The AppToyz solution is a gun shaped holder for your mobile phone. There is no electronics in the device, instead the trigger controls two rubberised fingers (for want of a better word) which tap the screen. Of course games will need to be designed specifically for the AR gun to ensure that the fingers tap in the right places. In the video below you can see the gun in action.

I’m not sure about this one, I worry about my expensive phone flying through the air in the heat of an AR battle. It will be interesting to see if developers begin to build compatible games.
From what I understand the gun will be priced around £15-$20 ($25-$30) mark.

The AR Gun in action

www.youtube.com/watch?v=N64IQN1MtdI

The new junaio channel works in conjunction with a popular German TV show called ‘Galileo’. Viewers watching the show are able to interact with the program by using the junaio client and by pointing their smartphone at the TV screen.

During the Galileo program questions are displayed on the screen. Unlike most interactive programs that require you to SMS an expensive number and wait several hours for the result, when the junaio enabled program asks the viewer a question the viewer simply points their smartphone at the screen. The junaio channel which uses natural feature tracking recognises the question; it is then transferred to the viewer’s smartphone. Once on the smartphone the viewer can select the answer without having to send an expensive text. In addition real-time feedback can be provided so it’s great for interactive TV quiz shows. For example, play along to who wants to be a millionaire at home and get instant feedback, even compete with other players watching the same show.

As Peter Meier, CTO of metaio points out, it’s not just about quizzes. The same technology could be used to enable viewers to receive recipes as the chief is making a dish. It’s definitely an interesting idea to enable views to interact with the TV. Take a look at the video of the solution in action. (Video Link)

What TV program would you like to see made interactive this way?

Announcing the 2010 winners

Every year at Augmented Planet we ask you, the augmented reality community to vote for your favourite augmented reality applications of the year. For 2010 we focused the awards on augmented reality for mobile devices.

Before we get to the winners, congratulations to all the nominees who were entered. The winners will each be receiving the highly desirable Augmented Planet Readers Choice Award Crystal Plaque.

Best Augmented Reality Browser Of 2010

This category was always going to be a three-way fight between junaio, Layar and Wikitude. However, notable new entries included in the category were mTrip and DroidAR who were top of the voting outside the big three. In 2009 the Best Augmented Reality Browser Award went to Wikitude. In 2010 we are pleased to annouce that you have voted:

Winner

• Wikitude

‘Here at mobilizy we are proud and excited about retaining the Wikitude’s crown for the Best Augmented Reality Browser. We dedicate this award to our community who keeps providing the support and the feedback we need to continuously improve our products.

Stay tuned – Q1 will bring even more exciting features and partnerships to strengthen Wikitude’s perception by our community and the readers of Augmented Planet.

CEO, Martin Herdina.

Runners up

• Layar
• junaio

Best 3^rd Party Content For An Augmented Reality Browser

This category focused on the best content developed by an independent 3^rd party developer who builds content for junaio, Layar or Wikitude. Almost all these entries are direct nominations by the community.

Winner

• Webcams.Travel

Runners up

• Qype
• Compass & Navigation AR

Best Mobile Augmented Reality Game

The best game category was fiercely contested with voting very tight. However, you have voted the best augmented reality game of 2010 as:

Winner

• Zombie ShootAR for Symbian (Metaio)

Runners up

• Space InvadAR for Android (Zenitum)
• Urban Golf for Android (Anton Pirker)

Best Augmented Reality Campaign

During 2010 we have seen augmented reality used in number of ways to market goods and services. Note that this category was not exclusive to mobile devices.

Winner

• The Gorillaz Plastic Beach (PIAS)

Runners up

• Hotels.com
• Tissot Shopping (Holition)

Thats it for another year, thank to you everyone for voting and to Samsung for providing the prize. The winner incidentally was Ryan Garratt.

Good luck for 2011.

The demo was a Youtube video of a traveller holding up their Nokia phone to a street sign in Japan. Instantly the Japanese text was translated into English and displayed in the camera window. I lost the demo but always found the idea of using augmented reality for translation fascinating.

There have been other augmented reality translation mash-ups since then, all of which required you to take a picture of the text, highlight the text area and then press submit. To be honest very few of these have worked well. I used to do live translation demos at augmented reality events that I spoke at, but most of the time they would fail with even simple three or four word sentences. Either the light wasn’t just right or it just completely messed up a word.

With access to the camera feed, reading the text and doing a live translation on the fly without forcing the user to take a photo is obviously a much more compelling solution. Enter Word Lens from Quest Visual for the iPhone.

Word Lens is a new augmented reality translation application reads text visible in the camera window, translates it, and then overlays the original text with the translation. Better yet the dictionaries are downloaded to the phone so you don’t incur expensive roaming charges while abroad.  Word Lens currently supports Spanish & English and the languages are available as in-app purchases. (normal price $8.99 but currently on 50% discount for $4.99 until 31^st December).
Even if translation is not your thing, the app is free and it comes with a demo mode that enables you to reverse or blank out words. Perfect for those drunken look what my phone can do moments over Christmas.

Take a look at the video below, is this not the future of translation?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2OfQdYrHRs

Get it here:

A year ago we reviewed the application fully when Yell first added augmented reality functionality to the client. If you have used an augmented reality browser before you’ll know sometimes that it can be difficult to select POIs when they are hidden behind each other. Yell solved this problem with one of my favourite features, a rather nifty targeting recital that gave a visual indication on what you were looking at.

The new version of Yell bears no resemblance to its predecessor and has been completely revamped. One of the big differences you’ll notice with the augmented reality view in the new version is the addition of an onscreen map. This rather handy feature saves switching between the AR view and the map view to get your bearings. AR is great for figuring out what is around you and the general direction but it’s not useful for navigating and homing in on the target.

