Curious Raven

Mirascape™ is coming soon...

2010-01-19T08:09:28Z

What is the Mirascape™? When is it going to be released? What does it do? How do you get involved?

Many of you have been wondering what exactly we have been working on at Neogence Enterprises and when we are going to launch something. We are planning on a full global launch in October, but we are going to release an open beta around June or July. Even more fun, we are going to release a very early alpha version in a few months. We have an aggressive plan for regular updates and iterations from alpha to full launch, and we want to involve the community. Grow with us.

Head on over to twitter and follow @mirascape if you want to be on the list for early access and some early adopter specials. We aren’t planning on advertising this early alpha access beyond my blog here and a little bit of twitter. I’ll be interested in seeing how many people follow @mirascape (I am fascinated by social networks and the organics of viral word of mouth). We will start doing some announcements and updates on that twitter account once things are ready to open up access. Don’t expect frequent updates though, we are neck deep in development right now, and that has priority.

So, what is the Mirascape™?

Mira: Look! (Spanish), Wonderful or Astonishing (Latin), World (Russian), and Prosperous (Hindi).

The Mirascape™ is the world’s first global augmented reality network, platform, and community. Mirascape™ is about connecting people, places, and things in a way never done before. It is about the convergence of social, local, mobile, and virtual. It is about empowering you, the user, to create and interact with media and the world around you in new ways. It is about engagement and experience.

2010, Year One: Decade of Ubiquity

2009-12-23T22:24:54Z

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I’ve blogged in the past about Future Vision and the coming Decade of Ubiquity and my predictions for what might occur between now and 2012, which is a bit beyond the current crop of 2010 predictions by some really smart people as aggregated by Games Alfresco. I’ve always had a knack for thinking ahead, and more often than not, I’ve been too early. I started a company in 1995 to build the first real-time 3D MMORPG (during the days of VGA and 2D sprite “3D” graphics) with a strong emphasis on social gameplay, and in 1999 I was evangelizing the digital nation as a virtual world community platform, and in 2000 I shifted to 3D interfaces to the Internet along with virtual goods and microtransactions, and I made a scathing indictment of online worlds and MMORPGs back in 2006 about the decline of that industry’s craft and lore which many people are finally beginning to see and agree with. Of course, back then many people attacked my point of view (notice the low rating of the book and comments on Amazon.com).

2005-2006 was around the time I was designing Immortal Destiny, which was meant to be a true next-generation virtual world and MMORPG. The whole world was designed to be AI-driven and a fully adaptive and evolving ecology that would change based on what players did (or did not) do. We even found some really interesting genetic computation algorithms that we were going to leverage as sort of an artificial life intelligence to control many of the game systems and mechanics. The full scope of the world was to give players the chance to finally be important, and the drivers of the story, on both micro and macro levels, instead of just churning through static canned content. There are a lot of other problems with MMORPGs and Virtual Worlds right now (which I addressed in my book, and are still relevant). Sure, some games like World of Warcraft are successful financially, but they could be so much MORE successful, the market could be bigger, and games could be more engaging and interesting.

Anyway, I tried finding funding for Immortal Destiny, but at the time, I just couldn’t do it. Much of the interest in the industry had moved on to casual and social games and worlds, large MMO projects were getting shut down left and right (remember Sigil and Perpetual Studios?), and it seemed that the only way to find funding was if you were a baseball star or a former employee of blizzard (regardless of what you actually did there). So, I made the call and suspended development. Sometimes, if you aren’t getting any traction, it is best to stop and move on. I still plan on creating Immortal Destiny and shaking up the game industry, but unless one of my blog readers has $20M to drop (and no, you do not need a $500M budget to blow the industry out of the water), I’ll be self funding this in the future.

So, back to the topic. In mid 2006, probably around August when I was at the beachhouse on our annual trip to Topsail Island, and was making the decision to close the doors on the MMO, I started thinking about technology. What the obvious trends were, what trends were developing in the underlying currents of various industries, what was happening on the internet, in virtual worlds, in games, in social media, in mobile, in hardware, software, telecom, etc. etc. This is about the time where I discovered QR codes, Datamatrix, and found a handful of videos about augmented reality on youtube.

