It’s that time of year again, as the Augmented World Expo has renewed and expanded the annual award for the best of the best in the augmented reality industry, the “Auggies”. Previously consisting of only a single award, the competition now has 6 categories, and Metaio and its partners are competing in 4 of them!
For the next two weeks, awards will be open to public voting in order to narrow down the entries for each category to just 5 finalists. We’re competing against some of the best and most creative apps in the world- we’d love your support. Please take a moment to vote for our entries- individual links are listed below, or just click on one of the category buttons below to go straight to the entry.
We always like to highlight incredible work built on our software, which is why we’re thrilled to tell you about this awesome project from Winnipeg-based Zenfri, “Clandestine Anomaly”. This will be the first mobile game that utilizes vision-based augmented reality, GPS, and actual real-world elements. Check out their video on Kickstarter and help support the launch of this amazing augmented reality game!
metaio | junaio
Seeing things differently: are brands missing the boat with Augmented Reality? [The Drum]
Developer Sander Veenhof merges 3-D printing with Augmented Reality in the Ultimarker [blog]
Ever play Jenga? Ever play Jenga….on Augmented Reality? [JengAR video]
Cronovizor: The AR Time Viewing Machine (powered by Junaio) [video]
Nimlok utilizes Metaio software to visualize custom exhibits in 3-D [whitepaper]
Registration is open for the Augmented World Expo, June 4-5 (formerly ARE). Use code AWE3META to get a special discount, courtesy of Metaio. Come see Metaio deliver unmatched insight on the industry along with the latest and greatest of AR demos, including the brand-new AREngine! [registration]
Meet Metaio at the Augmented Reality Summit, June 20th in London [event site]
Interested in speaking, sponsoring or attending InsideAR, the most exciting event in the augmented reality industry? Contact us! [event site]
pick of the week: Oculus VR used to simulate death by guillotine
Naomi Kawase has a pretty cool job: as NGRAIN’s UX (User Experience) Designer, she’s focused on industrial augmented reality interaction design and production management. We recently picked her brain about industry challenges, upcoming trends, and the ins-and-outs of the job. Read on to find out what a day in the life of an AR UX designer is like and why she thinks collaboration is so important in this emerging market:
Great to see companies like NGRAIN utilizing the Metaio SDK for complex industrial augmented reality experiences. Like Metaio, NGRAIN will be showcasing their projects at this year's Augmented World Expo. If you plan on attending, use code AWE3META at registration to receive a 200.00 discount courtesy of Metaio.
If you'd like to learn more about industrial augmented reality solutions from Metaio, please visit http://metaio.com/products/engineer
We are thrilled to welcome Alexander Oser, the newest member of Metaio’s Business Development Team to the San Francisco office. In the tradition of those who have gone before him, we’re subjecting “Xan” to the same brief interview to learn more about our company’s culture and to get to know the man behind the Xan.
Interested in joining the best augmented reality company in the world? Check out our company page and our job listings today!
Xan, How did you get here (Metaio)?
I was born and raised in beautiful Minneapolis, spent time in stunning Detroit, went to school at Augsburg and moved to crazy San Francisco about 18 months ago. Since graduating, I have spent my time working in retail for Target Corp. in Minneapolis and Gap, Inc. here in San Francisco. I first heard about Augmented Reality and Metaio through meeting Brendan Scully. After talking with people from Metaio, I quickly realized the potential AR has in the retail space. I became interested in AR immediately. After following Metaio for the past 18 months, I heard about an opening in the SF office and applied. A month later, I started my first day.
What do you like most about working for Metaio?
After working for two larger companies, it has been a great experience and change coming to work in an environment where everyone wears many hats. The energy coming into the office every day has been motivating and fun. It has been a big change from my past experiences in how every day poses new challenges. This, along with the belief that we are truly working on the future, makes work very exciting.
What do you do when you’re not Augmenting Reality?
