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.
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.
InsideAR, the most exciting augmented reality event in the world, will be October 10-11 this year. Not familiar? Check out some photos from last year! [event site]
Ever wonder what Metaio gets up to On The Road? [photo album]
Registration is open for the Augmented World Expo, June 4-5 (formerly ARE). Get in with Early Bird discounts before it’s too late! [registration] (If you read this after April 9, use code AWE3META to get a special discount)
Want to meet Metaio? Make sure to check out our Events page as we update it through the year [events site]
pick of the week: the internet of 1995
Recorded nearly 10 years ago, right here in San Francisco. Fascinating as it is cringe-worthy.
The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
Yeti CGI showcasing Augmented Reality game prototype built with Metaio SDK at the 2013 Game Developer’s Conference
Hello again! Though we haven’t had a Weekest links since (shhh) November 2012, Spring can be a fresh start for everyone. We’ll renew our regular Monday schedule starting next week and on- until then, check out the list below and don’t forget to subscribe!
metaio | junaio recap
Metaio shows off awesome Augmented Reality at GDC 2013, TweakTown [video]
Metaio Augmented Reality Interview @ the ARM booth, 2013 Game Developer’s Conference, featuring @traklord [video]
ARM exhibits Metaio Augmented Reality Product at GDC 2013, featuring @twitt_AR [video]
A Sneak Peak at HP Support’s Augmented Reality App (powered by the Metaio SDK) [video]
“Augmented Reality: What do businesses need to know?”, NetworkWorld [article]
10 Augmented Reality technologies you should know about [slideshow]
SmarTech Publishing Report Says Google Glass Heralds a New Era For The Augmented Reality Business [press release]
Metaio to participate in annual European Satellite Navigation Competition [press release]
Our former intern Sebastian tells us how awesome we are [blog post]
Slanted Magazine, a fully augmented edition powered by Junaio [blog post]
Even though we have extensive documentation for all of our augmented reality software, we thought it was important to give developers, both experienced and new to our platform, the ability to get in-depth explanations on certain topics in the form of weekly webinars. You can sign up for the next Webinar, an advanced SDK session for iOS developers, right here on our dev portal (http://dev.metaio.com), along with recorded versions of all the other sessions, with topics like Content Creation, Intro to SDK, Intro to Junaio, Intro to Creator and more.
Next week is Aumenta.me 2013- the annual meeting point in Spain for the exchange of ideas, experiences, projects and developments of Augmented Reality in Education. Taking place April 20th in Valencia, Spain, it will showcase the best educational AR experiences, including workshops and seminar sessions. Learn more here: [event site]
Dates announced for InsideAR 2013, the most exciting augmented reality conference in the world [event site]
If you missed them, photos from the 2013 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona [album]
Registration is open for the Augmented World Expo, June 4-5 (formerly ARE). Get in with Early Bird discounts before it’s too late! [registration] (If you read this after April 9, use code AWE3META to get a special discount)
Join us at the annual AR Summit in London, June 20th [event site]
To follow Metaio on the road, make sure to check out our Events page as we update it through the year [events site]
pick of the week: April Fools
Out of all the 4/01/13 shenanigans, these were some of our favorites:
Guardian launches Augmented Reality specs to offer immersive liberal insight [article]
My name is Sebastian and I did a one-week internship in the Munich offices of Metaio. Since I have been interested in Augmented Reality (AR) for a long time, I discovered metaio because I already enjoyed their app, Junaio. My main advisor and “personal coach“ was Matthias Greiner, who was extremely hospitable, showing me the company and explaining everything that they do at Metaio. From the first day, I had my own computer and workplace where I could explore different Junaio channels. Especially in the beginning, I was very happy that Matthias spoke German with me, but with most of the international staff I had to speak in English, which was a good chance for me to practice my language skills.
