Without putting someone in a car or doing a physical stunt is there a way that you can demonstrate that engines created to be more efficient and eco–friendly can be just as powerful and exciting to drive as any other?
Ken Block vs You! is a physical interactive experience at the 2012 NAIAS Autoshow in Detroit which uses Augmented Reality to put you in a video with rally driver Ken Block. While you stand in a prearranged spot the AR Ken Block drives on in an Ecoboost and donuts around you.

Source: Imagination

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QR code generator is giving away dynamic recyclable QR codes with stats for free!

The QR code generator http://uQR.me just launched a pretty cool 3 for 1 Promo. The offer gives their users 1 free dynamic QR code with statistics and full utilities for every 3 friends that sign up (through you).

F. Costa, head of PR at uQR.me:

“We’re really excited about the feedback we’ve had from our users after just a few hours online with this promo.”

For those who are not yet familiarized with QR codes:

From: this article

Strange pixilated squares have been popping up in magazines, outdoor ads and newspapers, but what many people don’t know is that these pixilated squares are called QRs and can graphically reproduce a URL. QRs were once only available to big advertising firms, but now www.uQR.me gives individuals the opportunity to have their own personal dynamic recyclable QR and manage it whichever way they want, for free.

uQR.me home

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If you feel lazy to spot that QR code, here’s the link to it: http://uqr.me/diegopen/qr/hny-eng

All the BEST for next year!

Happiness is about tickling.

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With the use of augmented reality (AR) technology, AR Door has managed to create a presentation tool that helped to visualize the company’s every day work. Right on stage the CEO Dmitry Rakovschik saved life of an old woman and repaired a crashed car with just a motion of his hand.
The performance on stage managed to give a zest to the whole evening and was highly praised by the audience.

Easy to follow and understand, the AR assisted presentation is able to visualize any kind of information thus creating an entertaining and easily digestible experience.

The presentation was developed in collaboration with Bokov Factory, a production company (http://www.bokovfactory.ru).

Additional information:

Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated sensory input.

AR Door (www.ar-door.com) is an augmented reality developer based in Moscow, Russia. The company specializes in markerless augmented reality technology that is capable of recognizing colorful pictures, faces and human gestures. Since the launch of the company it managed to implement some projects for big international brands.

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Industry Proven With More Than 10 Years in Development

The metaio Mobile SDK  is developed by a software company with over 10 years of experience producing professional augmented reality, ensuring both the current caliber of the technology and the promise of continual advancements in research and developments. The metaio Mobile SDK has been implemented by brands, agencies and developers with an established professional track record of almost 70 mobile applications running on iOS and Android devices. The world’s most advanced AR browser, junaio, was built on the metaio Mobile SDK, and now empowers almost 10 million mobile-AR-enabled magazines delivered every month.

Most Advanced Augmented Reality Technology Available

The metaio Mobile SDK is as powerful as it is professional. Designed for natural AR experiences, the metaio Mobile SDK brings with it patented gravity-awareness and award-winning (tracking competition winner at ISMAR 2011) visual tracking technology for 2D and 3D objects, now three times more robust than the previous version. These features combined with metaio’s ongoing devotion to research and development will ensure AR experiences that are more natural, more intuitive, and more realistic. In addition, metaio has presented a clear roadmap towards both an Augmented World and AR on every smartphone by the year 2014, including working with chipset manufacturers to optimize metaio’s software for mobile devices.

Optimized AR-Pipeline for Major Mobile Chipsets

Though just weeks ago metaio proudly announced formal collaborations with ARM, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI), the broad developer community benefits today. While the available hardware is becoming more and more AR friendly, metaio has long been cultivating a network of contacts and technical exchanges with companies of the mobile processor industry, such as ARM, ST-Ericsson and TI. With these key industry partnerships metaio is ensuring that next generation mobile devices are fully AR capable.

“The powerful and flexible hardware of our partners enables us to deliver the software that will create the most innovative and compelling apps in AR,” said metaio CEO Dr. Thomas Alt. “We are happy to announce that we reached our first concrete short-term measure by porting our mobile SDK to the platforms of ARM, ST-Ericsson and Texas Instruments.”

