Vote For Metaio for the 2013 Auggies!

Sorta reminds me of this. 

It’s that time of year again, as the Augmented World Expo has renewed and expanded the annual award for the best of the best in the augmented reality industry, the “Auggies”. Previously consisting of only a single award, the competition now has 6 categories, and Metaio and its partners are competing in 4 of them!

For the next week, awards will be open to public voting in order to narrow down the entries for each category to just 5 finalists. We’re competing against some of the best and most creative apps in the world- we’d love your support. Please take a moment to vote for our entries- individual links are listed below, or just click on one of the category buttons below to go straight to the entry.

    

Best Augmented SDK for developers: The Metaio SDK 

Best Augmented Marketing Campaign: The 2013 IKEA Catalog

Best Augmented Solution for Enterprise: The Mitsubishi Electric MeView AR

Best Augmented World Hardware: The AREngine

And while you’re at it, we’d love for you to support our amazing partners working with our technology:

Best Augmented Mobile App: Clandestine Anomaly

(Clandestine Anomaly also has an ongoing Kickstarter- back this project today!) 

Best Augmented Solution for Enterprise: Greatbatch Medical 360 Tour 

Here’s a look back at the our winning submission from the 2012 Auggies, 3-D object recognition and tracking:

Once again, thanks for your support in making Metaio the best Augmented Reality Company out there!

junaio Developer News: New Release, Developer Contests and Upcoming Events 02/2013

Dear junaio developers,

our current update will review recent news from the junaio ecosystem like the latest junaio release, upcoming developer webinars and information about buildAR, a tool which allows you to create junaio channels without any programming skills required.
Following learn about the most relevant AR events this season and where you can meet the metaio/junaio team in San Francisco, London and Munich.
Last but not least take part in one of the two developer contests metaio is hosting, show us your best skills and win an appealing prize like a full trip to InsideAR 2013 in Munich, Germany!

Enjoy reading!
~ Your junaio team

For any questions or feedback please let us know! Email to: feedback@junaio.com

Welcome the latest junaio update!

The new junaio release (junaio 4.7) just hit the Apple App Store. The Android Version will follow before this weekend.

Please find list of recent changes below:
• junaio now speaks Dutch, Greek and Italian!
• Major improvements of junaio image recognition
• Higher performance/frame rate of AR Live-View camera
• Improved download process for channels and contents in junaio
• Update of junaio Home channel
• Provides set Tracking Configuration (“ORIENTATION_FLOOR”)
• Many bugfixes based on your feedback
For any comments, suggestions or questions about the new update just talk to us! developer@junaio.com

Last webinar: The Metaio SDK and AREL

On Thursday May16th we’ve resumed our regularly scheduled developer webinars with an advanced session in mobile development. You could join us as we taught you how to use AREL (Augmented Reality Experience Language) to code once and deploy to Android, iOS, and Windows PC – using JavaScript and HTML5. All of our webinars are available here. If you have any questions or concerns please send us an email to webinars@metaio.com.

The next chance to attend a webinar is on May 23rd, 10 am PSD: Content Creation 2 ! 

buildAR – A new tool to create AR without coding

buildAR is an unique AR Content Management System (AR-CMS) and allows to create AR contents and scenarios based on an easy to use interface without any programming. It supports location-based and also image-based AR.
Lately buildAR has partnered with metaio and now fully supports the junaio and metaio SDK platforms for native AR applications.
Learn more about buildAR!

Upcoming Events

AWE2013 – metaio will be showcasing AR in a big way!

Join us for our private, first-ever InsideAR Silicon Valley event where we will reveal the latest applications to our ecosystem the night before this year’s Augmented World Expo. Enjoy drinks, refreshments and demos and start your AWE experience off the Metaio way. Register here!

Then for the next two days, catch the Metaio team at the Augmented World Expo as Silver Sponsors, major exhibitors, and insightful speakers. In fact, feel free to use AWE3META to get a $200.00 discount courtesy of Metaio when you register at the event page.

Metaio – Gold Sponsor for AR Summit

Metaio is pleased to be supporting the 3rd AR Summit event taking place on June 20th in Central London. The one day Conference and Expo provides a unique insight into the capabilities and innovations of AR, bringing together the technology providers and innovative companies to discover the concepts AR brings to us. Join Metaio on stage at AR Summit where Sascha Kiener will cover the topic “The Future of AR in the Augmented City”.

As Gold Sponsors of the event we are delighted to offer you a 25% discount code, METFRIEND when you register here.

Last chance to secure your InsideAR 2013 ticket with 50% discount

This year at InsideAR 2013 experience for the first time ever the benefits of dedicated Augmented Reality hardware in the powerful and all-new AREngine from Metaio. See the latest AR demos on the exhibition floor and experience the latest wearable computing prototypes.