After these “first contacts” with Metaio and Augmented Reality I got my first tasks and was really part of the team. I was allowed to use, for the whole week, the very powerful software Metaio Creator and learned more and more about this program and its potentials. As time flew by, I learned a lot about tracking and finally I was allowed to create my own channel. Eventually, on Friday my channel had been published in the Junaio AR browser.
The picture shows Sebastians trackables of his business cards
Too bad that this was also my last day! I hated to go, but – if I get the chance and Metaio agrees to give a “bothersome” scholar trainee a second chance – I really want to come back for another internship in this great company.
This, unfortunately only for one week, internship was one of the best weeks in my life and that is not a lie!
Sebastian
Dear Sebastian,
We really enjoyed your company and were definitely amazed at how fast you grasped the Metaio idea! It was great to see how quickly you managed to work with the Metaio Creator and understood what is important to know. We hope you are proud about your own junaio channel and will surprise your classmates and teachers with it!
As soon as you are free to join the Metaio team we would be happy to welcome you again!
If you haven’t already heard the news, we went and did something no one has ever done before- Metaio has successfully designed and released a chipset architecture for accelerating augmented reality experiences on semiconductor platforms (like the chips in smartphones).
To coincide with the 2013 Mobile World Congress, we released the third edition of the InsideAR Augmented Reality Magazine featuring the all-new AREngine. If you missed picking one up at MWC, you can download the full version at the previous link, but I thought I’d post our cover story right here. So without further ado, here is the story on the “shot-heard-round-the-world” of the entire Augmented Reality Industry:
Nearly a decade ago, to the day, Thomas Alt and Peter Meier founded Metaio with the intent of advancing Augmented Reality (AR) as the primary interface for experiencing the digital and online worlds. This was a time when the most popular mobile device’s (the Nokia 1100) features were limited to SMS and a calculator. The dawn of the era of the smartphone really did change everything for the Augmented Reality industry, as suddenly the average user could experience through mobile cameras the same visual elements formerly restricted to factory-floor AR installations running on offline high-powered PCs.
Back then it was clear that computer vision and Augmented Reality experiences would greatly benefit from optimizing the software for individual handsets and chipset platforms. It was then that Metaio embarked on developing relationships with OEMs, handset manufacturers and chipset platforms in order to one day realize a fully optimized device, ready for Augmented Reality from the moment the consumer removes it from the shelf.
Despite hardware limitations, Metaio was able to make leaps and bounds with applied research and lowlevel optimizations. Their award-winning R&D team was responsible for the first commercial deployment of 3-D tracking and recognition on a mobile device. Metaio’s engineers were also the first to align a given smartphone camera with gravity, educating the sensor on how to better perceive its surroundings like the human eye. In fact, Metaio has made incredible software developments in 2012 alone.
In 2009, it was no less than a technological feat to get a top-of-the-line HD camera connected to an offline desktop PC to recognize a single pre-designed image and render a single 3-D model in real-time. With the latest low-level optimizations, Metaio has achieved recognizing 100 unique images and overlaying 100 unique 3-D models, all on a mobile device. If Metaio can accomplish these things without having any prior access to the processors and sensors inside these devices, imagine what mobile users could do with a fully AR-ready smartphone.
Whether it’s Google’s Project: Glass concept or popular movies like Minority Report or Terminator, nearly all of the popular references to Augmented Reality depict an “always on” interface. The camera is constantly scanning, detecting, recognizing and overlaying information and content onto the real world. In order to achieve this vision (something Metaio refers to as the “Augmented City”) of ubiquitous interaction, it is imperative that the groups developing the hardware are working with those developing the software.
For this reason, Metaio began developing a piece of hardware IP now known as the “AREngine”, an architecture designed specifically to accelerate Augmented Reality performance in mobile hardware, and one of Metaio’s longstanding platform partners, ST-Ericsson, will be the first to adopt and deploy it on silicon. The AREngine will propel Augmented Reality into the future and will do for the industry what the addition of the GPU did for the gaming industry.
