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Ogmento secures $3.5 million for augmented reality game development and publishing
Augmented reality game developer and publisher Ogmento this morning announced that it has secured the first $3.5 million of venture capital funding for development. The exciting news? That means the company is hiring. "The key thing is really we're looking to partner, and hire folks, so we'd love to get that word out," Ogmento co-founder Ori Inbar told us in a phone interview earlier today. "What we do is we go after people that we've either known for many years or people that have passion about augmented reality, and have good experience in game design or art. It's a lot about passion." But that first round of funding won't just go to expanding the still nascent company's New York (R&D) and LA (development) offices with passionate people -- Inbar told us Ogmento plans on using part to release a few titles this year, "leading on mobile." That said, he was also happy to talk about possible console developments in the future. "Sony's EyeToy camera is basically enabling a whole set of augmented reality games ... and Project Natal will enable something similar. Then of course there is the DSi/3DSi and PSP platforms which are already embracing AR. When you see a game like LittleBigPlanet include AR into its development, you know this is a technology with some serious potential." Ogmento is currently composed of eight employees, including industry veterans Brian Selzer ("he's heading up the creative in the company," former senior director of Marvel properties at Hands-On Mobile) and Brad Foxhoven (former strategic consultant for ... everything). As far as announcements with game developers or publishers attached, Inbar says we'll "hear more soon."
iPhone ... in an iPhone
Here's a nice post-Christmas mind bender for you -- it's created by a company named Ogmento (they specialize in augmented reality applications -- get it?) and is an iPhone app that creates an augmented reality version of the iPhone. In other words, they put an iPhone in your iPhone so you can iPhone while you iPhone. Dawg. Why did they do this? Apparently it's a promotion for the iPhone launch by Orange Telecom in Israel. But it's pretty crazy -- the iPhone inside the app even runs apps, though they're just still pictures. And it's a little disappointing that you interact with the fake iPhone via the real iPhone's touchscreen. If it really was an augmented reality demonstration, wouldn't you interact with the augmented reality iPhone just by moving your hand in the air where it should be? Maybe that's too mind-melting after a relaxing Christmas day. At any rate, enjoy the crazy video above. This isn't anything we'll see coming to the App Store any time soon, we're sure, but it's just the kind of thing to get your mind up and running again after all that egg nog and holiday cheer.
iPhone in iPhone app is useless, but mesmerizing
Here's the premise: you take a good old fashioned augmented reality setup, the likes of which we've seen all over the land, and attach a three-dimensional, rotatable iPhone to it. Not impressed yet, are you? Neither were we, but there's some secret sauce to this one: you can actually launch apps on the simulated iPhone. That extra layer of interactivity makes the video after the break a lot more fascinating than it has any right to be, though it's worth pointing out that we don't think the apps are actually usable -- they just give the illusion of launching. Anyhow, don't wait around while all the cool kids are watching it, go have a gander yourself.
