Rich features of Junaio cause rush in developer sign-up

April 14th, 2010
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San Francisco/Munich, April 13th, 2010 – The number of registered developers for the mobile augmented reality browser platform junaio has rapidly grown since the announcement of opening up the API four weeks ago and has reached more than 200 until now. With its open API, junaio gives developers and content providers the opportunity to create their own channels with state of the art augmented reality applications.

junaio`s open API allows developers to create their own AR applications with numerous features. It is easy to use and does require only basic knowledge in programming, e.g. XML and server side programming, such as PHP to create state of the art augmented reality applications. The platform experienced a run from developers and can announce over 200 developers – only four weeks after they opened up their API for the public. “We are very pleased with the number of developers. The feedback we receive is that junaio is a great opportunity for developers to create state of the art applications without spending any money”, states Peter Meier, the CTO of metaio, the company behind junaio.

The creative potential of junaio is vast: AR Mashups, multiplayer games or scavenger hunts, interactive, indoor and outdoor exhibitions, tours with animated 3D characters, edutainment right on the spot and location independent gaming. It is up to the developer to challenge his imagination and become as creative as he wants to. Starting is very easy, developers only need to register for an API-key on the website.

Junaio flowchart

Developer contest promises a reward of US$5000

Furthermore metaio wants to directly reward the effort of their developers and thank them with US$ 5000 for the developer who creates the best channel. Everybody registered as a developer and sets up a channel before June 16, 2010 takes part in the competition automatically. The five channels with the most subscribers will be shortlisted. An independent jury with AR- and IT-business experts will then select the winner. Among the jury members are Robert Scoble, ReadWriteWeb´s Chris Cameron, Mobile Consultants Christine Perey and Ken Blakeslee, Industrial AR expert, enthusiast and blogger Thomas Carpenter and finally Prof. Dr. Geiger from Duesseldorf University of Applied Sciences Department of Media Mixed Reality and Visualization.

Developers can register on junaio`s website.

junaio @ ARDevCamp in Berlin on 24th April, 2010

Developers who are not sure yet how they can use junaio`s different features should consider joining the Developers camp at the AR DevCamp in Berlin on 24 April 2010. The junaio team will give an insight in what developers can do with the new junaio API in free and moderated coding sessions. In addition, ideas for new channels will be collected together and findings will be taken into consideration in the future developments of junaio. The session will be a good starting point for the developer contest and the chance to win the $5k challenge. metaio is looking forward to a prolific session at ARDev Camp which will take place at Beuth-Hochschule für Technik, Luxemburger Strasse 10, 13353 Berlin. Registration starts at 8 a.m.

Please visit the ARDevCamp page for more information and free registration.

Outstanding feature: indoor usage

One of the most outstanding features of junaio which differentiates it from other AR browsers is its ability to use it not only outdoors but also indoors. This makes it especially interesting for usage in museums, exhibitions and shopping malls where GPS data is not accurate enough: http://www.youtube.com/junaio#p/a/u/1/lULKsnRniO0

Outstanding feature: dynamic reaction

junaio`s dynamical reaction can be illustrated by the example of BART. In San Francisco junaio partners with BART, the Public Transportation Service in the Bay Area. The junaio user can not only find the nearest train station but he can also get the time of the next possible train connection – in realtime at his current location.  http://www.youtube.com/junaio#p/a/u/0/nbAVMrNQhJI

Shake Menus research

November 3rd, 2009
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Shake Menus were developed by Sean White, David Feng, and Steve Feiner at Columbia University’s Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Lab ( http://www.cs.columbia.edu/graphics/t… ). The video accompanied a paper presented at IEEE ISMAR 2009 ( http://www.ismar09.org ).

Menus play an important role in both information presentation and system control. They explore the design space of shake menus, which are intended for use in tangible augmented reality. Shake menus are radial menus displayed centered on a physical object and activated by shaking that object. One important aspect of their design space is the coordinate system used to present menu options. They conducted a within-subjects user study to compare the speed and efficacy of several alternative methods for presenting shake menus in augmented reality (world-referenced, display- referenced, and object-referenced), along with a baseline technique (a linear menu on a clipboard). Their findings suggest trade-offs amongst speed, efficacy, and flexibility of interaction, and point towards the possible advantages of hybrid approaches that compose together transformations in different coordinate systems. In our ISMAR 2009 paper, they also describe qualitative feedback from use and present several illustrative applications of the technique including game authoring ( http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~swhite/pu… ).

This work was funded in part by NSF Grant IIS-03-25867. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official views, opinions, or policy of the National Science Foundation (NSF). We thank Ohan Oda for his work on Goblin XNA and Steve Henderson, Lauren Wilcox, and Christian Holz for discussions.

For further information, see White, S., Feng, D., and Feiner, S. Interaction and presentation techniques for shake menus in tangible augmented reality. Proc. ISMAR 2009 (IEEE Int. Symp. on Mixed and Augmented Reality), Orlando, FL, October 19-22, 2009, pp. 39-48.

Augmented Reality within Flash Player

October 16th, 2009
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Learn more about augmented reality (AR), an emerging technology that has been in the news and gaining momentum lately within the rich Internet application (RIA) development community. This session will show how to do augmented reality within Flash Player.