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
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.
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.
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.
Brought to you by the same minds that brought you- well, Augmented Minds, this is a brand-new service that allows people to attach real-life sentiment in the form of digital greeting cards, anchored to everyone’s favorite snail mail: postcards. With pixories, friends and family can upload their own special videos and send them anywhere in the world (hopefully, to someone you know) to be accessed through the pixories app in true augmented reality fashion.
Pixories is currently available as a free download for iPhone and iPad, with an Android version soon to follow. This incredible app was built with the powerful Metaio augmented reality software, available for free download right from our website, http://metaio.com/products.
From pixories:
“Many of us tend to store their postcards in special places like a picturewall or on front of the fridge and with pixories the memories stored in those cards can be accessed fast and easy”, states Markus Ambrus, CEO and cofounder of pixories. “The possibility of storing digital data in real, common objects like printed postcards fascinates me. Digital Videos now can be wrapped in a real gift without the need of hardware like USB-Sticks or CDs and DVDs.”
Video:
“But where do they get these wonderful postcards?!” you might be saying to yourself as you wring your hands through your hair. Fear not! You can make them yourself through the pixories website, right here. “What about shipping?!” Well, they do that, too.
Wondering what they’re doing now? Stay up to date with this great new service at their blog, on Facebook, or even on Twitter.
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]
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.
SAN FRANCISCO – FEBRUARY 21, 2013: Metaio today announces an agreement with ST-Ericsson, a leader in wireless platforms and semiconductors. Under the terms of the agreement, ST-Ericsson will integrate Metaio’s Augmented Reality hardware IP, the so-called “AREngine,” into the next generation of ST-Ericsson mobile platforms resulting in the first application processor accelerating Augmented Reality performance on mobile devices.
Metaio’s cutting-edge technology inserts nearly any 3-D and virtual content into the real world by recognizing images, objects and entire environments. In a mobile future that clearly requires smart devices to be ‘always on’ and connected, the Metaio AREngine drastically reduces power consumption making all-day AR experiences possible… read more.
Are you headed to Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress?
Members of the Metaio team will be located at various booths and locations throughout Mobile World Congress 2013. For locations of the Metaio booth and sponsor booths visit www.metaio.com/mwc or download the Metaio @MWC 2013 map below. If you would like to schedule a meeting with one of the team members from Metaio, visit www.metaio.com/mwc and fill out the meeting request form at the bottom of the page.
Many team members from Metaio will be on hand at MWC 2013 at various booths throughout the exhibition halls. Meet the team behind the Augmented Reality technologies shaping the future of how we interact with digital information in the real-world. Visit our booth at MWC and get the chance to meet:
Thomas Alt, CEO of Metaio
Daniel Gelder, SVP Marketing
Sudhanshu Kapoor, BD Manager – OEM’s
Trak Lord, Marketing & Media Relations
And last but not least, don’t miss us at the 2013 Global Mobile Awards Ceremony, Tuesday, February 26 in Hall 4 at the Gran Fira in Barcelona. For more information, check out our last blog post.
We’ll be posting news and updates live from the floor of Mobile World Congress, so make sure to stay tuned on our Twitter and Facebook feeds. And who knows, we might even have time to write a couple posts about our experiences there next week.
We’re pleased to announce that Metaio has been nominated for the prestigious 2013 Global Mobile Awards for the 2013 Mobile World Congress in the category of Best Mobile Service or Product for Automotive. As Metaio has strong roots in augmented reality applications for the car industry, we’re very proud to have the chance to present with our partner, Audi AG in Barcelona this year.
For more information about Metaio Augmented Reality solutions for the Automotive industry, check out “VW Augmented Reality service of the future” [video]
Metaio and Audi AG worked together to develop the Audi eKurzinfo augmented reality assistant app. New Audi A1 owners can download the app for iOS devices and get introduced to their car in just a few minutes- no manual necessary. Through the app, the user can use Metaio’s visual search and recognition technology to identify insignia throughout the vehicle and receive immediate feedback on how to use that particular feature of the new Audi.