I love exploring San Francisco & the Bay Area – the food, music, hikes, views. Living here has been an incredible experience. Other than that, my passion is golf – I have been playing for 14 years and love the game. I just had my first hole in one this past year in Ireland at a course called Ballybunion.
Tell us a secret.
I have a French twin.
Photographic evidence:
French Xan (left) with Brendan Scully in San Francisco’s Union Square
French Xan & Trak Lord (right) pose with a mutual friend at a charity event in San Francisco
Metaio and Junaio partner Concepteers GmbH has released yet another very cool project. This time, they worked with Toshiba Germany to place Toshiba products directly into the mobile user’s living room using augmented reality. Or office, or car, or basically anywhere you could use a phone!
The Toshiba Digital Living Room app works together with Toshiba’s Product Catalog to allow mobile users in the DACH region to visualize reduced-scale products like L4, M6, L7, M8 and M9 Televisons or the Qosmio X870, Satellite P870 and Satellite U920t notebooks.
Michael Mathieu, Managing Director of Concepteers, says: “We went with Metaio as the AR provider since it is widespread and offers an advanced AR feature set that allows us to develop the best possible AR experience for our customers.”
Concepteers is a valued partner of Metaio, and continues to deliver amazing augmented reality projects with our technology. Check them out on Facebook or visit their website to learn more about the company and the projects they release.
The app is available today for both Google Play and iOS devices. You can visit Toshiba’s website to learn more about the augmented reality app at http://toshiba.de/ar or just scan this convenient QR code with your device (hopefully using Junaio!) to be directed automatically to the experience.
Metaio is very happy to announce the start of the Metaio International Augmented Reality Developer Contests, with 4 separate categories open for competition. Design incredible content; launch the best AR Game yet; build an app that solves a real-world problem; or try your hand at Junaio and publish the most “popular” channel.
Grand prize is a trip to Munich this fall for the annual InsideAR augmented reality conference where you will present your entry to some of the world’s most renowned technology visionaries and professionals. Good luck, and submit your intent to compete today!
Registration is open for the Augmented World Expo, June 4-5 (formerly ARE). Use code AWE3META to get a special discount, courtesy of Metaio. Come see Metaio deliver unmatched insight on the industry along with the latest and greatest of AR demos, including the brand-new AREngine! [registration]
Meet Metaio at the Augmented Reality Summit, June 20th in London [event site]
Interested in speaking, sponsoring or attending InsideAR, the most exciting event in the augmented reality industry? Contact us! [event site]
pick of the week: “White Mean Wearing Google Glass” Tumblr.
I’m not entirely sure what this really says about the future of wearable computing, but it’s certainly a talking point. It also highly amusing to see techworld celebrities like Pete Cashmore (below) and Joshua Topolsky sporting the famous glasses in glamour-shot-like glory. I can’t decide whether we’re going to look back on these with awe or ridicule. Think Game Boy vs. 80′s cellphone. Mix in that it’s turning into a fashion statement and there’s a high probability it will be the latter. I’m hoping for the best.
3-D Measurement technology provider, and longtime Metaio partners FARO recently wrote a post on their experiences with Metaio’s vertical solution software for the Industrial sector, the Metaio Engineer. We thought we’d share it with our readers as well, just in case any of you missed it.
In case some of you didn’t know (or forgot), Metaio began as an enterprise to provide industrial solutions to manufacturing and automotive firms, and it’s really only since the dawn of the smartphone that Metaio has seriously pursued marketing and advertising use-cases for AR.
For greater insight on Metaio’s industrial history, you can watch this Industrial AR video playlist, read the Metaio Engineer Whitepaper or scan past blog articles featuring industrial augmented reality. In the meantime, enjoy FARO’s post, and make sure to visit their website for more information on state-of-the-art 3-D precision and measurement technology. And if you want to see FARO first-hand, don’t miss the 2013 InsideAR Conference in Munich, October 10-11.
Thanks again to FARO, and enjoy the post!
