Metaverse One

2012 - End of the known....

2012-01-23T22:39:00.000-08:00

So much has happened since my last post. The end of 2011 saw many tech developments, announcements, events, passing of giants, IPOs, and the list goes on. Definitely I owe back coverage to the many wonderful things I have seen in recent travels that took me from the land of the vikings, to the mountains of Mordor (New Zealand), and parts in between. But now, happy 2012. It is year of the Dragon,

Future of virtuality in-the-making: Reflections from Stanford University

2011-08-23T11:58:00.000-07:00

I want to share a well written post titled, 'Future of virtuality in-the-making: Reflections from Stanford University' by Ates Gursimsek for the Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation's Blog. Ates is a PhD researcher at Roskilde University, friend, and visiting scholar at Stanford University's H-STAR Institute who studies collaborative design and innovation in virtual worlds. Ates

SIGGRAPH 2011

2011-08-20T07:34:00.000-07:00

So this August in Vancouver, Canada was SIGGRAPH 2011. SIGGRAPH (Special Interest Group on GRAPHics and Interactive Techniques) is the annual conference on computer graphics (CG) convened by the ACM SIGGRAPH organization and this was the first time it was held in Canada. The conference was attended by tens of thousands of computer professionals and had a strong presence of Canadian companies,

Building our 3D web with OurBricks

2011-08-02T13:21:00.000-07:00

For years I have been wanting to see 3D on the web become ubiquitous and with Katalabs' OurBricks, I am closer than ever to seeing that dream come true.Leveraging the power of WebGL and its supported browsers, OurBricks allows users to examine a full 3D version of any model uploaded to the site with no need for any plug-in. Visitors to the site can download content, embed it in any webpage as

Unboxing the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play and augmented reality

2011-07-08T12:31:00.000-07:00

I just received in the mail my Sony Ericsson Xperia Play smartphone. This is the first PlayStation certified Android smartphone, hence it is also known as the PlayStation phone.The phone has a slide-out game pad, sports the Qualcomm Scorpion processor clocked at 1GHz (which runs alongside the on-board Adreno GPU and 380MB RAM), has a 4 inch backlit LCD screen with a resolution of 480x854, a 5.1-

WebGL Camp #3

2011-06-17T15:04:00.000-07:00

On June 10 at the Google Campus in Mountain View, California, the third WebGL Camp took place. For those that need a refresher on WebGL visit here. MC Henrik Bennetsen of OurBricks and Kenneth Russell from Google hosted WebGL Camp #3, a full day of presentations, demos, and conversations about this developing graphics API. Session videos in order of the agenda. Rachid El Guerrab - Human Engines

Talking heads!

2011-06-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

Cool combination of the Kinect and an avatar from Bitmanagement Software GmbH! IVN from Bitmanagement Software GmbH on Vimeo.

Where A.R.E. you in 2011?

2011-05-24T12:02:00.000-07:00

This video covers the Augmented Reality Event 2011 last week in Santa Clara, California. A nice variety of people from all over the world shared stories of AR related success, vision, and technologies. I will do a proper write up soon.Thanks again Ori and Tish!

A meetup with no-plugin required, thanks WebGL!

2011-05-01T14:40:00.000-07:00

April 28th was the first WebGL Developer Meetup here in the Bay area with a great mix from industry titans to garage developers. Managed by the Khronos group, WebGL is a web-based graphics library that extends the capability of the JavaScript programming language to allow it to generate interactive 3D graphics within any compatible web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari).Web3D veteran and my fellow

The Elements of Argon

2011-04-22T14:17:00.000-07:00

Last month I got the opportunity to meet up with augmented reality veteran Blair MacIntyre. Blair directs the Augmented Environments Lab at Georgia Tech, and his research focuses on educational, entertainment and gaming applications of augmented and mixed reality environments, especially those that use personal displays (ie. ranging from see-through head-worn displays to video-mixed handheld

Autodesk finally brings real-time 3D to the AEC Indutry

2011-04-12T14:58:00.000-07:00

Autodesk recently released Showcase, a real-time 3D presentation and rendering software for the AEC (Architecture, Engineering & Construction) Industry. Showcase allows architects, designers, engineers, and managers the ability to import 3D CAD data (mainly Autodesk formats) into an virtual environment for creating 2D image renderings, movies, and real-time navigation of the 3D model.Showcase has

The World at My Finger Tips

2011-03-15T15:29:00.000-07:00

So now that we have a Microsoft Kinect at the office (thanks Beesley), here is the first video of me using it to control navigation on digital globe X3D Earth. The display is on our Spatial View 3D projection, no glasses needed, TV for a whole new dimension of coolness.I have to admit that controller free navigation is the way to go when zooming around the planet. I just need to tweak some of the

A week of the Game Developers Conference 2011

2011-03-09T16:21:00.000-08:00

GDC 2011 just finished last week and wow do I have a game developer hangover! What an insane week of intense sessions on gaming, walking the expo floor, aisle conversations, meetings, and great parties.This year I was in on a media pass and got full access to the latest and greatest from the game industry. No I didn't get the Google Chrome Notebooks or Motorola Xooms they passed out to the

A Hadouken good time!!!!