Now is your last chance to purchase an InsideAR 2013 ticket with 50% discount. Go ahead and don’t miss the opportunity to be together with first-class speakers and visionaries from different industries across the globe and to experience insights on the future of digital engagement and interaction.

Interested in sponsoring, partnering or speaking at the most amazing AR event in the world? Contact us at insideAR@metaio.com and work together with our official InsideAR partners: Ball Packaging Europe, O’Reilly, mobilbranche.de, iTers News, Ubergizmo, intomobile and mobile-zeitgeist.com.

Developer Contests

The Most Innovative Location-Based Augmented Reality Application Prize – ESNC 2013

Are you ready for a challenge? As a fast growing technology company Metaio is taking part in the European Satellite Navigation Competition this year by organizing one of the Special Prizes for the contest.

Our team is looking for innovative ideas and talented partners who will help in creating the Augmented City by implementing new and exciting use cases. The winner should be able to create an according concept and storyboard as well as implement the use case by using the junaio developer API or metaio SDK. To find out more details visit http://www.galileo-masters.eu.

Win a free trip to InsideAR 2013!

Show us your augmented reality skills as part of the Metaio International Developer Contests and you could find yourself in Munich this Fall presenting your entry with some of the most important people in the industry.

The PopulAR contest is geared specifically to you, our Junaio developers. Create the most compelling Junaio channel and prove it to us with your channel openings.
Nonetheless, whether you are a designer, game developer, junaio developer, or AR enthusiast, we’ve got a competition for you! For full rules and regulations please visit our developer’s page.

Junaio Certified Developer Concepteer Creates Toshiba‘s Digital Livingroom App

Meanwhile, in Germany.

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.

Augmented Reality in Education

Augmented Reality (AR) is becoming more and more a part of academic life. In this post we want to show you different AR cases in education, and want to encourage you to use them as examples to make your own ideas come true. 

1. Aumentame 2013

In the end of April, in Valencia (Spain), took place the Aumentame: the annual assembly where augmented reality ideas, experiences, projects and developments, in Education, are discussed. The venue itself, the Polytechnical City of Innovation, was rightfully chosen to accommodate and bring together professionals with education and augmented reality backgrounds.

Raúl Reinoso on stage

Remarkable augmented reality projects were demonstrated throughout the day, with participants given the ability to participate in the workshops showcasing such technology in education. Organized by Espiral, an education and technology non-profit association, which offers an online platform for teachers and research of all educational levels with a passion for information technology to meet.

2. Brutus guides you through the Ohio State’s Campus

The application Brutus, created by Brad Henry, helps students explore the Ohio State Campus through their mobile Android devices. Named after the school’s mascot, Brutus Buckeye, the augmented reality application cleverly uses voice recognition, geolocation, artificial intelligence as well as intelligent tutoring systems to provide the service to the campus community. In addition, after having explored the campus, the developers added a game function to the app which lets you scan your surroundings in order to find the hiding mascot: Brutus! Under the supervision of Brad Henry, the metaio software based application was developed with the help of 4 computer science student.

(More information on this fascinating project in the coming days.)

3. Augsburg augments student’s life

The University of Applied Sciences in Augsburg (Germany) provides its students with seminars and workshops aimed at providing them with tools and knowledge to develop Augmented Reality. metaio prepared a workshop for students with the fictional case of augmenting an art exhibition virtually.  Presented as an AR-game, students were asked to prepare a visual puzzle game, where scanned prepared a picture puzzle with the Metaio Creator, which were then displayed in gallery and museum exhibitions. Afterwards, visitors who scanned the picture were presented with the   . Now, the user tries to find all differences to the original and if he/she was successful he gets a picture snippet as a reward. Eventually, all picture snippets result in a whole new picture, which is, for example, not in the exhibition. To find out more about the technical details, please visit the website of this project:  AR-Workshop with Metaio.

The App is using Junaio Browser

The AR-Tray was another great project of students, who wanted to augment the Mensa Menue of their university. They prepared two different scenarios: 1st one reflects Mensa guests waiting in a queue with already a tray in their hands. To shorten the waiting time, they could scan the logo of the student union on the tray and the today’s choice of dishes appears on their mobile devices. After lunch the 2nd scenario could be possible: students are interested to know what will be on the menue in the next days. Opening the Junaio-app and scanning the logo again will bring the answer. The students created their junaio channel and already had ideas how to improve their idea: For the future they want to show pictures of the dishes already as 3D models and offer an interactive interface with additional information and the function to comment directly on the menue.

