Augmented Reality: Not exciting to "normal" users...

Chris Dannen, over at Fast Company just put out a post called Put Your Phone Down: Augmented Reality is Overblown where he dismisses augmented reality offhandedly and doesn’t appear to really understand what it is or could be. The opinion in his blog post is myopic at best and he makes a few subtle stabs, like the following:

…few of the “normal” smartphone users I talk to can get excited about augmented reality. Sure, they’re not thinking five years ahead, as we’re told tech visionaries do.”

Is he suggesting that those people getting excited about augmented reality aren’t normal, being nothing more than the techno-fringe? The next bit feels slightly sardonic as well…presenting tech visionaries as people who say they are thinking five years ahead, and being dubious about that.

In the next breath, he gets a little enthusiastic

Click to read more ...

Venture Capital and Augmented Reality

Yesterday, Marshall Kilpatrick asked, in readwriteweb.com, “Why aren’t VCs backing Augmented Reality?” He made some interesting observations and I would like to add to those here, with my own comments and thoughts.

First, let’s take a look at some of the typical responses I have encountered in my own efforts talking to venture capitalists. Keep in mind that I haven’t done a formal “roadshow”, and I have not engaged in a comprehensive “call everyone you can find” campaign either.

The augmented reality industry is in its infancy, and it is going to need the support, resources, and infrastructure of venture capital to grow into a mature, world-changing industry. I feel like most technology venture capitalists still haven’t heard about augmented reality (you would think that these guys would be watching industry news, twitter, and blogs like hawks looking for new opportunities, wouldn’t you?), or they have already formed an opinion based on stuff that is a year or more old, or that they simply don’t understand the tecnology and the potential of AR. Ok, no problem. We can fix that.

If you are a venture capitalist and are reading this

Click to read more ...

Future Vision 2012: Augmented Reality Predictions

Within three years (in time for ISMAR 2012), which is either a very short period of time or an eternity, depending on your point of view, I predict the following:

* 1 Million wearable displays, with transparent lenses, reasonable field of view, integrated accelerometers, and possibly a high-bandwidth short distance wireless connection, sold on the commercial market.

* Market generating more than $1B in revenues

* Vuzix currently the best positioned to deliver technology and products to the commercial market.

* Vuzix, Microvision, and Lumus Optical the current leaders in wearable display technology

* Companies like Sony, Apple, and others will have branded versions of their own. Probably with licensed display tech, or the fruit (ha! apples) of their own R&D.

* There will be at least

Click to read more ...

Nokia lobs patent grenade at Apple

This could turn out to be nothing more than some hot air in a court room or something that drags on for years with no real affect on the overall smartphone industry.

“The largest handset maker in the world is suing the maker of one of the most popular, the iPhone, because, according to a statement released by Nokia on Thursday, Apple has refused to license any of the patents in question. All iPhone models dating back to the original introduced in 2007 are infringing, according to Nokia. Nokia is asking the U.S. District Court in Delaware for an injunction (PDF) on sales of iPhones and for unspecified damages. “

Source: CNET News

10 patents. Thats a lot of alleged infringin’ goin’ on.

The Candy Apple Conundrum

I have an IPhone. This is arguably the best phone and mobile device I have ever had my grubby little hands on. Period. No competition. I also have a Macbook Pro. Very nice, expensive, and easy to figure out after a day or two. Nothing special, I’m still more comfortable with the Windows environment.

To be honest, I can’t stand Apple. I hate those self-important narcissistic condescending Mac ads. Really. I want to destroy entire apple orchards because of it.

I do appreciate Apple’s brilliance and unending innovation in terms of user interface and experience, as well as packaging, marketing, and building a rabidly loyal fanbase (don’t bother flaming me again guys, you are wasting your time).

At first glance, the IPhone seems like a super shiny object that does all sorts of wonderful things, and there are loads and loads of interesting applications and content. Yay. The market itself is rapidly growing, the users are the “sweet spot” of users and early adopters, and the app store is a perfectly executed distribution method. Love it. You could even argue that the IPhone has been instrumental (without realizing it) in helping spur interest and momentum in the augmented reality sector.

But I am continually perplexed by Apple’s refusal to open up the undocumented APIs in their SDK to allow augmented reality researchers and developers access to the video stream from the camera. This is a critical element for any type of visual tracking (markers, feature tracking, and markerless tracking). Some people figured some work arounds to make it work with the 2.x version of the SDK which is nice, except that this automatically disqualifies any applications from distribution in the app store. What really kills me though, is that on one hand, Apple made a play for welcoming AR applications with the 3.x version of the SDK, but only provided access to the overlay, while at the same time completely changing where the undocumented API calls were located, further obfuscating things and handicapping all R&D.

Making things worse, and I’ve blogged about this before, is that there is a perception that the IPhone is the only platform worth pursuing for AR. If you aren’t developing for the IPhone, investors, venture capitalists, and the media don’t care and start slamming doors. The reality of the world market is that the IPhone is only a fraction of the entire market share. From a business perspective, development for the IPhone should be a secondary or tertiary effort, with focus on others like Android, Symbian, and WinMobile. Even the IPhone hardware is lacking in features like video in (necessary for external cameras, likely mounted to the frame of glasses or wearable displays), and others.

Nearly everyone I spoke to at ISMAR echoed my sentiments here. We all *want* to develop for the IPhone, and need to if we want to build a business, but we are being forced to consider alternatives. This is unacceptable. Next-generation mobile augmented reality has the potential to DRIVE SALES OF IPHONES, but as long as Apple is blocking work here, there is a huge opportunity for competitors to jump into the fray and court the developer community. If this keeps up, the IPhone will remain as the coolest phone on the block, but someone else will have the ultimate mobile AR platform.

Think about it Apple! Let’s work something out, and soon, so we can get back to the task of advancing the technology and creating some mind-blowing applications.

Call me, mmmkay? I want my candied apple.

Robert