I admit that this was a huge surprise to me. The beginning of my career in interactive media was in the very early 90s at the first virtual reality arcade game company in the US (Alternate Worlds Technology), so I was quite familiar with all things virtual reality, which is not a huge leap from augmented reality. I didn’t think that the state of things was as far advanced as it seemed to be, and certainly not accessible. After a bit more research, I discovered ARTag, ARToolkit, DART, and a few other things. I immediately saw the potential here, and a lot of old ideas came flooding back.

To me, the full potential of augmented reality can only be realized when

AR Fiction: Forensics Simulations and Crime Scene Analysis

2009-12-17T17:42:43Z

In a recent post, I mentioned that I was a contributing author to Working Through Synthetic Worlds. Unfortunately, I have not received my own copy of the book from the publisher (sent to an old address) and Amazon.com is now temporarily sold out (which is great, except I’m not getting any royalties).

Anyway, the format of the book is unique. As the description says:

The editors use a distinctive format for the book, consisting of a set of chapters composed of three parts: a story or vignette that describes work conducted within a synthetic world based loosely on the question, ‘what will work be like in the year 2025?’, founded on the expert authors’ expectations of plausible future technologies; a scholarly review of the technologies described by the stories and the current theories related to those technologies; and, a prescription for future research required to bridge the current state-of-the-art with the notional worlds described in the stories.

What I wanted to do here was share part of my chapter with you, at least the fiction part. This is the unedited version (the final is much cleaner), so please ignore any glaring writing errors. I hope you enjoy the short story…I might continue it at a later date depending on reader response (I had a limited amount of space to work with in the chapter).

******

The call had arrived at a little past two-thirty in the morning and Kendra had drawn the short straw to venture out in the freezing rain that had been cascading from an inky black sky for the last several hours. She waited at the stoplight, listening to the soft hum of her electric car and the turn signal’s metronome clicking away little segments of time. She was tempted to let her mind wander while staring at the glistening raindrops snaking their way down her windows and brightly lit by the stoplight. Kendra had always felt something mysterious about inclement weather in the middle of the night, especially when there were only few people on the roads heading to some unknown destination. The only thing that could make the atmosphere a little more surreal would be snow materializing out of eternity and blanketing the city in silence, with only the reflections of street lights free to echo through the night.

The light finally changed to green and Kendra turned her mind back to the task at hand and drove the rest of the way to the crime scene, preparing herself for her work.

Kendra arrived at the scene and shouldered her way through the overly eager press reporters that had already gathered like hungry vultures desperate for a meal. She ignored their barrage of questions and ducked under the police cordon, showing her badge to the officers attempting to control the growing crowd. This was the fourth murder in as many days and the public was beginning to demand answers. She made her way across the driveway and up the brick stairs leading to the front door of the house, dodging the growing pools of rainwater that would soak her feet if she wasn’t careful.

She entered the house and

Raleigh Augmented Reality Meetup

2009-12-15T17:31:55Z

January 30th. Location to be announced. Click here for more information.

Interview with The Escapist Magazine now live...

2009-12-15T17:12:47Z

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by The Escapist Magazine about augmented reality. The interview is now live. Check it out.

"Working Through Synthetic Worlds" now published...

2009-12-02T22:07:55Z

on Amazon. Check it out!

I am a contributing author to the book and I wrote Chapter 11. My title for the chapter is: Augmented Reality Tools for Enhanced Forensics Simulations and Crime Scene Analysis. Long, yes, but to the point.

Amazon’s Product Description:

Virtual environments (VE) are human-computer interfaces in which the computer creates a sensory-immersing environment that interactively responds to and is controlled by the behaviour of the user. Since these technologies will continue to become more reliable, more resolute and more affordable, it’s important to consider the advantages that VEs may offer to support business processes.