Scan the QR Code and discover the AR-Tray channel by yourself

Another group of students in Augsburg worked on augmented DVD and Blue Ray covers: Costumers standing in shops usually have to read the short texts on the backside of the casings to find out more about the plot of a movie. The students want to provide movie trailers via Augmented Reality. In the Junaio channel “German DVD & Blue Ray Trailers Top 200” they could scan the cover of a movie and are directly linked to the YouTube-trailer. To get more technical details, please, follow here. 

Technical construction of the Junaio channel

4. Science Festival Belgrade 

The Science Festival in Belgrade attracts an international crowd of visitors and exhibitors with interests mainly in education and entertainment. The event aims to make science more accessible to everyone. Using image and face-tracking, LiveViewStudio showcased an interactive “giant book” where standard school subjects such as history, geography, biology and science could be enhanced throught augmented reality. Each page of the book came alive with different interactive scenarios, an added twist made possible with this technology. The experience left children bewildered and amazed. watch the video here. Find the use case and all information here.

Children watching an interactive installation

The stories above show only a few cases what is possible with a fascinating technology such as Augmented Reality is. We would be happy to get more examples from our readers. Feel free to comment on this article and send us links to (your own) recommendable AR projects used in the field of education.

Junaio Transforms Chinese Cultural Monthly with Augmented Reality

More than meets the Moyan.  The March issue of Chinese Cultural Monthly featured – not one, not two, but- nine fully augmented images of everybody’s favorite vehicles-that-turn-into-robots-and-then-turn-back-into-vehicles, powered by Metaio’s mobile augmented reality browser, Junaio. Or, as it is known in China, “魔眼” (moyan).

The “collectible” augmented reality content features in-depth, talking(!) 3-D models of both Decepticons and Autobots, featuring scenes from the films in which the characters appear.

For the developers out there, you might be interested to know that the entire project was completed using the Metaio Creator, the only drag & drop tool for creating these awesome mobile augmented reality experiences.

Try the experience out yourself! Just scan the image above or any of those below with Junaio’s AR Scan screen to unlock the content.

Start your coin collection with Augmented Minds & Junaio

When the mind is augmented, the heart is sure to follow. 

Illustrious, nay storied, Junaio Certified Developers Augmented Minds have been so augmented reality prolific that it is a struggle, at best, to keep up with them. We are however very happy not only to present this latest Junaio channel here, but also their newest endeavor, Pixories, in a companion post on the Augmented Blog, which you can read here.

In the meantime, let’s take a look at the Pharmind Junaio channel, featuring an interactive Augmented Reality game.

For upcoming events, German publishing house Editio Cantor Verlag GmbH will showcase their marketing material with an augmented reality game. Mobile device users can play an interactive coin hunt game on the cover of the current issue (pictured above), where they will try to collect as many commemorative 75-year anniversary “coins” by touching them as they cascade across the page within the Junaio app camera view, though it’s quite a quick game so players better act fast! Afterwards, they can compare their scores  against other people who have played as well.

Try out the mini game on your own: just download Junaio, scan the cover of the magazine above and start the Pharmind Channel. As soon as you hold your device to the cover the virtual coins will appear instantly. Have fun collecting them as fast as you can!

Interested in becoming a Certified Developer? Learn why you should consider it at the Junaio website.

Blog Carnival #IfIhadGlass from We Wear Smart Wear and metaio

As Google announced Project Glass last year, we thought this is the most logical step after the invention of smartphones and tablet-PCs. As digital natives we are either sleeping or online. But there are situations when we find mobile devices quite disturbing, for example during jogging, shopping or, let’s say cooking. With the Google Glasses we would have our hands free again and could use all of the applications which we already enjoy on our smartphones and can enjoy Augmented Reality.

Starting the 28th of February this year, Google started a competition “asking prospective Google Glass buyers to take to Twitter or Google+ using the #ifihadglass hashtag to explain why they deserve one of the first-ever Google Glass Explorer Editions” (Techcrunch.com). Eventually, the application phase was closed by Google after thousands of people reacted and shared their ideas.

The blog We Wear Smart Wear has started a Blog Carnival with the Hashtag #IfIhadGlass to continue asking for expectations and visions people have for using Smart Glasses. We, at Metaio, really like the idea of a BlogCarnival (Don’t know what it is? Have a look here!) and want to support it.

 We want to know from you and all our clients, developers and blog readers:

What would you do with Google Glasses? And what is your vision of Augmented Reality?  

Publish a short story or make a video on your blog about what you expect from Smart Glasses and send the link with the hashtag #IfIhadglass until 30th of April 2013  to press@metaio.com.

Please, link your article with http://www.wewearsmartwear.de!

We will also collect all the blog entries and publish the best texts and videos on our Augmentedblog and on the Junaio Blog.