augmented reality growing up fast
in the past week AR took a nice step forward with two very thoughtful examples of how virtual and actual can mix in useful (not just pretty, shiny) ways:
Layar - an Android mobile app with incredible potential for taking AR into the world with you.
and the US Postal Service's Priority Mail Virtual Box, which lets you see if what you're shipping will fit in their flat rate box. A simple, useful tool.
*update* - should be mentioned that the excellent folks at AKQA are responsible for the Priority Mail application. Nice work, folks!


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Something else, here's an AR game for mobil devices. What makes it actually interesting is that you need to physically move around the plying board, and you place physical objects onto the playing board that effect how the game works.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNu4CluFOcw
http://gizmodo.com/5048302/sekai-camera-turns-on-worlds-balloon-help
It might not be quite as lofty or epochal as these other examples, but if 'augmented reality' is indeed the mot de jour, yesterday's launch of We Are Autobots (http://www.weareautobots.com) is certainly timely, and makes some fairly tidy use of face tracking to give you the head of everybody's favourite leader of the Autobots.
Youtube preview available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzB4mIPdm9k
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