While the map is a welcome addition and very useful, it does feel like it was developed independently. For example, the POIs shown on the map are identified by numbers but the POIs shown in the AR window are identified by name only. Additionally the map is not zoomable so while the map can show 3 POIs the AR window may have 20 or more. But what I would really like to see is the map orientate itself with the direction you are facing so you can use the map to navigate to the target and see the POIs in relation to the map. It will be interesting to see if the map gets perfected and if others copy the map idea.

The rest of the application has be updated significantly to give excellent integration with the phones functionality, for example you can call the business directly with one click or even share the details via SMS/Facebook/Twitter with friends. Useful if you are trying to tell a group of people where to meet.

If you haven’t taken a look at Yell for a while or if you are looking for a local search application then Yell has had a serious revamp and is well worth a look.

Get Yell

AR Invaders and Look Up are two new games courtesy of Soulbit7 that bring the classic alien space invaders genre up to date with a fresh augmented reality feel. The game uses the tried and tested augmented reality formula of enabling the camera window so the action takes place in 360 around your surroundings. You can also team up with other members of the Earth’s Resistance Forces (or your friends) to drive back the alien hordes.

Regardless of whether you decide to take on the aliens alone or with a friend, you’ll need quick reflexes as the aliens don’t hang about waiting for you to shoot them.

AR Invaders / Look Up in action

While it appears are two games, AR Invaders and Look Up, they are both in fact the same game. The difference being AR Invaders is exclusive for the iPhone 4 as it makes use of the gyroscope. iPhone 3G users however can still play the game via AR Invaders.

iPhone 4 owners can download the free AR Invaders Lite version to give the game a try.  (Full price $1.99)  AR Invaders is on special offer of $0.99 so get it while its on special.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl_L0ilxqzs

I did want the HTC Desire Z because of its fantastic looking keyboard, but I’m not exactly falling in love with Android OS.  However I just found a cool looking keyboard for the iPhone 4. It’s integrated into the case and looks pretty sweet.

The cost is a reasonable $70 from Box Wave

The first video is a rather ambitious look at the year 2012 but I think it will be more like 2020 before we see anything like this

iPhone 2012

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n83XjFSSvM

Next is an interesting take on why it wont be a good idea to answer your holophone.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBZO43h75Cw

Finally to prove that there’s an app for just about everything, there is an hologram creator application for the iPhone. The images don’t leap out the screen but it’s still an interesting application.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=9V2NXI6pjlY

Keeping in touch on the iPhone is so easy. I have switched my email accounts over to Google Mail which now also hosts my contacts and calendar. Synchronisation is easy and any changes in either location get reflected instantly. I’m not that keen on Google Mail as a client, I don’t like the way that it groups conversations together but it’s a small price to pay for the connectivity. Interesting email arrives on my iPhone 20 seconds before it appears in the Google web client.

I’m not much of a twitter person but I have installed SimplyTweet as my twitter client. The push notifications works really well and gives an alert whenever you get a mention or a direct message. SimplyTweet supports multiple accounts but it appears you only get an alert for the active account which is a bit of a shame. SimplyTweet costs £2.99 but they have a free version which you can try out.

SimplyTweet

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFaskPfQlI

There isn’t much choice when it comes to push RSS solutions, I found RSS Viewer from ZDNET Development that works pretty well. It has some negative reviews in the AppStore but I find it does the trick and for the bargain price of £1.19 it does everything I need. With RSS Viewer just type in the URL you want to subscribe to and it will find any RSS feeds, hit the subscribe button and when the feed is updated you get an alert to say the page has been updated. It’s a great way for keeping up to date with blogs. There a still a number of improvements that the developers are looking to make, for example creating categories of your feed and offline viewing so the app can only get better. In the meantime £1.19 is nothing so well worth a punt.

RSS Viewer

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ydD5l1Xx1Y

If you have a WordPress blog then the WordPress iPhone application is essential. It supports multiple blogs which is really useful if you have more than one account. You can create new blogs posts or pages as well as manage comments all directly from the phone. It’s pretty useful if you want to blog something on the go or filter out those annoying spam comments that creep in from time to time.

I have tried applications in the past that offer remote record for Sky, but Sky made it too difficult with a complex setup you had to go though with the Sky remote. Fortunately they have sorted out those problems. The Sky+ app is free and looks just like the Sky+ TV guide you get on the box. They say to allow 30 minutes for the record request to arrive on the Sky box but I have found if I set record from my iPhone by the time I check it with the remote the instruction has been received. One criticism however is the performance for the Sky guide is pretty slow. Every time you page down it does a fetch to get the data so casual browsing around the guide soon gets annoying. So you may want to supplement the guide with one of the free guides that have a better response time. The guide from Acrossair is pretty good.

Sky+

www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJkS62JpIX0

There is no shortage of tube maps in the AppStore. Some are free and if you just want a basic map then you have lots of choices. I opted for an application called Tube Deluxe which not only has a map and route planner for your journey, but Tube Deluxe also shows the status of the tube lines and includes a live departure board for all the underground stations so you can see how long you’ll have to wait once you get there, or whether or not you need to start runnings for that train. At £0.59 it’s another bargain.

I blogged about applications before that scan barcodes and how they can save you money while shopping. Red Laser is such an application for the iPhone. Whenever you are out shopping just point the camera at the products barcode and it will check the web to give you online prices. The range it covers is pretty good, I was out shopping and scanned a bag of GoCat dry cat food which I thought would be obscure, however it found a few online stores and gave me some alternative prices which was a real surprise. The range of online sources could do with expanding to cover more stores but scan before you buy is the motto.

Red Laser

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYG-gxHeDBs