New World Notes

Watch: Headset-Free Augmented Reality Created on Water Surfaces

OK this demo is quite impressive, and full of potentially cool use cases -- AR images created on the surface of the water, without the need for headsets. Created by UEC Media Design Lab (Japanese only website, alas) employs some clever sensor and light technology to create his effect:

iOS' ARKit Enables Reflection of Real Objects on Virtual Surfaces

Real banana, virtual reflection

I wasn't duly impressed by Apple's augmented reality announcements for ARKit last year, but this updated feature is noteworthy and full of potential -- virtual reflections of real objects via ARKit's SCNFloor feature:

By default, a floor extends infinitely in the x- and z-axis dimensions of its local coordinate space, and is located in the plane whose y-coordinate is zero. To position and orient a floor in a scene, attach it to the geometry property of an SCNNode object. Often, you use a floor to provide a background for a scene.

If a floor’s reflectivity property is greater than zero, SceneKit automatically renders reflections for all geometries above it. Optionally, you can add an opacity gradient so that reflections of scene contents closer to the floor appear more clearly than those of scene contents further from it. You control the floor’s reflectivity using the properties listed in Adding Reflections to a Floor.

This via AR expert Helen Papagiannis, Ph.D., who notes it's a major leap from previous ARKit capacities:

Intel Killing Its AR Glasses is Good and Terrifying News for Magic Leap

A tale of two Verge stories:

• Intel Made Smart Glasses That Look Normal - Exclusive first look at Vaunt, which uses retinal projection to put a display in your eyeball (Feb 5, 2018)
• Intel is giving up on its smart glasses - So long, Vaunt (Apr 18, 2018)

Within the space of three months! Intel's official statement:

Intel is continuously working on new technologies and experiences. Not all of these develop into a product we choose to take to market. The Superlight [the codename for Vaunt] project is a great example where Intel developed truly differentiated, consumer augmented reality glasses. We are going to take a disciplined approach as we keep inventing and exploring new technologies, which will sometimes require tough choices when market dynamics don’t support further investment.

So the good news for Magic Leap is its own augmented reality glasses are no longer competing against a top tech company with countless hardware and consumer partners already in place. The terrifying news for Magic Leap is Intel's line, "market dynamics don’t support further investment":

HoleLenz Turns HoloLens Into a Literal (Virtual) Portal Into Other Worlds

OK this looks like a pretty brain-melting experience:

Now available as a free app for Microsoft's HoloLens created by Kei Wakizuka, it uses the Hololens' augmented reality to display the image of a portal into other realities, Wakizuka explains, simply by waving your hand: "Air-tap to open the warp hole. And you can then go through the hole. Air-tap on the hole to close the hole. If you re-open a hole, the virtual scene will change. This version includes four presets of scenery."

In this demo, some scenes are 360 degrees photos, others are 3D models. And no, geeks, HoleLenz wasn't actually inspired by the Portal games:

Magic Leap Finally Unveils "Creator Edition" With CD-Like Power Pack, Snapchat-Like Goggles, Uncertain Future

After years of secrecy, rumors of vaporware and of a giant processor that users would need to wear on their back, Magic Leap's first edition of its augmented reality system is finally revealed, and promised for an early 2018 release targeting developers. Unlike, say, the Oculus' first developer-facing HMD, the Leap's Creator Edition looks decidedly sleek and consumer ready. The "backpack" looks more like a portable CD player from ancient times (by which I mean the 90s), and the goggles are certainly cooler than any other AR HMD on the market (e.g., Microsoft's dorky HoloLens), resembling Snapchat's "AR training wheels" Spectacles. (Not necessarily a good thing.)

It's an impressive reveal, to be sure, though it strikes me that the future of Magic Leap won't be decided by Magic Leap, but by holiday sales of other VR/AR devices:

Truly Excellent AR for iPhones Probably Delayed Until at Least 2019

The iPhone's AR capability seemed promising at first, but hasn't exactly caught fire with actual iPhone owners, who've only downloaded 3 million+ copies of ARKit-powered apps and games since September. (A tiny number in relation to the hundred of millions of compatible iOS devices out there -- a meh-worthy reception at best.) Which is probably one key reason why Apple is developing better AR-compatible hardware:

Google Poly an "IP Time Bomb" Says Metaverse Evangelist & Microsoft Vet

Google's just-announced Poly, a repository for 3D objects for VR and AR, looks like it has a lot of potential (and it does). But metaverse evangelist James T. Reichert, who does a lot of cross-platform VR/AR experiences such as this one and this one he did during his recent stint as Senior Creative Technologist at Microsoft, raised some serious concerns with me:

"I think it's an IP time bomb," as he puts it. "Their OBJ format is super open. I believe that a new data format is needed, one that can only be unlocked when the data is in the walled garden. Blockchain style, something like what High Fidelity is planning. As soon as data gets outside the walled garden it's up for grabs."

