Curriculum con Realidad Aumentada

Si crees que un par de folios no hacen justicia a tus capacidades para afrontar una oferta laboral ya tienes la herramienta que te facilitará poder realizar una presentación a tu posible empleador sin necesidad de concertar una cita: el CV en realidad aumentada.

Utilizando FLARtoolkit, port de ARToolkit para Flash desarrollado por Saqoosha y Papervision, herramienta OpenSource para hacer video en ActionScript o tienes muy fácil.

Aquí os dejo un tutorial para los que se quieran animar: http://saqoo.sh/a/en/flartoolkit/start-up-guide

y un vídeo de ejemplo:

Marketing tips for augmented reality developers

Visto en: http://www.augmentedplanet.com/2010/07/marketing-tips-for-augmented-reality-developers/

For those that don’t know me, my career has been spent building developer relations programs and working with 3^rd party developers to build applications. I have worked at brands such as Microsoft, Skype, Symbian and Nokia working with the developer community for marketing and application generation.

Since developers don’t necessary make the best marketers, today I thought I would offer up some quick start marketing tips for developers who have created their augmented reality application and want a head start with the marketing.

Firstly the obvious, it goes without saying that you should create a blog to engage with your potential customers. You don’t need to blog every day, but putting out content once a week will reap rewards. The web has a long memory so any blogs you post will get indexed by search engines and continue to drive users to your website for years to come. You should also use twitter. Don’t tweet every 30 seconds about your application being available, but a few ‘relevant’ tweets a day will help you get users. Be sure to include a URL to drive traffic to your download page to make it easy for your customers.  To make life even easier, if you use Wordpress use one of the free plugin’s that automatically tweet when you post.

Hashtags.
Hashtags are essential in making sure your tweet gets to the right audience. Some good tags to use are #augmentedreality #ar and depending on your platform #iphoneapps or #androidapps. If you have written a Layar, Wikitude World or Junaio channel, make sure you tweet at the relevant platform provider as well so it can be re-tweeted easy.

YouTube
I search YouTube almost daily to see what has been tagged as ‘augmented reality’. Putting together a 1 minute video might take you a couple of hours, but you’ll be surprised at how quickly it can go viral.

Bloggers
The hardest thing about blogging is finding something to blog about. Sometimes there is an abundance of news, other times it’s a struggle. I’m sure I speak for every blogger that writes about augmented reality when I say this, but if you have a cool app, tells us about it. By telling bloggers about your application it will get picked up by the widest possible audience. We don’t bite, and I for one really like to hear what people are building. (Our email is on the contacts page).

Competitions
You want users to install your app, bloggers want traffic to read their blog. So offering a blogger a few promo codes to give away on their blog is a win – win and before you know it you’ll be re-tweeted all over twitter.

Events
If you’re a small company then running your own event and getting it well attended will be pretty difficult. But do look out on websites like Eventbright and Meetup and see what relevant events are running. Once you find something of interest contact the organiser to see if you can get a 5 minute speaking slot to launch/talk about your app. Lookout for Augmented Planet events as we always like to have the community talk about new applications.

Advertising
Look at advertising on a relevant blog. Having your advert appear on a blog with relevant content is far better than paying for a Google ad campaign where you have no control over where you banner appears. Don’t be afraid to haggle with the blogger over the cost. Most bloggers would be more than happy to give you a discount as they’ll be looking to keep you as an advertiser long term.

Newsletters
Like blogging regularly, newsletters are hard work putting together. Authors are often looking for content so make it easy for them by asking if you can submit a article. Even big companies like Forum Nokia and Orange struggle for unique, relevant content so a well timed email could give you access to an audience of hundreds of thousands of potential customers.

Social Networks
LinkedIn in particular has numerous groups for augmented reality enthusiast, so ensure you post your news there as well.

Like most things with marketing, a lot of it is fairly straight forward. Make sure you use a stats program like Google Analytics so you can see what works and what doesn’t. Hopefully these tips will help even the most marketingothobic developer out there get off to a good start with telling the world about their creations.

Code may be poetry, but marketing is art.

Layar Next, el futuro de Layar

En estos momentos está teniendo lugar en Amsterdam un evento en el que Layar presenta las últimas novedades en la interfaz, así como algunos de los avances realizados por la red de desarrolladores, en la que llevo ya unos meses batallando, jejeje.

Bueno, para los curiosos ahí va el link al streaming en directo del evento http://site.layar.com/next/.

Layar se ha convertido en el principal navegador de realidad aumentada, proporcionando nuevas herramientas cada día gracias a su flexibilidad, facilitando la ejecución de cualquier protocolo de comunicación desde un elemento geolocalizado. Mi apuesta por esta plataforma me ha llevado a dar el gran salto y fundar B_cultura (http://www.bcultura.com), un laboratorio de aplicaciones culturales en construcción permanente. Nuestra principal actividad es crear contenido para la plataforma Layar, aunque habrá muchas más interesantes "betas" en las que trabajar en los próximos meses.