Before the populace sports head mounted displays that resemble eyeglasses; before society adopts wearable computing; before contact lenses come in 16, 32 and 64 gigabyte models; before we exist in an Augmented World – there must be the first step. The future of Augmented Reality starts now with the first ever introduction and implementation of the AREngine.
Welcome to always on, always augmented - powered by Metaio.
MUNICH & SAN FRANCISCO, 10 DECEMBER 2012: Metaio, the world leader in augmented reality (AR) software and solutions today released the latest version of its Metaio Creator, the only commercially available drag-and-drop design software, now with the ability to manage content directly from the cloud.
“People aren’t necessarily experts in Augmented Reality yet,” said Peter Meier, Metaio CTO. “The Metaio Creator makes it easy for them to not only launch an experience but also to scale their content – massively, through simple cloud content management.”
The Metaio Creator is the only augmented reality content management tool available. If you use augmented reality content now or plan to make an augmented reality app, this is the best solution possible. Drag and drop to augment content in just minutes, and manage that same content through the Metaio Cloud without ever having to submit an app update. If you’re starting fresh, you can even build the actual app interface – without any coding or programming required.
There are over 15 Million magazines delivered every month with fresh augmented reality content. Each month, those publishers easily swap the content out for the next issue or campaign without ever having to resubmit a mobile application. Recently the Metaio Creator and cloud were used in over 200 million innovative product catalogs, each containing more than 40 instances of augmented reality experiences, all in an app smaller than 7 megabytes.
Publishers, Designers, Brands and Agencies don’t always have access to Augmented Reality developers. This tool allows them to easily integrate and manage augmented reality content in their mobile ecosystems.Learn more and download the free version today for Windows PC or Mac OS X.
Learn all about this amazing new service:
In addition to augmenting magazines, catalogs and other print media, the Metaio Creator is ready to augment entire objects and environments, just like in popular science fiction movies like Minority Report or Avatar. Advanced users can import point clouds and SLAM maps just like any other asset, and drag and drop the augmentations just as easily.
Now available for PC and OS X 10.7 and later.
Download the free version of the Metaio Creator today at http://metaio.com/products/creator and start building your first augmented reality experience!
Latest Junaio Newsletter – more channels, more projects and more exciting mobile augmented reality updates [article]
Prototyping with Metaio Engineer 5.0 and the FARO Camera Arm [blog]
Certified Developer AVK Terwey has got a pretty cool new Junaio channel for Gitterstar involving some Soccer [link]
Junaio Augmented Reality exhibition and developer Sander Veenhof use Graffiti as a marker [article]
Augmented Reality Portal, by developer LiveViewStudio [video]
there are things that are happening
Augmented Reality Lawyer Brian Wassom writes of the looming issues of pornography, perspective and anonymity with regard to augmented reality eyewear [blog]
Microsoft appears to be working on a Google Glass type project of its own, according to new patent [article]
Four perspectives on Augmented Reality and its future [article]
IKEA Awarded Best Augmented Reality App of 2013 [article]
The folks over at SCARLET are doing some great education work with Junaio and Augmented Reality- learn more at their blog
A “neu” app review for Junaio from Smartphone Mania [article]
Great Android App Review of Junaio from AppEggs [article]
The University of Southern California has launched a great print media campaign featuring Junaio to activate and augment their USC Dornsife Magazine [video]
Blast from the past: controlling an augmented reality robotic arm with gesture-based interactions [video]
there are things that are happening
Ray Kurzweil predicts that “brains will move to the cloud” at DEMO conference. Wacky. [video]
Orbotix releases Sphero and lets you play with Augmented Reality beavers. Seriously. [video]
but let’s be serious- the internet really only cares that Google did something
Google releases “Ingress” an Augmented Reality / Alternate Reality MMORPG to a private beta. Yes, all of our emails are on that list, and so should yours be.
Happy Thanksgiving and/or enjoy the rest of your week!
Posted by Trak 