The first iteration of the Audi eKurzinfo app was purely image recognition, as showcased in the above video. For 2013, Audi will release the brand new version of the app featuring real-time visual graphics and advanced augmented reality interactions. Audi intends to roll out this service beyond the A1, starting with the A3 but with the potential for future models as well.
If you’re attending the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year, please come visit us! In addition the Awards Ceremony, Metaio will be in Hall 8.1 at the App Planet, showcasing the latest in augmented reality and 3-D technology. We are fortunate to also have amazing partners like Intel, Imagination Technology and ST-Ericsson, at whose booths you can see how Metaio’s technology works with some of the best chipset platforms and handsets out there. For more information, visit our Mobile World Congress page- and feel free to set up a meeting!
For more on the Global Mobile Awards, check out the GSMA Press Release:
4 February 2013, London: The GSMA today announced nominees for the 18th annual Global Mobile Awards. The winners will be presented on Tuesday, 26th February at the GSMA Mobile World Congress, in an afternoon ceremony hosted by one of the UK’s best-loved writers, actors and comedians, David Walliams. In total, 158 nominees have been shortlisted for this year’s Global Mobile Awards; the full list of nominees and awards categories can be found at www.globalmobileawards.com/nominees-2013/
“The GSMA warmly congratulates all the nominees announced today. The competition this year was of an exceptionally high quality, breaking all previous records,” said Michael O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer, GSMA. “Our judging panel has assessed well over 600 entries and nominations for the 37 awards, the largest ever number of honours to be presented at the Global Mobile Awards. It is a tremendous achievement to have been shortlisted and we look forward to recognising the winners at Mobile World Congress next month.”
For 2013 the GSMA introduced several enhancements to the awards, such as the addition of the inaugural ‘Connected Life Awards’, and notable developments in the ‘Best Mobile Technology’ and ‘Apps of the Year’ categories. Thirty-two awards will be presented during the afternoon ceremony, which will begin at 2.30 pm in Hall 4, Conference Village, Auditorium 1, and will be open to all Global Mobile Awards nominees, Mobile World Congress Platinum, Gold and Silver Pass conference attendees and accredited press and analysts attending the Congress.
Also being awarded on Tuesday 26th February are the expanded Government Leadership Awards, which recognise governments from around the world for their innovation and leadership in use of mobile technologies in the public sector; the presentation of these awards will take place at the Government Mobile Forum. The GSMA’s prestigious Chairman’s Award 2013 will be presented at the Leadership Summit on Monday 25th February.
The award for the ‘Best New Mobile Handset, Device or Tablet at Mobile World Congress 2013’ will be identified and selected from those on show at the event. The shortlist for this award will be announced on both Mobile World Live TV and the Global Mobile Awards website on 27th February, with the winner being honoured in a live presentation on Mobile World Live TV the following day.
The Global Mobile Awards 2013 host David Walliams shot to fame through his work, with co-creator Matt Lucas, on the television series “Little Britain” and later “Come Fly With Me.” “Little Britain” has won numerous international awards including three BAFTAs and has been shown in more than 100 countries. In addition to a wide variety of television, stage and film roles, David has worked tirelessly for various charities raising over £7 million, and in September 2011, he swam the length of the River Thames (140 miles) for Sports Relief, raising £1 million in the process. He has also authored a number of best-selling children’s books and is a judge on “Britain’s Got Talent.”
To select the nominees for the 2013 awards, more than 160 independent analysts, journalists, academics and subject matter experts throughout the world participated in the judging process. In addition, the chief technology officers of 14 mobile operators took part in judging the ‘Outstanding Overall Mobile Technology’ award, including CTOs from 3, Etisalat, KT, M1, Movistar, MTN, NTT DoCoMo, Optus, SK Telecom, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile, VimpelCom and Vodafone.
2013 Global Mobile Awards sponsors include: McAfee (Apps of the Year), Myriad (Social & Economic Development) and Telmap (Connected Life Awards and Best Mobile Services). Market data for the ‘Best Mobile App for Consumers’ and ‘Best Mobile App for Enterprise’ categories was provided by Distimo.
The Mobile World Congress 2013 will be held 25th- 28th February at the Fira Gran Via in Barcelona. For further details please visit www.mobileworldcongress.com.
Posted by Trak 
