Positive Technology Journal

Via NewScientist.com 

Eli Peli, an ophthalmologist and bioengineer at Harvard Medical School in Boston, has designed an augmented reality device to help patients with tunnel vision, a condition which narrows a person’s field of view.

The system, consisting of glasses fitted with a small camera and a transparent display on one lens, works by superimposing computer-generated images over real scenes.

According to preliminary test results, which will be reported in the September issue of Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science, patients who tried the system were able to search objects far more quickly.

Read the original article  

From the project's website 

CatchBob is an experimental platform to elicit collaborative behavior of people working together on a mobile activity. Running on a mobile device (iPAQ, TabletPc), it's a collaborative hunt in which groups of three persons have to find and circle a virtual object on our campus.

Videos of CatchBob!:

• The long video (3:30, .mov, 15.8Mb) can be downloaded here.
• The short version (1:20, .mov, 8.3Mb) can be downloaded there.

Via information aesthetics

Free Network Visible Network is a project that combines different tools and processes to visualize, floating in the space, the interchanged information between users of a network. The people are able to experience in a new exciting way about how colorful virtual objects, representing the digital data, are flying around. These virtual objects will change their shape, size and color in relation with the different characteristics of the information that is circulating in the network.

Via Gizmodo

"Viennese computer scientist Daniel Wagner has figured out a way to show a virtual character on an i-mate SP5 cellphone, and when you move around with the cellphone, it appears that you're floating around this virtual character in 3D. Other people with cellphones can also see this character from their points of view."

Thanks Regine 

MIXER 2006: International Workshop on the Design and Engineering of Mixed Reality Systems

5 June 2006, Bucharest, Romania

MIXER is an international workshop dedicated to the design and engineering of Mixed Reality Systems. Following on from the first work-shop, MIXER´2004, jointly organized with ACM-IUI´2004 and CADUI´2004, the primary  goal of MIXER´2006 is to bring together researchers in the area of Mixed  Reality (MR) systems (including augmented reality, augmented virtuality,  augmented video, and tangible systems) to identify and articulate key  research challenges for the design and engineering of MR systems. Also, in order to develop reliable theoretical foundations for MR systems, there is a need to gather the results of MR research and development to create a body of reusable knowledge for the design and construction of future systems. This body of knowledge may include: - MR design and engineering issues; - Research challenges for design methods and tools; - A corpus of applicable usability knowledge (e.g., guidelines, design heuristics).

MIXER´2006 solicits contributions that discuss: theoretical, methodological, technical or application-oriented considerations, relevant for: MR system design, MR system engineering / implementation, MR systems evaluation   - and application-oriented issues, especially arising from new devices, techniques or environments. 

Authors: Nguyen TH, Qui TC, Xu K, Cheok AD, Teo SL, Zhou Z, Mallawaarachchi A, Lee SP, Liu W, Teo HS, Thang le N, Li Y, Kato H

A real-time system for capturing humans in 3D and placing them into a mixed reality environment is presented in this paper. The subject is captured by nine cameras surrounding her. Looking through a head-mounted-display with a camera in front pointing at a marker, the user can see the 3D image of this subject overlaid onto a mixed reality scene. The 3D images of the subject viewed from this viewpoint are constructed using a robust and fast shape-from-silhouette algorithm. The paper also presents several techniques to produce good quality and speed up the whole system. The frame rate of our system is around 25 fps using only standard Intel processor-based personal computers. Besides a remote live 3D conferencing and collaborating system, we also describe an application of the system in art and entertainment, named Magic Land, which is a mixed reality environment where captured avatars of human and 3D computer generated virtual animations can form an interactive story and play with each other. This system demonstrates many technologies in human computer interaction: mixed reality, tangible interaction, and 3D communication. The result of the user study not only emphasizes the benefits, but also addresses some issues of these technologies.

Gulliver's Box, developed by Mixed Reality Lab, the Human Interface Lab of Osaka, the Ars Electronica Futurelab and Zaxel, is a mixed reality theatrical application which allows users to modify characters and give specific features to them. The environment can be revised and customized according to the desires of the users each time. In dealing with the individual interfaces, players are introduced into mixed reality environments on different levels of interaction.

Gulliver's Box has won a mention at the World Summit Award

Via we-make-money-not-art, TRN

Microsoft researcher Andrew D. Wilson has developed a portable augmented reality system that uses a projector and computer vision technology to display interactive images on any surface such as floors, white board and walls. The system, called PlayAnywhere, is a single portable unit and does not need mounted cameras. Further, the system does not require calibration. Besides edutainment applications, this portable AR system could have interesting applications in the field of neurorehabilitation of brain-injured patients. I have used a similar approach in the project I-Learning. In this project, we developed an augmented-reality display to guide physical and mental practice exercises for patients with upper-limb hemiplegia following stroke.

PlayAnywhere: A Compact Interactive Tabletop Projection-Vision System, Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST 2005), Seattle, October 23-26, 2005 PDF