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It seems like everyone and their brother is working on some sort of smart glasses, but how about smart contact lenses? It turns out those might actually be closer than you think. More »

There are already a handful of ways to bring – or at least replicate – your Minecraft masterpieces to the real world. But if you’re looking for a cheap route, check out this Mojang-approved iOS app made by 13th lab. It’s called Minecraft Reality and it uses augmented reality to make the two worlds meet.

I have not tried the app yet, but apparently it can even scale the objects you upload relative to the real world scenery. You can also save the location of the object(s) you place so that other users of the app can see your work and vice versa.

Minecraft Reality is already on the App Store and sells for $1.99 (USD). Sadly, it’s for newer iOS devices only. It’s not compatible with the 4th gen iPod Touch and any devices that came before it, and the developer also mentioned that “most functionality is not available on iPhone 4.” Fortunately our imagination has no such system requirements. I just placed a Weeping Angel behind you.

[via The Verge via Joystiq & Minecraft Reality]

In the past, we’ve talked about the interesting and odd project from Google called Project Glass. The technology is basically a small wearable augmented reality system with a display embedded into a pair of glasses. A patent application has surfaced from Microsoft that shows the company is at least considering a competing product.

Artwork included with the patent application shows one example application as view of a baseball game offering factoids about players, including stats, hovering above them while you watch the game. They also showed another example where subtitles are displayed over an opera performance. Here’s the abstract from the patent application:

A system and method to present a user wearing a head mounted display with supplemental information when viewing a live event. A user wearing an at least partially see-through, head mounted display views the live event while simultaneously receiving information on objects, including people, within the user’s field of view, while wearing the head mounted display. The information is presented in a position in the head mounted display which does not interfere with the user’s enjoyment of the live event.

Microsoft’s offerings are also not meant to be worn at all times, while Google is hoping we’ll be wearing their glasses everywhere we go. It appears that Microsoft is tying their device to live events like sports and concerts. The Microsoft product would be able to the project text and audio overlays onto whatever the wearer is viewing.

The patent app was originally filed in May of 2011, but was updated this week. There is no indication of what the status of this project is at Microsoft right now; it could be significantly further along considering it’s been over a year since the application was filed, or it could just be a concept. Whereas Google already has usable prototypes of their system, it appears Microsoft’s is in the planning stages.

You can view Microsoft’s complete patent application here.

[via UnwiredView]

Microsoft is working on its own Google Glass alternative, a wearable computer which can overlay real-time data onto a user’s view of the world around them. The research, outed in a patent application published today for “Event Augmentation with Real-Time Information” (No. 20120293548), centers on a special set of digital eyewear with one or both lenses capable of injecting computer graphics and text into the user’s line of sight, such as to label players in a sports game, flag up interesting statistics, or even identify objects and offer contextually-relevant information about them.

The digital glasses would track the direction in which the wearer was looking, and adjust its on-screen graphics accordingly; Microsoft also envisages a system whereby eye-tracking is used to select areas of focus within the scene. Information shown could follow a preprogrammed script – Microsoft uses the example of an opera, where background detail about the various scenes and arias could be shown in order – or on an ad-hoc basis, according to contextual cues from the surrounding environment.

Actually opting into that data could be based on social network checkins, Microsoft suggests, or by the headset simply using GPS and other positioning sensors to track the wearer’s location. The hardware itself could be entirely self-contained, within glasses, as per what we’ve seen of Google’s Project Glass, or it could split off the display section from a separate “processing unit” in a pocket or worn on the wrist, with either a wired or wireless connection between the two.

In Microsoft’s cutaway diagram – a top-down perspective of one half of the AR eyewear – there’s an integrated microphone (910) and a front-facing camera for video and stills (913), while video is shown to the wearer via a light guide (912). That (along with a number of lenses) works with standard eyeglass lenses (916 and 918), whether prescription or otherwise, while the opacity filter (914) helps improve light guide contrast by blocking out some of the ambient light. The picture itself is projected from a microdisplay (920) through a collimating lens (922). There are also various sensors and outputs, potentially including speakers (930), inertial sensors (932) and a temperature monitor (938).

Microsoft is keeping its options open when it comes to display types, and as well as generic liquid crystal on silicon (LCOS) and LCD there’s the suggestion that the wearable could use Qualcomm’s mirasol or a Microvision PicoP laser projector. An eye-tracker (934) could be used to spot pupil movement, either using IR projection, an internally-facing camera, or another method.

Whereas Google has focused on the idea of Glass as a “wearable smartphone” that saves users from pulling out their phone to check social networks, get navigation directions, and shoot photos and video, Microsoft’s interpretation of augmented reality takes a slightly different approach in building around live events. One possibility we could envisage is that the glasses might be provided by an entertainment venue, such as a sports ground or theater, just as movie theaters loan 3D glasses for the duration of a film.

That would reduce the need for users to actually buy the (likely expensive) glasses themselves, and – since they’d only be required to last the duration of the show or game – the battery demands would be considerably less than a full day. Of course, a patent application alone doesn’t mean Microsoft is intending a commercial release, but given the company’s apparently increasing focus on entertainment (such as the rumored Xbox set-top box) it doesn’t seem too great a stretch.

[via Unwired View]

Microsoft’s Google Glass rival tech tips AR for live events is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Been keeping up to date with the quirky robotic ball named Sphero? We’ve been wondering when its Augmented Reality Engine would finalize into a full-fledged app since we first witnessed it as E3 as a simple 2D tech demo. Well, Today is the day that this Android and iOS-controlled ball makes it first official-release steps into the world of AR — the engine has grown up, powering Orbotix’s latest free app, Sharky the Beaver. While the game itself is still admittedly silly and demo-like since we saw an early adaptation in August, there’s no question that the AGR is now is a polished state.

As a refresher, unlike other implementations that require a stationary marker, Sphero serves as one that can move around your area, while also relaying information about its position. The 3D character on screen rotates its directions as you spin Sphero, and, as you can see above, it even allows you to pick the ball up while it’s being tracked. The frame-rate of tracking in the app itself looked very smooth, and it does an admirable job keeping track of the ball, even if it ends up off-screen. At the point, gameplay is limited to flicking cupcakes on the ground that Sharky goes to automatically, and there’s no word on if and when we’ll see the features shown off in the early version (namely, the part where the Sharky part of the name was actually a key element, as you chased people on-screen to get their cupcakes). All in all, we’re more curious than anything to see what else the folks at Orbotix will come up with in the realm of AR — for more in the meantime, check out the our video hands-on after the break.

Continue reading Sphero’s Augmented Reality Engine gets fully realized in Sharky the Beaver (video)

Filed under: Misc, Robots, Software

Sphero’s Augmented Reality Engine gets fully realized in Sharky the Beaver (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 16 Nov 2012 11:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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