Hasta La Gadget!

No matter how hard Skype and others try to convince us otherwise, we still do most of our web communications via text or, if entirely unavoidable, by voice. Maybe we’re luddites or maybe video calling has yet to prove its value. Hoping to reverse such archaic views, researchers at the MIT Media Lab have harnessed a Kinect’s powers of depth and human perception to provide some newfangled videoconferencing functionality. First up, you can blur out everything on screen but the speaker to keep focus where it needs to be. Then, if you want to get fancier, you can freeze a frame of yourself in the still-moving video feed for when you need to do something off-camera, and to finish things off, you can even drop some 3D-aware augmented reality on your viewers. It’s all a little unrefined at the moment, but the ideas are there and well worth seeing. Jump past the break to do just that.

Continue reading Kinect used to make teleconferencing actually kind of cool (video)

Kinect used to make teleconferencing actually kind of cool (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 04 Apr 2011 03:26:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading NAVTEQ’s Destination Maps provide mobile guidance through malls, outer reaches of your mind

NAVTEQ’s Destination Maps provide mobile guidance through malls, outer reaches of your mind originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 12:09:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It isn’t exactly a spring chicken, nor is it particularly new to the advertising game — Best Buy utilized the stuff back in 2009 to push electronics — but a new ad campaign from manly body spray purveyor Lynx (Axe in the US) is making augmented reality nearly unavoidable. Created by BBH, a global ad agency, the video below shows travelers at London’s Victoria train station staring up at a giant screen to find themselves greeted by a skimpily attired fallen angel. The stunt, launched on March 6, drew a lot of attention from passersby, and in more than one instance elicited some pretty, well, bold behavior. Up until now, augmented reality has mostly been a play thing of the geek set — even previous advertisements enlisting such tactics required a decent amount of work from the audience — but if these fallen angels are any sign, we could all be traversing a more unreal world very soon.

[Thanks, Ben]

Continue reading Lynx augmented reality stunt drops scantly clad angels on terrestrial travelers (video)

Lynx augmented reality stunt drops scantly clad angels on terrestrial travelers (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 15:19:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Last year, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute students built a virtual reality contraption that let them soar through the sky, held aloft by a trapeze harness and seeing through HMD-covered eyes. This year, they’re controlling it with the power of their minds. For his master’s thesis, project leader Yehuda Duenyas added an Emotiv headset — the same one controlling cars and the occasional game — to make the wearer seemingly able to levitate themselves into the air by carefully concentrating. Sure, by comparison it’s a fairly simple trick, but the effect is nothing short of movie magic. See it after the break.

[Thanks, Eric]

Continue reading Emotiv EEG headset hacked into VR trapeze act, lets you fly like Superman (video)

Emotiv EEG headset hacked into VR trapeze act, lets you fly like Superman (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 01 Mar 2011 22:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Layar’s been the go-to platform for augmented reality on Android since 2009, bringing you the useful, the creepy, and the just plain weird — and now it’s unleashing the beast on iOS, again (it’s already available as a dedicated app). The Netherlands-based company just launched Layar Player, a free tool that allows anyone — with a little developer know-how — to create their very own AR iPhone app. Accompanying the announcement are three brand new Layar Player-enabled apps: the Bing-sponsored Snowboard Hero, which incorporates a special AR mode for collecting points; a contractor locator called Layer Trade; and VerbeterdeBuurt, an app that acts as an AR community bulletin board. The company’s press release touts the “democratization of augmented reality,” and while we can get behind their AR-for-alll message, we’ve already seen Layar used in ways that give us the willies. Don’t get us wrong, we’re still excited about the endless AR possibilities, but we’re hoping, at least for now, that iPhone app developers can keep the AR monsters at bay.

Continue reading Layar Player lets AR loose on iPhone apps

Layar Player lets AR loose on iPhone apps originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 29 Jan 2011 08:52:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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