Following Dr. Alt’s Welcome Address, CTO Peter Meier took the stage to talk about progress, growth, and most importantly, the process of making the experience of accessing digital information more intuitive and convenient.
In his address, “Making the Digital a Natural Experience”, Meier stressed the importance that all digital experiences need to be natural, intuitive, and fun- an interaction that bridges the gap between virtual and physical. Meier added that though there are many that talk about accomplishing this, metaio is making measurable steps to make this a reality.
“It’s important to have a dream- it’s also important to make it come true,” noted Meier.
junaio is one of metaio’s most visible benchmarks- the world’s most advanced AR browser saw tremendous growth in the last year in available content, developers, and channels in development (per developer) of at least 300%. More channels active per developer means more content, and both Meier and metaio believe that great content combined with great technology is the key to utility. Overall usefulness is imperative for AR to become the next mass medium.
Meier detailed some of the advancements we’ve made in the past year:
- junaio has incorporated visual search, giving any user instant access to junaio AR content
- junaio’s SCAN functionality incorporated QR code and barcode reading
- metaio created 8 new patent families, with 10 patents granted in the past year
In addition, 2011 saw great content advancements for metaio and junaio:
- the junaio Galileo Channel for ProSieben was the first augmented television experience ever
- approximately 10 Million magazines with junaio enabled AR content are delivered every month
- artists and digital designers have been turning more and more to AR to deliver dynamic, original art projects
- the German Green Party used metaio technology to develop a political mobile with large potential for change
Meier announced what will eventually be the metaio Creator, a point and click interface for easily and quickly creating AR content for our software. The Creator will start with junaio and eventually be rolled out to all of metaio’s advanced software solutions.
Meier went on to demonstrate cutting-edge research that would eventually be presented at ISMAR in October- inarguable evidence that metaio is looking toward the future. We may be a product company, but no small part of our efforts are devoted to continually research and developing new technologies and interfaces. And as Meier explained, emerging technologies clearly favor AR. NFC, HTML5, and high powered telecom networks all point to enabling richer, smoother AR experiences.
Our CTO closed his presentation with a brief comparison between AR and the gaming industry, which had a gradual climb before ascending to a $65 Billion industry. Some of the gaming industry’s largest advancements came in the form of outside hardware and chipset manufacturers like NVIDIA. metaio has embarked on similar initiatives by entering into collaborative R&D partnerships with mobile chipset and hardware providers.
As Meier said at the close of his presentation, “Let’s go make this a $65 billion industry!” With the right content and hardware providers working with metaio’s technology, anything is possible.
Stay tuned for our next post- a recap of John C Haven’s insideAR keynote, “Virtual Advertising Rights”.
The German Green Party used metaio technology to develop a political mobile with large potential for change
““Making the Digital a Natural Experience”, Meier stressed the importance that all digital experiences need to be natural, intuitive, and fun- an interaction that bridges the gap between virtual and physical.”"
I totally agree