The whole field of Augmented Reality (where we mix the virtual world with the physical one) is simply mind-boggling. And you don't have to be a scientist to explore its potentials. All you need is a PlayStation 3, and buy the PlayStation Eye, which is basically just a good web camera. What you can then do is to play games like the ones in the video below.
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Even funnier is the upcoming EYEPET. It is a virtual pet that use the PlayStation Eye. With this, you and your virtual pet can play together, almost like it was the real thing. It is a brilliant example of how we can use augmented reality to connect and interact with the virtual world.
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BTW: It is coming out in late-2009.
Another interesting aspect of Augmented Reality is that it allows kids, from around the world, to play together as if they were in the same room. Imagine what would happen if 3 kids, all with a PlayStation Eye, where link together by the internet. Your playground would be a virtual table, but you would be able to see and interact with each other. Combine that with the Wii, and you got social and physical human interaction mixed with the virtual world.
Want to play a game of tennis? In the future the opponent is a friend, living 500 miles away, but will show up on your big-screen TV as a live video feed. The background would be replaced with a virtual playing field. Lacoste predicted that it would take 75 years to do... I think we can do this in less than 5.
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(EyePET via FreshCreation and YouTube)
Here is a brilliant idea. What if your furniture could react intelligently to your presence and anticipate when you need it. Or what if it could move out of your way out of the way when you are just passing by? What if your furniture could help out in social situation? Wouldn’t that be something?
There are many online image editors. Like Picnik (which was recently bought by Google), Pixlr, Aviary Phoenix, Photoshop online and many others. All them require that you go to their website to edit your images. Wouldn't it be interesting if you could bring the online image editor into your own web apps.?
Back in late October 2009, Adobe Labs showcased an upcoming feature in Photoshop called Content Aware Fill. And it was absolutely amazing. Now they have released another video, showcasing even more impressive image manipulations.
Earlier this week Penguin presented their vision for how they could translate their book into the ebook format. Or rather, how they can really make us of digital publishing to create much better books.
Remember Microsoft Surface? You know, the big multi-touch coffee table? Now Microsoft is working on a much smaller version with Mobile Surface.
Today, Microsoft announced "Windows Phone 7 Series", featuring a completely new edition to the long infamous Windows Mobile operating system. It looks modern, polished, graphically exciting and nothing like the tiny windows 95 that we have been used to seeing.
The newspaper industry is falling over themselves in the fight to come up with a ever more impressive newspaper tablet. The problem is that they miss the point completely (as I wrote about in "The Future of News, Tablets, and Business Models").
As you probably know, both Google and Microsoft have entered into a partnership with Twitter and is now incorporating social search into their regular search engines. This is a big deal because social is a very important element of the future of search... it's not the only part though.
Wouldn't you like to mix wild hand gestures, cute birds flying around your screen, Twitter, tweeting bird sounds, and your web camera? Well, now you can with Flyar.
A number of people have pointed me towards PhotoSketch, a research/student project from Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, at National University of Singapore (now there is a mouthful).
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