Layar Stream UI

Yesterday was a very significant day for the AR world, as Layar released their 3.5 release with a new functionality called Stream. While this can be viewed as a UI change and yet another way of presenting AR information, this is in fact a huge step in the direction of AR as a first class medium.

In that sense this is no less significant than the first consumer version of the web browser was (say Mosaic 1.03 or Netscape 0.9 so you will).

Let me explain why.

Until now, AR content has been served and displayed as yet another domain specific application, in many senses:

• brand specific (for branding and PR purposes)
• region specific (one app or layer per region, e.g. a local hamburger joint)
• application specific (literally: stand alone AR apps are still out there)

Within the Layar platform, a single AR browser for multiple platforms and targeted at the global market was already a fact. But each AR content item (the Point of Interest, POI in short) was still confined to it’s defining layer, which is of course the under control of one publisher per individual layer. So even if a publisher would want to publish the richest possible AR content for a domain, they would be limited by the availability of accurate AR content to them.

For a example (and this is real): there might be several branches of banks who publish their own, branded version of a “ATM finder” layer. They might not have accurate data about all available ATM’s or leave the competing branches out because of better brand recognition. Which is inevitable or even fine as a business decision. For the end user, who just wants to find the nearest ATM, this is very awkward; they have to first find all available ATM finder layers ad then open them, one by one. In Stream everything is combined and accessible by just the single search term “ATM”.

Now don’t get me wrong, I do recognize the importance of having the Single Layer concept for branding, ownership and even paid business models. Even more, this is one of the enablers four our business model behind TAB worldmedia. Even more, it benefits the end user as well, as this is a way to communicate the source and thus trustworthyness for specific content. I do trust the branch owner of a certain ATM brand more than just a generic publisher regarding location and availability.

So this is where Layar steps in and created a really smart compromise. Stream combines the best of two worlds in a very elegant way: it makes the most relevant AR content available to the end user, while still providing context and branding when a user “dives in” and opens the POI, as this is still displayed in its own context and branded layer.

The whole stream approach is exciting for yet another reason: it means that we have a significant and diverse offering of AR content in many regions already, which justifies a unified and categorized or searchable, well, stream of AR data. In other words, there’s so much content out there that a simple Layer catalog approach is not sufficient any more for discovery. And thus, it signifies the emancipation of AR as a first class content medium, as stated above.

I’m really excited to see this happen within a year after the launch of the first open AR browsers, yet another signal about the high pace at which AR is evolving right now!

Read the original announcement here: Layar revolutionizes Mobile Content Discovery with new Stream Technology powered browser.

Note: Layar Stream is available for Android right now from the Android Market, iPhone users have to wait a little as the approval process needs to be completed before they can update their version through the AppStore.

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Chris Cameron of RWW asks Open or Closed: What’s the Best Path for Mobile Augmented Reality?

The best path is open, no question about it. This “browser” model is the only way an AR app like Layar (or Wikitude) can survive beyond the gimmicky “app” life cycle. Just ask yourself: do I want to install the gazillionth “metro maps” app when visiting Paris, or just type “metro” in my standard AR browser and get the results (remember, the thing is location aware)?

So.

Going further, I envision a future for mobile AR where geo-tagged data points will be browsed in a generic way. By that time, the geo browser or whatever you will call it becomes a basic functionality of any mobile device, likely pre-installed and hopefully also downloadable from several vendors.

How Open is Open?

The currently available AR browsers (Wikitude, Layar) both have an open model – what they call the API, but in essence it is a formatting definition of a POI list, just like html is used for standard web browsers. At the same time both a closed with regards to their catalog and discovery model, in other words, AR data can only be consumed through either browser once a source has been explicitly registered and thus becomes part of their catalog. This make sense for now, as the market is very young and there are no other mechanisms for discovery or established yet. Remember when the www had only a few thousand sites, catalog services like Yahoo! made sense, they became obsolete after the number of web pages became too huge to be cataloged and search engines started to become the new way for discovering relevant results (and so Yahoo! transformed itself into a destination site including a search engine).

