Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/2624
29 www.hplusmagazine.com including some by big names like Sony (Eye of Judgment, Invizimals), IBM (Seer Android Beta), and McDonald's (Do the Dip). Most of these games are somewhat crude, but the fact that AR games are being made at all shows that the era is dawning. The simplest augmented reality games use mobile phones with cameras. Nokia smartphones are among the most popular platforms in the currently limited AR gaming market. One AR game for select Nokia phones, Fanta Virtual Tennis, lets you play tennis with a friend using a virtual ball and your phones as racquets. The "court" consists of a piece of paper with designated fiduciary markers (location markers) so that the software in the phones can determine their spatial orientation. Another interesting AR game for Nokia and the iPhone, Kweekies, is a Pokémon-like game where players customize animal avatars and send them into battle. Other AR games involve moving around in the real world instead of just playing other people on a stationary AR stage. Wi-Fi Army for the GPhone allows "real-life first person shooter" action, where your phone is your "gun" and crosshairs are superimposed on realtime video. The goal is to locate other players in the real world and "shoot" them by taking pictures of them with your phone camera. The GPhone then compares captured pictures against a database of known player faces and awards points for successful "hits." There is a global leaderboard and the number of players is unlimited. Wi-Fi Army was the first game to be developed for Google's Android operating system, and one of the only games in the world that simultaneously makes use of camera, Wi-Fi, and GPS functions on cell phones. The mobile operating system Google Android is starting to emerge as a prominent competitor for Nokia in the augmented reality application space. One application for Android called Wikitude is an AR travel guide that displays information associated with prominent landmarks on G1 phones. It recently became available on the iPhone 3GS. Development kits like ARToolKit have hit the mainstream in the last couple of years, making it easier for developers to build applications across any platform with the essentials: a camera, screen and sufficient computing power. After over a decade of research, AR is finally hitting consumer markets and becoming feasible for extensive development. Because of their ubiquity, many emerging AR games make use of the humble webcam and everyday PC as a platform. The July 2009 issue of Popular Science bills itself as the "first interactive 3-D augmented reality magazine cover." Focusing on the future of energy, the cover features an image of windmills with a skyline in the background. When the user visits a specific web page and holds the magazine up to a webcam, the live video feed on the computer screen is overlaid with a 3-D pop-out image of windmills with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background. Blow into your microphone and the windmills spin faster. Trying it out for myself, I found the 3-D cover exciting, but noticed that even slightly turning the magazine away from the webcam resulted in the 3-D image disappearing. Still, it's an early version, and exciting that it works at all. Many AR blogs and experts refer to the French company Total Immersion Software as the world's leader in augmented reality. Their technology certainly is impressive. Demo videos for Total Immersion clearly show that the company is way ahead when it comes to AR graphics. Their flagship application is RealWorld ® , which allows non-programmers to quickly build and test 2-D/3-D geospecific simulations. The program is marketed for "time-critical applications where lives are on the line — first responders, counterterrorism professionals, warfighters, healthcare workers, the intelligence community and security forces." Clients include the Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Defense, including the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and the Special Operations Command. Total Immersion Software hasn't just received the attention of the military and the government. A wide variety of software and entertainment companies are also getting involved. Total Immersion is one of eight French companies that Microsoft has chosen to support software innovation in Europe. Three major TV networks have used their technology to project virtual objects into their programming. Disney Imagineering is testing the technology for use at theme parks. The company also has a contract with