RepRap from Adrian Bowyer on Vimeo.

I could totally see myself loading up my tablet PC with a whole bunch of digital content like this before I got on a plane.

I came across an article from January 2008 that dives into augmented reality while on the topic of electronic contact lenses.  There’s some really cool stuff happening on this front and it’s coming from my school!  The good ole’ University of Washington.  You should check out the article – maybe you’ll get some cool ideas for your next iPhone app.  From the article:

Apart from the expectation of eventually offering a large screen display for our wearable and micro computers, PDAs and phones, the heads-up aspect of the contact lens leaves the way open for a democratization of Augmented Reality.

That was right at the end of the first page. I had to keep reading!

There’s augmented reality by TAT, which does facial recognition to assign clickable metadata to a face (currently the metadata consists of different social media accounts).

Then there’s Layar, an application that can do “building recognition” (likely based on your location and the direction your phone is pointed instead of the actual picture of the building).  This is available for the Android OS, which is in use on phones such as the HTC Magic and the T-Mobile G1.  This is likely the same technology that we’re seeing in the new London Subway application (called “Nearest Tube” by acrossair) and the “stalk your children app” for the iPhone (below).

iPhone 3GS Augmented Reality from Chris Hughes on Vimeo.

And of course, the holograms on business cards that I posted a couple days ago:

Augmented Business Card from jonas on Vimeo.

The idea: A camera on any device would be able to see the tag on the card and then play a video or hologram that’s been mapped to the tag. With a little bit of image processing the device, be it a computer or a smart phone, would be able to position the video on top of the tag.

Can anybody think of a better idea than business cards though? Business cards don’t sound very exciting. A game using this idea sounds like a lot more fun.

Read more over at DigitalBeat.

Got your attention?

The sensor device that is used has an RGB camera, depth sensor, multi-array microphone and can detect full body 3D motion capture, facial recognition, and voice recognition.   I’m surprised how well the sensors interpret the physical movement – it seems pretty accurate!

I would love to see the sensor device reach beyond gaming and make it’s way into productivity applications.  It would sure beat capturing gestures with a webcam like we’ve seen others doing.

For more complete coverage of the demonstrations of Natal at E3, check out my buddy’s new blog, Atom6. He’s got some more videos posted there as well.

tom gerdhardt’s mud computer at itp 2009′s spring show from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

I’m not sure I can see how applicable this sort of interface would be for typical computing, unless it could be blown up to a large scale and used on a construction site or something.  What I’m more interested in are the possibilities of what could be gained from using this as a brainstorm tool: by interacting with the mud, what sort of cool new interactions can we create?  What sort of gestures can we think of for a flat surface?  Or maybe we can get ideas for a new peripheral device?  Tom Gerhardt, the creator of Mud Tub seems to think somewhere along the same lines:

With my most current work, the Mud Tub, I am particularly excited to see the impact mud has on an user’s attitude toward interacting with computers; they instantly seem to “feel at home,” as if they had found something missing. This spark I see in people is what keeps my research into organic interfaces moving forward

I guess we can all wait and see…  Or better yet, take a part in all of this brainstormy goodness.  Share your thoughts and ideas in general over at the NUI Group.

Thanks again to that clever monkey for the mud tub news.

Almost overnight Apple became a dominate player in the music business. The next night they completely changed the mobile phone business. The following night they became a major player in the video gaming industry. The question is: What’s next?

…

It’s my theory – and that’s all it is – that the 10” screen will be a new video platform. Where the iPod came to dominate music players and the iPhone has become a seemingly unstoppable force in the mobile phone industry, the 10” mystery device will be Apple’s foray into a portable video game and video movie players.

I would love to see a 10″, sleek, sexy version of one of these huge ass tables…

[quote via theclevermonkey]