Another key aspect of the www is that there’s no need to explicitly add your content to some kind of catalog, just put it up and it will be found by aggregators (note: this is an evolving goal, we’re not there yet and have to do with SEO for the good or bad for a while – Linked Open Data is one of the answers here).

Following this analogy, this is what we need for AR to really become a mature way to “browse the world”:

• better UX for the mobile hardware (eventually glasses and lenses)
• open standard for AR data publishing
• open standard for AR data queries
• standardized AR browsers / clients

The path to real Open AR

The good news is that there are a lot of lessons learned from the regular www to be applied and a lot of existing open specifications and protocols which can be used. To mention a few:

• publish using linked open data standards (semantic web, e.g. RDF – at least for metadata to support discoverability)
• support a real time experience from the start (to avoid kludges like Twitter afterwards)
• support social graphs from the start (AR is about you and your social network too)
• use open standards for the transfer protocol, XMPP makes a lot of sense here

Two months ago, Tish Shute presented at the Mobile Monday conference in Amsterdam and introduced the AR Wave initiative to me. This looks like a very strong contender to evolve into the open AR web. If you’re interested in this matter you really should read up on this initiative!

Oh, and for now and the next few years we should really be very happy with our catalog based AR browsers, Layar and Wikitude are paving the road as innovator and evangelizer for a whole new industry. You can be sure they will keep stretching the experience to the limits as currently imposed by the handsets and immature technology.

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My first thought about the iPad, triggered by Tim Bray: Nothing Creative.

At the first glance I could not agree more with Tim. There’s nothing revolutionary about this whole iPad thing, it just let’s you “consume the web”.

At the other hand, this looks like the perfect execution of the whole “web tablet” idea which surfaced ten years ago (2000, 2001) and then almost vanished. I think the iPad is the culmination of evolutionary innovation, helped by Moore’s law.

For geeks there’s not much fun, no way to tinker and extend. Then, as soon as you see it as a nice consumer device and have it lying around your coffee table this might be a very nice gadget (at a pretty hefty price).

For me there are also a lot of unanswered questions, like why would I want to have this lying on the coffee table, operating under my identity? Security and privacy anyone? Or is it not meant to share after all?

Finally, why do we (yes, including me) always have such a strong opinion about Apple products? They must be doing something right in marketing (remember: HP launched a very neat tablet, the Slate, only a week ago). Some introspection: why are we disappointed when we get the perfect version of something wished for 10 years ago? Is it because it’s too late and we’re already way beyond with our thoughts?

Update: Mark Pilgrim describes his disappointment about the closed nature of the iPad as Tinkerer’s Sunset – be sure to read this excellent writeup!

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Copenhagen Layer in Reality view

Now that the Copenhagen Conference is over we are left with a disappointing end statement. Apparently this was the maximum our world leaders could achieve when they got together: the potential was huge, the output (very) disappointing.

In this light I’m very proud to present a local grass-roots initiative to bring street level measurements of environmental pollution to the real time web and your mobile phone.

Please meet Copenhagenlayer.org and its Augmented Reality counter part Copenhagen Layer (link opens Layar app on your mobile device, only useful if you’re in Copenhagen).

So what is it actually?

It all started with a blog post by Ronni Tino Pedersen in October, about how cool it would be to visualize the local Copenhagen climate and green initiatives as an overlay over the city, using Augmented Reality. There was no clear focus, but people got interested and started to contact him with ideas. And so the plan grew to

1. take tiny portable environmental measurement devices,
2. link these to the internet using mobile phones,
3. have bike messengers drive them around through city traffic,
4. thus get a real-time cross section of the local environment conditions within the city,
5. make these data points visible using Mobile Augmented Reality.