From ARM: “ARM’s roadmap for ARM® Mali™ graphics and compute IP not only addresses the challenges in Augmented Reality today but also sets a benchmark for the next generation of mobile AR”, says Kevin Smith, VP Strategic Marketing, ARM Media Processing Division. “The combination of ARM processors and ARM Mali graphics processing units along with the strength of the Mali Ecosystem puts ARM in a unique position to provide enabling technologies to AR industry pioneers like metaio and we are working together to meet the future demands of mobile devices”.

From ST-Ericsson: “With our collaboration on a series of joint research projects, we are working to bring the latest AR capabilities to a broad developer community,” said Björn Ekelund, Head of Ecosystems and Research, CTO and Strategic Planning Office of ST-Ericsson. “Applications like AR are where the Nova™ and NovaThor™ product families excel since they deliver a combination of mobile processing performance, advanced graphics cores and powerful multimedia all at extreme power efficiency. We believe AR will become a basic demand in mobile devices in the future.”
From Texas Instruments: “Mobile augmented reality requires high processing performance with superior graphics and imaging capabilities that run on ultra-low power-features delivered by TI’s family of OMAP mobile processors. We work closely with metaio to ensure its AR SDK effectively leverages the OMAP platform’s end-to-end advancements. In turn, our mutual customers can focus on delivering compelling mobile devices that capture the promise and excitement of augmented reality-driven experiences,” said Fred Cohen, director, OMAP user experience team, TI.

Free of Worry and Cost

Compared to other augmented reality software kits, the metaio solution is the most complete and worry free available. The metaio Mobile SDK includes its own 3D rendering engine – now with advanced shader support – meaning there are no hidden development costs. At the same time it provides developers with a plugin to make use of Unity3D, one of the most established and powerful gaming engines currently on the market. Unlike other current augmented reality SDKs the metaio solution does not require the developer to upload and or encrypt any files before publishing a project, making the development process incredibly straightforward. For those who want to go further in customizing and development, metaio will also release a Pro version of the mobile SDK within the next months. The pro Version will include additional advanced features, greater customization potential and direct support by the metaio development team. Additionally, developers that prove their skills through the development of professional AR applications using the metaio Mobile SDK can register to become Certified Developers, giving them direct access to business offers and opportunities through the metaio network.

Watch the metaio Mobile SDK release video on YouTube
Download the free metaio Mobile SDK
Visit the new metaio.com

about metaio

As the world-wide leader in Augmented Reality technology, metaio develops software products for visual interactive solutions between the real and the virtual world. Based on the advanced software suite, 3-D animations can be integrated seamlessly into live-video streams respectively into pictures of the user’s real environment. Founded in February 2003, metaio currently employs 75+ people at two different locations. The company is headquartered in Munich with the subsidiary metaio Inc. located in San Francisco USA. metaio has accumulated over 500 projects has been working with more than 450 renowned customers from different industries and geographical locations, such as: Macy’s, Toyota, Universal Pictures, Volkswagen, Adidas, BMW, LEGO, Audi, Bauer Media, USA Today, Bosch, Domino’s Pizza, The National Guard and Absolut Vodka. metaio is also the producer of the world’s most advanced mobile augmented reality browser, junaio, available for free download on Android and iOS. for more information, please visit metaio.com and junaio.com

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This is a technical demo for face substitution technique. The application works in real time and it’s developed using the opensource framework for creative coding openFrameworks: openFrameworks.cc

Most of the “magic” happens thanks to Jason Saragih’s c++ library for face tracking web.mac.com/​jsaragih/​FaceTracker/​FaceTracker.html. The face tracking library returns a mesh that matches the contour of the eyes, nose, mouth and other facial features.

That way the mesh obtained from a photo is matched to my own face in the video. Applying some color interpolation algorithms from Kevin Atkinson’s image clone code: methodart.blogspot.com/​ gives it the blending effect that can be seen in the final footage.

I’m also using Kyle McDonald’s ofxFaceTracker addon for openframeworks github.com/​kylemcdonald/​ofxFaceTracker which wraps Jason’s library for easier use.

