: Instead of adding digital things, this technology eliminates objects from the real world. The research team led by Professor Dr. Wolfgang Broll—Head of the Department of Virtual Worlds and Digital…

Tech News Jesus Diaz

Digital superstars of a world without privacy, in Greg Pak’s “Vision Machine”

What if you could shoot video with your eyeglasses, edit in your head, and add computer-generated imagery? That’s the premise of Greg Pak’s comic, Vision Machine, debuting at NYCC. He tells us why people are too keen to surrender privacy. Greg Pak is the creator of one of our favorite indie science fiction films, Robot…

io9 Charlie Jane Anders

How to make a pile of boxes into something unearthly and beautiful

Created by design firm Superbien, this installation combines 3D projections with a simple 3D surface – literally, a pile of blocks stacked against a wall. When you watch the video, the result is absolutely enchanting. Augmented reality done right. [via Superbien] (Thanks for the tip, Boyd McKenzie!)

io9 Annalee Newitz

Bored This Friday? Turn Your Friends Into Augmented Reality Badgers Using This App

Yes, badgers. They’re not the cuddliest animals around, granted, but they’re definitely one of the most comical. And for $1, you can blackmail friends into all sorts of chores, once you augment reality them up into furry alternatives. Because it uses augmented reality, the badger transformation is done in real time, rather than as a…

Tech News Kat Hannaford

Point an iPhone at the Sky, See Augmented Reality Info as Planes Fly By

Plane Finder AR adds a layer of augmented reality to its previous (and free) Plane Finder app, now charging $3 for the privilege of seeing the flight number, speed, destination and other such details of overhead planes. The same developer is making a name for itself in transportation apps, with its Airline Finder acting as…

Tech News Kat Hannaford

You’ll Never Guess What This AR Cake Is Hiding

I don’t care how delicious this cake is on the inside, I’d never cut into it. I’d be too worried about marring its AR marker frosting, and the wonderful augmented reality memes contained therein. Final guesses? If you said “Sad Keanu Riding a Unicorn In Front of Two Double Rainbows With Double Dolphins Attending,” congratulations!…

Tech News Brian Barrett

Scenes from a 3-D, augmented reality metropolis

Keiichi Matsuda creates incredible short films that depict an augmented reality city where synthetic information clouds are grafted onto brick’n’mortar material spaces. Here are two of his futureshock videos. Matsuda created this first 3D video, “Augmented (hyper)Reality: Augmented City,” for his final year at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London. Here’s how Matsuda describes…

io9 Cyriaque Lamar

Check if Your Bus is On Time Via QR Codes at DC Bus Stops

Starting today, DC area bus stops are being treated with a bit of augmented reality. Smartphone users can get up-to-the-minute status reports and traffic updates for the bus they’re waiting for by using a QR reading app. Convenient! [ReadWriteWeb]

Tech News Christina Bonnington

Watch This Skyscraper Appear Out of Thin Air

Now that’s a handy magic trick: Observe! This lot, empty but for the world’s largest augmented reality marker. Astonish! As a towering skyscraper flickers to life in its place. Wonder! At just how big a camera they must have needed. The record-setting AR marker—Guinness-certified!—was dreamt up by architects at Königsberger Vannucchi, a Brazilian firm that…

Tech News Brian Barrett

AR Labyrinth Android App Turns Layar Into That Windows 95 “3D Maze” Game

There was a time, before GTA, when parents let their children play video games—as long as those games were Windows freebies like Hover! and SkiFree. Or Win95 screensaver “game” 3D Maze, which has reappeared as a Layar add-on. https://gizmodo.com/legendary-microsoft-game-skifree-now-free-for-the-iphon-5496352 If you never sat in front of a PC for hours on end watching the magical…

Tech News Kat Hannaford

Meta Cookie can taste like any cookie you want – as long as you’re willing to wear the headgear

Augmented reality, in which computer-generated virtual imagery is used to alter a person’s perception, has been used to help people overcome phobias and help people drive better. And now, for some (awesome) reason, there’s this… an augmented reality cookie. Meta Cookie is the creation of researchers at the University of Tokyo. Thanks to that huge…

io9 Alasdair Wilkins

The iPhone 4’s Gyroscope Makes Augmented Reality Apps All the Better

Acrossair’s video shows that using the gyroscope in addition to the accelerometer and compass makes for a much smoother, much more accurate augmented reality experience. No more looking like you’ve got the caffeine jitters trying to find the nearest subway. [Readwriteweb]

Tech News Jason Chen

The Samsung Galaxy S Goes See-Through

There’s no special engineering going on here, just an Andriod app and an extreme case of cleverness. If you own a Samsung Galaxy S, you can download Samsung’s custom Android app called Road SMS. It’s a simple text messaging program, but instead of the dull metallic backdrop of your average mobile OS, Road SMS pipes…

Tech News Mark Wilson

Kickball AR Juggling App Lacks Only the Droning Buzz of Vuvuzelas

As you juggle your virtual, augmented reality soccer ball with this cool little cameraphone-enabled app, be sure to have friends blare their vuvuzelas in your ears to complete the ambiance. Literally minutes of AR fun to be had as you virtually juggle the little soccer ball on screen. All that, and no real risk of…

Tech News Jack Loftus

The Goggles That Will Transform Soldiers Into Terminators

While you were busy using augmented reality to find the nearest Taco Bell, a Chicago company by the name of Tanagram Partners was busy developing military-grade AR technology with lightweight sensors for interpreting information on hostiles during combat. The company’s CEO Joseph Juhnke showed the patent-pending technology off at the Augmented Reality Event in California…

Tech News Kat Hannaford

Layar 3.5 Update Does Away With Searching to Save Time

In your FACE, iPhone users! Layar’s latest update, 3.5, has been released first for Android phones. It includes the new ‘stream’ feature, which offers up augmented reality information based on your location, without a search entry needed. It’ll help shave time off your localized queries, with the Stream setting coming up first, when the reality…

Tech News Kat Hannaford

Las Vegas Augmented Reality App Makes the Strip Even More Larger Than Life

Vegas is already larger than life, causing a crick in the neck every time you want to take in the full wonders of the strip. And that’s before you make it to Déjà Vu Erotic Ultralounge. The free app mostly pimps MGM’s hotels, however it also offers other interactive details on rival hotels, casinos and…

Tech News Kat Hannaford

Strolling Through 19th Century London Today

Augmented reality might be the future, but my favorite application of it yet transports you far into past. StreetMuseum—an iPhone app from the Museum of London—overlays four hundred years of historic images on today’s city streets. StreetMuseum makes creative use of Google Maps and geo-tagging to show users how London used to look. You can…

Tech News Brian Barrett

Fighting fears with augmented-reality roaches

If fear is the mind killer, as Muad’dib explained, the routes for banishing those fears are equally devastating — it usually means confronting them. But a new Spanish study, using virtual roaches, might unlock a less grody path. Six subjects in a Spanish experiment, subjects with a severe fear of cockroaches, exhibited a severe level…

io9 Marc Bernardin