This only could happen by the shared effort of a very enthusiastic virtual team. This team consisted of

• Ronni Tino Pedersen Strategic online communications @ New Media Days at Danish Broadcasting Corporation – initiator and virtual project manager
• Michael Setton, CEO of Sensaris.com who provided the sensors (senspods) and real time measurement set-up
• Tobias Lau, CEO and founder of Socialaction.dk developing environmental projects with a social scientific focus
• Michael Friis, creator of Folketsting.dk created the site copenhagenlayer.org including the Google Maps version
• Tomas Skovgaard, architect maa Tomasskovgaard.com made all graphics
• Peter Vangsbo Madsen, Cowi.com provided specialist advise on air pollution
• And myself as data integrator and developer of the Layar implementation

The result is impressive, using your mobile phone you can experience what the environmental conditions are in your direct neighborhood, and if you’re lucky this data is measured just a few minutes ago! Although not yet directly related to the big picture of the Copenhagen Conference with its focus on CO2 reduction, this project may evolve so that a future version can even visualize the real-time carbon footprint of traffic in the city.

To quote Ronni Tino Pedersen:

I actually think copenhagenlayer in it’s current state will make a greater impact as part of the COP15 long tail than it could have during the summit. By focusing on the enabling possibilities of street level measurements we can now show some grassroots action that the politicians couldn’t. This is a good story with a fair chance of making it through the journalistic filters.

And so it is indeed.

Are you in Copenhagen? Then jump in: open Layer with the Copenhagen Layer

Just keep in mind that this project is in its early stages. The measurements are not very well calibrated yet. Interpretation is always risky and indicative at best, but the trends are real and it is very revealing to see the enormous difference of being surrounded by busy traffic or being amidst a calm city park. There are lots and lots more data available from the senspods than NOx alone, these will be integrated once a solid model for interpretation will be established. And with more sensors and more data points available all kind of aggregated views can be constructed and more reliable conclusions drawn. Heatmaps, rush hour vs. mid day traffic, summer vs winter, the sky is the limit.

This is the start of something great!

Pollution samples on the map

List view with pollutin gauges

Reality view, horizontal layout

Copenhagen Layer in Reality view

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How cool would it be if Second Life was not constrained to its own virtual world, but existed right here, as an overlay on the real world around you?

I tried it at least twice, but never really “got into” Second Life. Maybe because it is too “virtual” for me, too much disconnected from real people and real places. But what if the existing environment could be enhanced with – well… anything goes! Some examples:

• A virtual tour through an ancient Roman settlement which existed once around the 3rd age
• A virtual guide telling you about the history of a building (with audio and video)
• Time travel: see this place how it evolved over time
• Architectural development: project 3D renderings of a future building on a construction site
• Yourself with a virtual “skin”, symbolizing some character you play in a role playing game
• …and then: options to connect in the real world, connect the real you with the game character somehow
• Education: labeling items such as buildings, trees, traffic signs and attach quizzes about their meaning
• Remember the crazy Japanese gadget called Lovegetty? Oh well…
• See? really, the sky is the limit!

That was one of the dreams I had when thinking about the future possibilities of Augmented Reality applications, such as Layar, but then equipped with a real 3D rendering engine and real-time update possibilities.

It looks like this future is actually right around the corner with the announcement of Layar 3D, yesterday. Not all of this will be readily available – let alone work smooth enough on today’s mobile devices, but the start is definitely here and soon available on a handset near you.

Some videos from the announcement embedded below, be sure to check out the Layar 3D site as well!

Read the rest of this entry »

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Alexander van Elsas compiled an excellent list of 10 reasons why Google just reinvented online communication. You should read that blog post now, if you haven’t already!

I do agree that Google does Wave the right way – it’s all about openness, Alexander’s points 2 and 3 should make most critical users and developers happy.

But then Google still has the business advantage of having all aggregated data in their silo’s – they will be the exclusive owner of virtually all communication data in the world. This gives them enormous business advantages in terms of finding out what people are discussing, right now. All this can be put in perspective with data mining of all previous communication. The logical exploitation is ever more targeted advertising (adding location, local time, mood, communication partners and such to the expression). But being able to watch real time trends in high resolution, fine grained up to the user level in the context of their social network will likely enable entirely new business models, which we can not even imagine right now.

Does this matter for the individual user?
Maybe, privacy is potentially at risk even more than it is now. Whatever will happen, great power comes with great responsibility and the slogan “do not evil” applies more than ever before.

At the same time I’m really excited to see this happen and will most likely join Wave as soon as it becomes available.

What did Scott McNealy say again? “You have zero privacy anyway, get over it” . And that was ten yars ago.

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