2011-02-16T20:51:00.000-08:00

I got the opportunity to attend the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 Launch Party in San Francisco.This was my first game launch party and what a fun time it was. The event was hosted by David Banner at the Mezzanine in downtown San Francisco. Music from DJ Qbert played to a packed house with live appearances from Hieroglyphics, Killah Priest and surprise guest Ghostface Killah.Pictures from the event can be

WebGL Camp - Pushing forward the 3D Web

2010-12-20T11:16:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month was the second WebGL Camp in Silicon Valley. Organized by Henrik Bennetsen (CEO of Katalabs) and Christian Greuel (Manager of SRI Geovisualization Center), the camp is a developer focused event that aims to bring together the people who are writing the WebGL spec with those who build projects on it for some show and tell.WebGL is based on OpenGL ES 2.0 and provides a

Google search and browse the Body

2010-12-16T13:04:00.000-08:00

I recently wrote a post on Google's Body Browser that I saw at WebGL Camp#2 this past week. Since that post, the web has exploded with news about this application and web traffic to the blog and video (almost 10,000 views in less than 48 hours) have skyrocketed. Here is the video I took from WebGL camp where it was presented.To experience the application for yourself, get anyone of these three

Augmented Reality Developer Camp 2010

2010-12-09T12:53:00.000-08:00

On December 4, 2010 at the GAFFTA space in San Francisco, the second Bay Area Augmented Reality Developer Camp took place. Sponsored by Layar, Metaio, Qualcomm, and Makerlab, the event brought together AR professionals from as far east as New York and south as San Diego. Presentation sessions covered a range of AR related topics. These include:Brian Blau has an excellent write-up here on his

Gathering Intel

2010-11-30T19:00:00.000-08:00

A few months ago I posted about the Kinect device from Microsoft. Kinect, since its launch in November, has sold over 2.5 million units in less than 30 days. This makes it the fastest adopted consumer electronic device ever, surpassing the recent title holder the iPad. Now what is really impressing me is how the hacking community has gone wild with the device and I recommend visiting

NEXT comes Innovation from Denmark

2010-10-17T14:57:00.000-07:00

At the end of this past summer, I got the opportunity to present at NEXT2010 located in Arhus, Denmark. Now you wouldn't know by looking at the site, but I promise I was there. Started by the Innovation Lab Denmark six years ago, this annual event covers the latest and greatest in a variety of disciplines. The Lab brings inspiring international speakers and incredible technology to an event that

Ogmenting My Games

2010-09-17T17:51:00.000-07:00

This past summer in New York I got the opportunity to meet up and interview Ori Inbar, CEO and cofounder of Ogmento, an augmented reality gaming company. I would easily say that Ogmento is a leader in the commercial AR gaming space and Ori is one of the industry's key players. He is a founder/author at Gamesalfresco, a leading blog on augmented reality, one of the organizers of the Augmented

Time to Kinect with your video games

2010-09-12T18:20:00.000-07:00

So Microsoft has created a controller-free gaming and entertainment experience for the Xbox 360 console platform called Kinect. Originally labeled Project Natal, the device is a webcam style add-on peripheral that enables users to control and interact with the Xbox 360 without the need to touch a game controller through a natural user interface using gestures, spoken commands, or presented

Augment a part of it, New York, New York

2010-08-25T18:55:00.000-07:00

As part of a presentation I have next week that focuses on mixed reality, I built an augmented reality application for viewing various 3D CAD models. For the time allotted to this project I kept it simple and sweet. I decided to use a traditional marker here as the scene had too much visual noise for image recognition with all the foot and car traffic. Markers on my iPod Touch load different

AR-cadabra with the Virtual Magician

2010-08-19T13:57:00.000-07:00

So I attended the New York Augmented Reality (ARNY) meetup on Tuesday night, which was awesome, and one of the people I got the chance to meet was Marco Tempest, the Virtual Magician. Now I am familiar with Marco by his Youtube videos that blend the latest in technology with magic for super cool presentations and illusions.A native of Zurich, Marco has won numerous awards for his use of illusion

What's UpNext?

2010-08-12T09:00:00.000-07:00

A few months back a friend told me of a 3D city map app called UpNext. Naturally being a digital city geek I downloaded the app for my iPod Touch to give it a quick look-see. Launching the app gave me the choice of several 3D city maps (Austin, Boston, New York, Portland, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.) to download that I could access offline which is a super plus for those with an iPod Touch

TechTour 2010: Layar'ing it up

2010-07-23T07:59:00.000-07:00

So I just got back State-side from a seven week tour through western Europe that included a series of events and video interviews with leading players in augmented and virtual reality technologies. One of my destinations was Amsterdam, Nederlands and besides enjoying the madness of the World Cup finals, I had the opportunity to stop by mobile augmented reality company Layar's office for a chat.