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Augmented Realitymeans to enrich and enhance the user’s view of the real world with additional digital information, e.g. a virtual 3D-model that originates from CAD.
This content is made visible on a monitor, a tablet PC, within the user’s field of view using a head-mounted display or projected onto the respective area. Virtual and actual realities merge in the most natural manner that is possible.
metaio Engineer is software that brings Augmented Reality to the industrial field. And it is a perfect complement to an existing measuring arm. The best of both worlds is combined: a quick and direct visualization with the precision of a measuring arm.
With the new release of metaio Engineer 5.0, an interface to support FARO measuring arms is already built-in. All necessary features are integrated by default, from calibration to functions that support your daily tasks.
Previously, in case of quality control every relevant point had to be measured to discover deviations between the CAD model and the related assembly part. metaio Engineer and Augmented Reality accelerate this process by identifying errors and selectively measuring deviations.
These are the basic steps to set up an Augmented Reality system based on the FARO Edge:
1. Mount an industry camera with available adapters onto the grip of the measuring arm 2. Calibrate camera and spatial relation between camera and measuring arm 3. Determine position of the arm in relation to the subject of analysis 4. Visualize a CAD model onto the existing model, part or product 5. Compare planned vs. actual state, measurements and more features
If you haven’t already heard, Metaio has expanded its US operation to Dallas, Texas, longtime technology hub and host to companies like AT&T, RIM, Ericsson and of course, Texas Instruments.
It’s from the latter that we welcome our newest member, Rajesh Narasimha. Before joining Metaio, Rajesh was a member of TI’s Video, Imaging and Vision Lab in the System and Applications R&D Center. There he authored and co-authored more than 35 publications while filing more than 10 patents.
Holding both a Masters and PhD in Electrical & Computer Engineering, the +7 years of computer vision experience Rajesh brings to the Metaio US team will be invaluable as we continue our efforts to create hardware that will accelerate augmented reality experiences current and future mobile devices.
From Rajesh: “Metaio is the industry leader in AR technology and I feel that with my background and experience I can contribute to the existing and emerging areas of embedded augmented and vision technology.”
Metaio has a long history of working with mobile and semiconductor platforms all over the world. We hope to both continue and bolster new and existing relationships in our pursuit of introducing the AREngine into mobile devices, just as we announced at the 2013 Mobile World Congress. The new office in Dallas is a huge step towards making that happen
As the span of Metaio grows, so too does the company- Metaio is hiring for nearly all development and business roles! Interested in joining the team? Check out our Career page and learn more about the company.
Upcoming webinar: Advanced Session for Metaio SDK – Unity
Ready for a deep-dive into developing incredible augmented reality experiences with the Metaio SDK while working in a Unity environment? Don’t miss this week’s development webinar. [Sign Up!]
Registration is open for the Augmented World Expo, June 4-5 (formerly ARE). Use code AWE3META to get a special discount, courtesy of Metaio. Come see Metaio deliver unmatched insight on the industry along with the latest and greatest of AR demos, including the brand-new AREngine! [registration]
Meet Metaio at the Augmented Reality Summit, June 20th in London [event site]
Interested in speaking, sponsoring or attending InsideAR, the most exciting event in the augmented reality industry? Contact us! [event site]
pick of the week: the future of wearable technology | PBS off book
Interesting short film on the future of things like Google Glass, brought to you by some of the foremost scientists and engineers.
Registration is open for the Augmented World Expo, June 4-5 (formerly ARE). Use code AWE3META to get a special discount, courtesy of Metaio [registration]
Meet Metaio at the Augmented Reality Summit, June 20th in London [event site]
Interested in speaking, sponsoring or attending InsideAR, the most exciting event in the augmented reality industry? Contact us! [event site]
pick of the week: Oblivion
You’ve probably already seen the trailer, but we’re just tickled to see yet another Tom Cruise movie that features egregious exposure of CGI Augmented Reality.
Posted by Trak 