The term ‘synthetic world’ refers to a subset of VEs, having a large virtual landscape and a set of rules that govern the interactions among participants. Currently, the primary motivators for participation in these synthetic worlds appear to be fun and novelty. As the novelty wears off, synthetic worlds will need to demonstrate a favourable value proposition if they are to survive. In particular, non-game-oriented worlds will need to facilitate business processes to a degree that exceeds their substantial costs for development and maintenance.

“Working Through Synthetic Worlds” explores a variety of different tasks that might benefit by being performed within a synthetic world. The editors use a distinctive format for the book, consisting of a set of chapters composed of three parts: a story or vignette that describes work conducted within a synthetic world based loosely on the question, ‘what will work be like in the year 2025?’, founded on the expert authors’ expectations of plausible future technologies; a scholarly review of the technologies described by the stories and the current theories related to those technologies; and, a prescription for future research required to bridge the current state-of-the-art with the notional worlds described in the stories.

The book will appeal to undergraduate and graduate students, professors, scientists and engineers, managers in high-tech industries and software developers.

Augmented Reality: Not exciting to "normal" users...

2009-11-04T05:40:32Z

Chris Dannen, over at Fast Company just put out a post called Put Your Phone Down: Augmented Reality is Overblown where he dismisses augmented reality offhandedly and doesn’t appear to really understand what it is or could be. The opinion in his blog post is myopic at best and he makes a few subtle stabs, like the following:

…few of the “normal” smartphone users I talk to can get excited about augmented reality. Sure, they’re not thinking five years ahead, as we’re told tech visionaries do.”

Is he suggesting that those people getting excited about augmented reality aren’t normal, being nothing more than the techno-fringe? The next bit feels slightly sardonic as well…presenting tech visionaries as people who say they are thinking five years ahead, and being dubious about that.

In the next breath, he gets a little enthusiastic

Venture Capital and Augmented Reality

2009-10-31T01:48:01Z

Yesterday, Marshall Kilpatrick asked, in readwriteweb.com, “Why aren’t VCs backing Augmented Reality?” He made some interesting observations and I would like to add to those here, with my own comments and thoughts.

First, let’s take a look at some of the typical responses I have encountered in my own efforts talking to venture capitalists. Keep in mind that I haven’t done a formal “roadshow”, and I have not engaged in a comprehensive “call everyone you can find” campaign either.

The augmented reality industry is in its infancy, and it is going to need the support, resources, and infrastructure of venture capital to grow into a mature, world-changing industry. I feel like most technology venture capitalists still haven’t heard about augmented reality (you would think that these guys would be watching industry news, twitter, and blogs like hawks looking for new opportunities, wouldn’t you?), or they have already formed an opinion based on stuff that is a year or more old, or that they simply don’t understand the tecnology and the potential of AR. Ok, no problem. We can fix that.

If you are a venture capitalist and are reading this

Future Vision 2012: Augmented Reality Predictions

2009-10-26T16:41:09Z

Within three years (in time for ISMAR 2012), which is either a very short period of time or an eternity, depending on your point of view, I predict the following:

* 1 Million wearable displays, with transparent lenses, reasonable field of view, integrated accelerometers, and possibly a high-bandwidth short distance wireless connection, sold on the commercial market.

* Market generating more than $1B in revenues

* Vuzix currently the best positioned to deliver technology and products to the commercial market.

* Vuzix, Microvision, and Lumus Optical the current leaders in wearable display technology

* Companies like Sony, Apple, and others will have branded versions of their own. Probably with licensed display tech, or the fruit (ha! apples) of their own R&D.

* There will be at least

Nokia lobs patent grenade at Apple

2009-10-23T14:56:09Z

This could turn out to be nothing more than some hot air in a court room or something that drags on for years with no real affect on the overall smartphone industry.

“The largest handset maker in the world is suing the maker of one of the most popular, the iPhone, because, according to a statement released by Nokia on Thursday, Apple has refused to license any of the patents in question. All iPhone models dating back to the original introduced in 2007 are infringing, according to Nokia. Nokia is asking the U.S. District Court in Delaware for an injunction (PDF) on sales of iPhones and for unspecified damages. “

Source: CNET News

10 patents. Thats a lot of alleged infringin’ goin’ on.