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Microsoft's Augmented Reality, Video Photosynth
Al writes "Microsoft demonstrated new augmented-reality software for cell-phones at the 2009 TechFest conference, which was held this week in Redmond. Instead of using GPS or WiFi triangulation, the prototype system relies entirely on scene-recognition to identify its position and add virtual objects to a video picture of the real world. TechFest is a showcase for lots of projects at Microsoft's various research labs. Other technologies on show included Photosynth for video, an image-tracking system for handwriting, a way of refining image searches using colors, and a 3-D version of Microsoft Surface."
Microsoft speeds too much money on research that they fail to turn into products.
How we know is more important than what we know.
...Microsoft already had augmented reality tech running on everything? Seems to be the only explanation for about 1/2 of everything they do/
I have always wondered whether Google Maps uses similar technology. Otherwise how are they (Google) able to show continuously smooth images of a neighborhood?
They should come out with videosmith, like songsmith but it generates a video for what you're singing!
When you see it with their cell phones, sometimes it suddently display a text with that background. Is like magic!
Too bad that text starts saying "A problem has been detected and Window has been shut down"
Ummm, how about a link? Or a description? Or something? Not saying you're wrong, but I never heard about Apple looking into AR, and a quick Google search for Apple and "Augmented Reality" revealed no readily available information, other than a 3rd party application someone made on the iPhone running at 10FPS, which does not count as "Apple making it"
In short: [citation needed]
The ARToolKit which uses openGL has been around for several years. Many have begun the process of porting this over to cellphone architectures. I wouldn't be surprised to see this on cellphones more readily than it has been in the past several years.
Perhaps this is a sign that Redmond is finally starting to focus on being really good at a focused area instead of generally mediocre (or worse) at a huge number of things. It would be a welcome change. Now if we could just convince them that it's cool to port stuff to something non-Windows after a fashion. I don't have any issues with them releasing early versions of things for Windows, but refusing to open themselves up to a larger market is a bummer. I suppose they could make Windows enjoyable to use - in which case I wouldn't mind so much.
Steve Jobs demonstrated the Reality Distortion Field as far back as 1982, when he took over the Macintosh project.
I wonder if it is the same AC that says this every time microsoft invents something.
Just because you don't like microsoft does not mean they have never pushed the envelope. They do it all the time.
So... instead of using wifi and GPS for pinpoint accurate pinpoint awareness, Microsoft's answer is of course the less efficient and error prone one: nothing but image recognition. How will this perform in low light conditions or areas that haven't been previously photographed and added to the database?
I already have Wikitude on my Android phone and it's outstanding, so I don't see a breakthrough or any innovation here. Just another example of MS doing things the harder, slower, more error-prone way and calling it "innovation."
Reminds me of a book I read last month, Rainbows End.
People run around with 3d goggles on that overlays 3d graphics over the real world, for work and fun.
The author lives here in San Diego, so it was fun to hear him talking about people overlaying Terry Pratchett-style graphics over the interstates I drive on all the time.
A choice video demo-ing the original technology can be found here.
i think you did more research than gp.
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Wow. You must be extremely limber. A master yogi probably couldn't have equaled that incredible stretch. But no worries - I'm sure she weighs the same as a duck... and so forth.
Not mentioned in either of the two original links, but this page features a clip of the augmented reality technology:
http://gamesalfresco.com/2009/02/24/microsoft-to-demo-augmented-reality-at-techfest/
"You can justify anything by putting it in quotes, adding a famous name and making it a sig" - Albert Einstein
This reminds me of the Altered Reality Quake suit that was mentioned in a 2002 slashdot article.
Steve Jobs is coming back in the summer-time theatrical release of
WEEKEND AT STEVE'S
a rip-roaring tale of intrique and espionage, by the famed producers of "Weekend at Bernie's" and "Uncle Ernie's Holiday Camp". Rated PG-13, so bring the kids, and bring your hankey, you'll need it! So much fun for the entire family. Coming this summer!
My concern, as Luddite as it sounds, is that it takes us further and further from reality. It augments our perception of what reality really is. Nothing will be satisfying enough unless it has an overlay on it, apparently adding "value", but in reality, detracting from it. Sure there will be benefits from such technology, but everything is a two-edged sword.
and also, fuck him!
