Augmented Reality

Here’s an interesting demo of augmented reality from the folks at Digital Pictures Interactive. Using nothing but a webcam and Flash player, they’ve managed to blend virtual content in real time with a webcam feed. The possibilities here are endless and it’s great to see work being done with such ubiquitous technology. The accessibility of this project reminds me of Jonny Lee’s Wii based demos, in which he used a $40 Wii controller to hack together a sophisticated touch screen and a head mounted 3D viewer (still waiting for a killer game from Nintendo based off this tech). It’s exciting to see technology once limited to science fiction making its way to consumer level devices. Augmented reality seems like it’s still in its infancy, but all it needs is that one killer app to break into the mainstream. Whether that comes in the form of a game, or an Android app, I have a feeling it’s not too far off.