He even recommends that other 3D artists avoid using Poly for their bread and butter content for now: "I'd urge content creating professionals to direct their efforts toward the walled gardens of Second Life and Sansar. My biggest concern with Poly is that it doesn't really have a social substrate (upvotes, reviews) yet," he adds. "[It doesn't] have the DRM/closed pipeline like Sansar or Second Life that protects content creators' works. Until those systems are in place, it has exactly no safeguards at the moment, and no way for the community to self-police -- which is why the data needs to be scrambled when OUTSIDE the walled garden."

By the same token, he still sees a lot of potential for Poly -- and suggests it will be a boon for creativity in virtual worlds:

Will the Harry Potter AR Game Stay Massive Where Pokémon Go Fell Short?

Last year when Pokémon Go was briefly a massive augmented reality game phenomenon, I wrote this:

There hasn't been as huge a franchise linked to an AR game before, nor such a perfect fit - "catch them all" has been Pokémon's tag line/game mechanic for decades, which practically demands an AR implementation. If that's right, that also defines the limitations of AR MMOs as a genre. (And you know dozens of games will try to compare Pokémon Go's success.) To succeed in a truly massive way, the game needs to be linked with a massive, well-established brand that has "fantastic, invisible parallel world" integrated into its branding. From where I sit, only the Harry Potter franchise could qualify there. 

Turns out that very thing is happening next year, from Pokémon Go's creator. (Yes, and only because I made that suggestion.) Here's the official site and announcement.

Thing is, I also said last year that Pokémon Go success would help augmented reality itself become massive. And yeah, no:

Google Launches Poly, Online, Searchable Archive of 3D Objects for AR & VR

Behold, Poly. As Road to VR describes it:

Until today, Tilt Brush and Blocks creations have been shared in separate galleries, via ‘Sketches’ and ‘Objects’ respectively. Poly appears to be a combination of the two existing sites, offering a more coherent and wider collection of 3D objects and scenes. As a result, there are already thousands of free models available to view and download, along with new search functionality.

On the face of it, this should be a boon for content creators who need 3D objects to import into virtual worlds like High Fidelity, Sansar, and Second Life (which is already happening with Tilt Brush objects as here). On the other side of the ledger, there's lots of unanswered questions that have plagued virtual worlds/3D platforms for years, that Google will now have to contend with. 

For example, what to do with this X-Wing that just got uploaded to Poly? Some answers to that and more in further updates, hopefully soon.

Should Augmented Reality Graffiti Be Illegal?

Good thing even training wheels devices for AR aren't selling very well just yet, because that gives us much more time to answer ethical questions some of us have only started to ask. Such as:

A new batch of apps that allow users to create hidden graffiti using AR raises an important question about who is legally allowed to “tag” a place. Physical graffiti itself is illegal without the permission of a property owner, but what about virtual graffiti? If not immediately viewable by the public, how big a crime is it? If it is just for a group of friends, or patrons, or other groups, is it an intrusion on the property? At some point, the answer is probably yes. When a space becomes “public” is in fact defined by law (thought not yet in MR). However, Yelp reviews of a particular “place” have been perfectly acceptable up to now, suggesting some general societal tolerance for open commenting on private places.

... Will cities require a similar permit or approved labeling process for content that is tied to public locations? What history or cultural perspectives will be prioritized or denied, if any? Figuring out the right number and providing equal access to all participants will be a challenging political task, equal to, or even harder to align consensus around than the recent debates over Confederate statues. The “vandalization” of a virtual, public Koons exhibit enabled by Snapchat provides an early sign of the complexity of the debate to come.

Many more compelling points from futurist Matt Kanen here, in an article I came across via game designer Raph Koster, who has been making related points in recent months. The image above, by the way, is from a short that conveys a lot of these questions in six disturbing minutes below: