Hasta La Gadget!

After developing an augmented reality car manual for the Audi A3 and similar software for wearables like Glass, Metaio certainly knows a thing or two about the AR space. It’s no surprise then, that Volkswagen has collaborated with Metaio to develop an augmented reality iPad app for the 2014 XL1 hybrid diesel that debuted earlier this year. Called MARTA (Mobile Augmented Reality Technical Assistance), the app uses the iPad’s camera to view the internals of the vehicle and label the various parts and elements so that VW service workers will know what they’re working on.

MARTA also shows step-by-step instructions on how to repair and replace certain components, right down to which direction mechanics should be facing. You can even use the app to test out different design elements like a new hood or a different color. And just in case all that AR doesn’t prove to be useful, the app provides a good ol’ fashioned text service manual as well. Seeing as the MARTA is an AR app for a very limited edition vehicle, we don’t expect it to be of much use outside of certain VW specialty shops. Still, it’s yet another sign that incorporating augmented reality into digital car manuals just makes sense.

Filed under: Transportation

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Via: Psfk

Source: Volkswagen

Finding a college internship that isn’t soul-draining can be tough, but Nokia wants to help with that. Today, the Finnish company is announcing a joint effort with Internships.com to release Internships Lens, an app that leverages augmented reality and your social circles to point you toward the nearest gig that hopefully pays more than just school credit. It’s similar to JobLens in that it displays employment info over the top of wherever your Lumia’s camera is looking — again using LiveSight tech — and is exclusive to Nokia’s line of Windows Phone 8 handsets. What’s more, you can research an employer from within the app, which could calm those pre-interview jitters. If you still need a ‘ship for the upcoming winter semester, maybe this could help.

Filed under: Mobile, Nokia

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Source: Internships

We’re sufficiently old that we remember when the windscreen augmented-reality display from Knight Rider 2000 seemed fanciful. Still, 200 years later, and finally, such things are a reality. Pioneer is launching NavGate, a sat-nav with a built-in projector that’ll overlay a 30-inch display over the road ahead. Using the unit, drivers can see turn-by-turn directions, the current speed limit, distance, a clock and the estimated time of arrival. The hardware pairs with various smartphone platforms and will even pull data from the CoPilot and iGo Primo navigation apps. It’ll be available from October and will set Europeans back around £600 ($933).

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Filed under: Transportation

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To some, Google Glass is nothing more than a notification machine, but there are others who see Glass as an AR headset waiting to happen. OpenGlass is among those looking to give Glass augmented reality powers, and it’s figured out how to implement simple AR in real-time. The trick was accomplished by sampling the imagery pulled in by the headset’s camera and extracting the portion of that feed that corresponds to the size of Glass’s display. That feed is then sent to an OpenGlass server that overlays digital annotations provided by another users onto the video feed to augment the wearer’s reality.

There’s a video after the break demoing the AR functionality, but it’s rudimentary and laggy in its implementation. Essentially, the system serves as a telestrator that superimposes scribbles into your field of view. It’s a good proof-of-concept to show that Glass can do real-time AR, but there’s a lot of work to be done before Glass can become a fully-fledged augmented (or mediated) reality headset.

Filed under: Wearables, Google

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Source: OpenGlass

“Demo or die.” That’s the unofficial motto of Meta and it’s a bedrock principle espoused by Raymond Lo, the company’s CTO. Lo spent a decade under the tutelage of Professor Steve Mann (known to many as the father of wearable computing), and is one of the few to make it through Mann’s Ph.D. program at the University of Toronto. As an instructor, Mann requires tangible results on a regular basis from his students’ projects, and now, with Lo as CTO and Mann as chief scientist, Meta’s operating with the same ethos as it develops augmented mediated reality headsets. Meta’s idea is to meld the real and the digital together in a fully functional computing environment. It wants to augment your reality, and, in fact, mediate it.

We saw a prototype mediated reality headset from Meta a couple months ago, where we witnessed some rudimentary demos: typing in thin air and grabbing and moving digital objects with our hands. Naturally, the company’s made some improvements in the interim. The latest prototype hardware has morphed into a slightly more integrated design, but it still has the boxy and rough appearance of a 3D -printed prototype. Which, of course, it is. The Kinect-stuck-atop-a-pair-of-Rec Specs look is only temporary however, as Meta is finally ready to start taking orders for its first production headset, the Meta.01. You can pre-order one for $667.00 on Meta’s website, with deliveries set to begin in November. As opposed to the prototype you see in the image above, renders of the commercial device look like a cross between ski goggles and a pair of Oakleys. The magic of Meta doesn’t lie in its looks, however.

Filed under: Wearables

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Source: Meta