Retail Technology
Amnon Rebak, an IBM Research staff member from Haifa, Israel, shows the idea behind the company’s technology for identifying items for sale then letting customers sort through them.

HANOVER, Germany–IBM showed off technology today designed to let people use their smartphones to take command of their real-world shopping.

Big Blue showed an app idea from IBM Research in Haifa, Israel, that uses image recognition to identify products on store shelves, then lets people sort those products by attributes such as price and nutrition information. A customer could select only gluten-free products, pick food that’s from nearby, or filter electronic gadgets by operating system.

“The same experience people expect online is available in the store,” said Amnon Rebak, a research staff member on the project, at the CeBIT show here.

And of course, customers also can sort by items that are on sale or that have coupons. It’s not hard to imagine a retailer wanting to use the app to steer customers where it wants them to go.

Although the app Rebak showed was preloaded with information and didn’t do any image detection, it’s moved at least partway out of the idea stage: IBM is testing the technology at an undisclosed U.K. retailer.

“It’s hopeful we will be available with retailers in the U.S.,” he added.

The app taps into the augmented-reality technology by overlaying product information on the smartphone screen.

IBM’s augmented-reality app uses image recognition to classify items for sale then lets people find out details such as nutrition information and sort them by parameters such as price.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57572336-94/ibm-app-marries-augmented-reality-comparison-shopping/

The proliferation of these products shows that augmented reality, a technology which has a conference of its own, is going mainstream as more people carry smartphones, are always connected and want the latest and greatest experience.

San Francisco-based Nukotoys will be on hand to show off NUKO trading cards, which pop with animated monsters when viewed through an iPad, iPhone or iPod. The Monsterology cards, now in beta, will let kids collect, trade, train and play with 3D unicorns, cyclopses and sea serpents, the company said.

Digital Tech Frontier will show off its new Popar book line. The books are encoded so that a user with a webcam and a PC, will see 3-D, moving images — rocket ships blasting off, planets spinning, etc. — as they read.  (See video here.)

Other AR-adopting toy makers include WowWee, which is using the technology in its new Appgear line shown at the London Toy Fair last month. And perennial fan favorite Lego is using AR in its Life of George game and in some of its product packaging.

There are many potential uses for AR. Hewlett-Packard (s hpq) was on the road at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and other venues showing off Autonomy’s Aurasma for retail and other applications. Bodymetrics demonstrated an AR fitting room at CES; some realtors are using AR to make house listings more compelling.

With more than 184 million iPhones on the planet, plus all the other iPads and smartphones out there, the addressable audience for AR goodies will only grow as will applications beyond fun and games.

Feature photo courtesy of  Flickr user antjeverena

Read more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/ontheblock/detail?&entry_id=64126#ixzz0ofnXQBqH
I have loaded this app onto my iPhone and just as soon as I finish this blog will hit the streets to test this little puppy out. I’ll let you know the results. Working to maintain a presence in the commercial marketplace. Mike kerwinpacific.com

She showed a video story of a mom who flies military helicopters. The story created a different feeling when the story used natural sound and then the story that included dramatic music in the background. Should music be used in news stories? The group said no.

She showed the Toyota Web site that has a 3D demonstration of  the Toyota iQ car.

With the use of augmented reality technology, we can see the car separate into parts — doors, tires, frame. It all seems so real, but the car isn’t even there in reality.

Around two dozen applications like Layar, Junaio and Wikitude have burst onto iPhone and Android devices as smartphones with GPS, a compass and Internet access have finally made it possible for the technology to go mainstream. [...]

Now Juniper Research is saying the market could grow to $732 million in five years, from just under $2 million next year. ABI Research has a more modest estimate: $350 million in annual revenues by 2014. That’s on the back of three primary revenue models: upfront payments to buy an app, subscription fees or paid premium versions and advertising.

The first two are self-explanatory, and might work well with augmented reality games. Advertising could take several forms. You might see augmented reality coupons or sponsored information tags as location-based services become more adept at serving ads based on your historical search needs and where you are. A couple augmented reality browsers like acrossair’s Nearest Tube or Layar could incorporate sponsored layers. For example, Starbucks could pay to add a special augmented reality layer to an existing browser showing nearby coffee spots. Or they could buy access to the technology to build their own app.

But there are reasons to remain skeptical. Venture capital firms have been relatively reluctant to back these young companies — Amsterdam-based Layar is the only company in the last three months to announce a round of venture funding. The larger and older businesses, Metaio and Total Immersion, are launching mobile products on the back of the businesses they’ve already built through augmented reality marketing and factory layout projects from the past. (See an example here.)

There are still also a number of design issues to overcome. The use case is physically uncomfortable. It can be easier to look something up in a conventional map application than to constantly hold your phone at eye-level to see augmented reality tags.

The second issue is that augmented reality is still a bit of a novelty or a gimmick (see Metaio’s app to the left where you can insert 3D objects into your camera viewfinder).

And then of course there’s the business hurdle of reaching critical mass so that an advertising model can sustain the company. That said, Layar is boasting some promising statistics. The company said it has close to half a million downloads and the app is sticky with users logging in about 6.7 times a week on average.

So if their adoption (and those of their competitors) continues accelerating upward, stay tuned.

via Augmented reality to be a $732 million market by 2014? | VentureBeat.

There’s been a lot of startup activity in this space of late. Here’s a look at the various contenders (by the way, be sure to take a look at our coverage today of the AR community’s effort to get Apple to open up the iPhone to AR apps):

The AR Browsers

Layar is an Android-based, augmented reality browser from Dutch start-up SPRXMobile. Users can pan their cell phone cameras around and see nearby buildings and spaces tagged with information from the web. Layar currently has five such ”layers” pulling real estate listings, job posts and reviews and is only available in the Netherlands. SPRXMobile plans to bring the browser to international markets and develop an iPhone application as well. The company is based in Amsterdam, has three employees, and is angel funded.

The article on VentureBeat also provide an introduction of the following companies on the AR sector:

• Tonchidot has created the Sekai Camera, a social tagging service for both Android phones and the iPhone, that allows users to walk around and attach notes to spaces like where to eat or prices on products.
• Mobilizy launched Wikitude
• Earthmine is a mapping company that is building a geospatial platform using 3-D data on major metropolitan areas
• Ogmento is a five-person company launching an augmented reality game for children this summer on the iPhone called “Put a Spell.”
• Sony demoed Invizimals, a PlayStation Portable game from Barcelona studio Novarama that lets children hunt and capture virtual animals around their real home, in June at the E3 conference.
• French mobile gaming company Int13 has demoed augmented reality prototypes where virtual birds fly on-screen above a real-life table and 3-D characters dance on top of a real card held by the user.
• Metaio builds marketing and sales promotions for different companies using augmented reality technology and has released 3-D design software for product visualizations and industrial planning.
• Total Immersion develops AR marketing promotions for products, retail stores, trade events, amusements parks and online.

See the rest of the list via Startups looking to make money by enhancing reality | VentureBeat.

Update: Additional augmented reality apps can be found here in an update poasting Augmented reality finds you organic food, London tube stops | VentureBeat.