Kyle has uploaded another video giving a try at a different blending algorithm, which get rids of the artifacts and an even creepier look: vimeo.com/​29348533

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Mediating Mediums – The Digital 3d [Short Version] from Greg Tran on Vimeo.

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Well, it’s time to beautify your QR code too!

Gradients, rounded corners, image insertion on your QR code.

Have you ever thought about beautifying your QR codes? Well, an image worth 1000 words.

Here’s the new QR code generator uQR.me with beautifier:

uQR.me's QR code beautifier

Here you have some artwork results, compared with the kind of QR code you see around (what a difference!):

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by Keiichi Matsuda
keiichimatsuda.com

The architecture of the contemporary city is no longer simply about the physical space of buildings and landscape, more and more it is about the synthetic spaces created by the digital information that we collect, consume and organise; an immersive interface may become as much part of the world we inhabit as the buildings around us.
Augmented Reality (AR) is an emerging technology defined by its ability to overlay physical space with information. It is part of a paradigm shift that succeeds Virtual Reality; instead of disembodied occupation of virtual worlds, the physical and virtual are seen together as a contiguous, layered and dynamic whole. It may lead to a world where media is indistinguishable from ‘reality’. The spatial organisation of data has important implications for architecture, as we re-evaluate the city as an immersive human-computer interface.

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What’s a QR code?

Strange pixilated squares have been popping up in magazines, outdoor ads and newspapers, but what many people don’t know is that these pixilated squares are called QRs and can graphically reproduce a URL. QRs were once only available to big advertising firms, but now www.uqr.me gives individuals the opportunity to have their own personal QR and manage it which ever way they want, for free.

Check out the uQR.me video to get a better idea of the infinite possibilities available with www.uQR.me:

With uQR.me people can register to get a free personal QR and link it to any photo, video, webpage, Facebook page, Twitter, Flickr, a resume, a “For Sale” sign or anything they desire. uQR.me members have the freedom to print and post their QR anywhere, such as a wall, a tree, a shop window, a t-shirt, a pin, a concert poster, a wine bottle, a business card…literally anywhere. People can “spot” the QR with their cell phones and be automatically directed to that persons or companies online content. This online content could be a video related to what you’re reading, it could be a contest powered by the brand advertised at a bus stop or detailed info about artwork at an exhibition. In short, QR codes link objects in the “real” world to the web, introducing a new dimension to everyday life.

The link to the QR, aka the “QRlink,” can be changed as many times as needed, but the actual QR never changes, which means never having to reprint or repost your QR. The only thing uQR.me members have to do is log onto www.uQR.me and redirect their QR to anything that they want to inform the world of that day. uQR.me offers one FREE QR per user but gives the opportunity of purchasing more QRs via their Business Option.

The Business Option

The business option offers more QRs that are all managed on that individual’s uQR.me page giving any small or big business an easy way to boost its outdoor advertising and get its message heard at a very low cost.

uQR.me is now offering additional free features for the next 5000 members also called “Founder” members.

The “Founders”

The Founders get free stats to see in which region of the world their QR has been spotted, no advertising pop ups and other special features.

• uQR.me has been used to spread music all over the streets. Any artist can promote their music by printing and posting their QR where it can be spotted by everyone. Those who spot the QR, can automatically hear the song on their cell phone.

• Bloggers have used uQR.me by printing and posting their QR at bus stops or coffee shops.
• Retailers and consultants have linked it to their LinkedIn profile and embedded their QR to their business cards.
• Real Estate businesses have used the Business Option to sell their homes. With over 50 QRs, they can print the QR to the “For Sale” sign. People can “spot” the QR and instantly get a virtual tour of the interior of the home, including all types of information for that home, including cost, other homes available in that area, square footage etc. without the need of the real estate broker.
• Some have printed their QRs in trade exhibition invitations which provided the host with opportunities to monitor the guest list attendees through uQR.me stats.
• Wine distributors are starting to use uQR.me to make their wine stand out from the rest. Wine labels are printed with a QR that is linked to virtual tours of the winery, recipes or a description of the flavor of that wine.
• The possibilities with uQR.me are endless.

Source: http://www.uqr.me

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