Be BETA, my friend. Más en breve. ;)

Probando GMaps

Ver Fontanilla Sound Anti-system en un mapa más grande

Mapa cultural galego

Cidades fantasma

Enredado unha vez máis cas prometedoras (e reais) aplicacións da Realidade Aumentada nos dispositivos móbeis atopei un artigo en http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/phantom-city.html, un blogue moi interesante onde aparecen de cando en vez novas relacionadas ca arquitectura, o urbanismo, a sostenibilidade urbana, etc.
As cidades fantasma son aquelas cidades ocultas polas decisións políticas que fixeron imposíbeis proxectos arriscados, odiosos, estúpidos ou voraces. Imaxinade a Buckminster Fuller convivindo co máis rancio dos arquitectos americanos nun mesmo entorno. Iso, e moito máis, é a realidade aumentada.

¿Por qué a la gente le fascina tanto la Realidad Aumentada?

El artículo siguiente, visto en Games Alfresco, explica basándose en tres grandes hitos de la ciencia-ficción contemporánea: el teletransporte, la visión de rayos-x y los viajes en el tiempo, la importancia de la Realidad Aumentada en sus aplicaciones al mundo de los negocios, la vida cotidiana o la ciencia. A continuación reproduzco el artículo original (en inglés):

Really, Why do people get excited about augmented reality ?

I was stumped by this question in an interview for the NY Times and my first reaction was: duh! ’cause it’s friggin’ awesome!
But when you think about it, people get excited about Augmented Reality because…because they never thought it’d actually become possible…
Science Fiction has been a major part of our culture for generations and is ingrained in our belief system. Even non Sci-Fi geeks, are familiar with concepts such as teleporting, time travel, or X-ray vision.
We were led to believe these things are “Fiction” and impossible in real life.
Well, up until augmented reality has demonstrated otherwise.

Teleporting

Reducing business travel is not only good for the environment; it’s also great for humans. However teleconferencing systems haven’t been able to reproduce the immediacy and intimacy of multiple people actually occupying the same room.

With AR – realtime holograms are possible and teleporting is a snap.

Just like when MR. Rabbit Visits Barcelona in Vernor Vinge’s Rainbows End:

IN DOWNTOWN BARCELONA, three days later:

The rabbit hopped onto the unoccupied wicker chair and thence to the middle of the table, between the teacups and the condiments. It tipped its hat forst at Alfred Vaz and then at Gunberk Braun and Keiko Mitsuri. “Have I got a deal for you!” it said. Altogether, it was an unremarkable example of its type.

Alfred reached out and swiped his hand through the image, just to emphasize his own substance. “We’re the ones with the deal”….

Braun was as ephemeral as the rabbit, but he projected a dour earnestness that was quite consistent with his real personality.

…or as illustrated perfectly in this tongue and cheek video:

And here is a real demo by The Augmented Environments Lab at Georgia Tech:

Time Travel

OK, we can’t REALLY time travel with AR, but we can certainly see how things looked like in the past, or places will look like in the future. We can experience that reality around us from a first person view.

Larry Niven described such a fascinating scene in Dream Park back in 1981:

“Please stay on the green path,” the soft, well-modulated male voice requested. “What green-” Tony started to say. But a glowing green aisle ten feet across appearred in the middle of the street.

“We need strong magic to do what we do today,” the voice continued. “We are going to visit the old Los Angeles that disappeared in May of 1985. As long as you stay on the path, you should be perfectly safe.”

…”This is the Los Angeles of 2051″ the voice continued, “but only a few hundred feet from here begins another world, one seldom seen by human eyes.”

A banner blocked Wileshir Boulevard. Thegreen path humped and carried them over it. Beyond lay ruin. Buildings balanced precariously on rotted and twisted beams, The were old, of archaic styles, and seawater lapped at their foundations.

Ollie nudged Gwen, his face aglow. “Will you look at that?” It was a flooded parking lot, ancient automibiles half covered with water. “That looks like a Mercedes. Did you ever see what they looked like before they merged with Toyota?”

Here is a (tiny) contemporary proof that it’s not only possible in sci-fi books:

…or a more elaborate project to revive Pompei

X-Ray Vision

Every kid (born after 1950) knows what X-Ray vision is, right?

Everyone wants it, but only Superman actually has it.

Want to bet it’s possible for anyone in reality?

Well, thanks to augmented reality, Ben Avery from The Wearable Computer Lab can can give it to you:

For the whole story see our post on X-ray vision.

So what have we learned?

Augmented reality can make our wildest sci-fi dreams come true.

What sci-fi dreams do you want to experience in reality?

…And don’t forget, my friends – never stop dreaming!