The Astonishing Tribe (TAT), using software from Polar Rose, has created a mobile application that uses facial recognition to perform social search. Users submit photos of their faces to the Recognizr website, along with what web links they want associated with them (e.g. blogs, Flickr, or YouTube). Then by downloading an app to their mobile phone, they can take a photo of a stranger, submit it to the website, and if that stranger is a Recognizr user, find out all about him/her.
This work reminds me of Bradley Rhodes’s old wearable/AR emacs plugin, the Remembrance Agent. The idea behind that application was that, while wearing a PC-104 based Lizzy wearable computer, you’d type in names into emacs, and then bring up whatever notes you had about them. I don’t remember if it integrated with the Insidious Big Brother Database or not.
designboom writes about Geisha Tokyo’s AR figure. The AR figure consists of a large cube with different codes printed on the faces, along with a smaller cube that also has codes on the faces. When placed in front of a webcam, the figure is displayed, and the smaller cube can be used to interact with (read “accost and molest”) her. (Video after the jump.)
The only time I’ve used this sort of AR was the last time I was at the LEGO store in San Jose. It’s kind of an odd experience, if you hold the box at the wrong angle, the image completely disappears; but I think the biggest thing is the lack of tactile feedback. Still, this kind of AR is something I find interesting, if for no other reason than novelty. Someday, in my copious free time, I’ll have to check out AR Toolkit and try my own AR project.
Last February Chris Bodle Watermarks Project was a series of projections throughout Bristol, England that illustrated high-tide water levels if the Greenland ice shelf would melt.
I really like BLDGBLOG thoughts about this project. How idea of projecting a different geography over the current geography. A kind of public augmented reality.
I would love for something like Watermarks to change people’s attitudes and motivate the radical changes that are needed, but it won’t. We’re doomed, by our own hubris.