Warning: The building you are about to enter may contain a virus. Are you sure you want to proceed?
That was fair.
Anybody got a link to the swarm of news reports about the millions they spend on Vista's startup sound? I'm Googling it and apparently it's been deleted from the Internet.
I can't be the only one who remembers that theatre of the absurd. And really - how do you delete stuff from the Internet, anyway?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I have always wondered whether Google Maps uses similar technology.
Image stitching has been around for a long time, and Photosynth is based on a lot of technology and research developed elsewhere.
Photosynth caught on because (1) there are lots of images to stitch now, (2) because they did a good engineering job stitching images that were taken under different conditions, and (3) they did a good engineering job on the UI.
I've played a game on a Nokia phone that utilises the camera and some software just like this too. you then need to turn around (yourself with the phone in your hand) to shoot down enemies from all around you (including up and downlooking too). The software was even sophisticated enough to understand walls and objects in RL that enemies could hide behind!
Here be signatures
Examples?
"I've got more toys than Teruhisa Kitahara."
nt
Great nonintrusive interface. Now if someone could come up with an opensource version.
Antitust Legal Defense
Open Standards Engineering
Intraoperability
Digital Rights Management
Patent Law
Examples of when microsoft has come out with a product years ahead of its time:
Windows 95
Windows 95 was the first real windows in my opinion. It defined (for many years) what an operating system is, what it looks like, and what it does.
Every version of DirectX introduces dozens of new features that changes the gaming industry in a big way. If openGL were the only common graphics language, we would be years behind where we are, mostly because of petty bickering.
Microsoft's new OS Singularity is a research project that is testing a complete new operating system paradigm. Running all managed code, singularity is designed to be a super-stable OS.
Sure, you can always point and laugh at things like bob, me, vista, but like it or not microsoft HAS drastically changed the way the industry would have looked. I'm sure in many minds the world would be better off without microsoft, but I dont think that is the case.
Whoops I posted the second comment, forgot to login.
There were some guys doing this for the Google developer's contest on Android back in the day: http://www.enkin.net/
There's a video that shows you how well it worked -- don't know what happened to them, though.
It is by my will alone my thoughts acquire motion; it is by the juice of the coffee bean that the thoughts acquire speed
The point of your parent is that crediting Microsoft with pioneering these algorithms is sort of akin to saying Al Gore invented the Internet.
While Microsoft may have in fact taken augmented reality into the domain of cellphones and made the tech more accessible and mainstream, they should not be credited with inventing the technology.
None of this is to say that the grandparent (TubeSteak's post) suggests Microsoft invented this technology. I'm only pointing out that all of this defensive and aggressiveness over Microsoft is really unhealthy and, more importantly, unnecessary.
blog
Microsoft's new OS Singularity is a research project that is testing a complete new operating system paradigm. Running all managed code, singularity is designed to be a super-stable OS
'cause nobody ever thought to create(2003) one of those (1996) before...
Isn't this photo thing nothing more than replacing a simple solution (GPS) with an extremely complicated one??? Way to go, MR! Your string of impractical duds continues.
JavaOS? LOL. Thanks for letting people know you have no clue about operating system design. I'd suggest you take a intro level course before you open your mouth on this topic.
But hey, feel free to put another foot in your mouth.....
Please note that decavolt is a known anti-ms troll. That is all. Bye.
That was the first place I ever heard of Augmented Reality. Really though, I'm just a bit afraid of AR obscuring what needs to be seen when walking down the street, kind of like how some FPS games make you play through this little window that isn't obscured by the HUD.
LOL. Thanks for letting people know you have no clue about operating system design.
Maybe you should do a bit of reading? Parts (though not all) of the JavaOS kernel are implemented in java. In concept, this predates Singularity by many years.
And nice how you ignored jnode; that pure java OS implementation was officially begin in 2003 (same year as Singularity) but had its origins in a project that dated to before 2003.
I'd suggest you take a intro level course before you open your mouth on this topic. But hey, feel free to put another foot in your mouth.....
I can see how you'd ignore it though, as acknowledging it would mean you had no opportunity to vomit out insults at strangers on the intarwebs. Maybe once you get out of school, you'll develop some real-world research skills?
Aw, poop. Now you've got me doing it too.