Aurasma
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INSIDE TRACKS: A stunning smartphone-enabled coffee table book (Updated)
Update, 1/19/2015: Thanks in part to TUAW readers, INSIDE TRACKS is now available on Amazon where it has been featured as the #1 solo travel book. You can purchase the book here. In addition, Smolen recently gave a talk at National Geographic LIVE about Robyn Davidson's trek across the Outback, which you can view on YouTube. Longtime readers of National Geographic magazine can't help but remember the 1978 story about a young woman named Robyn Davidson who trekked across the Australian outback accompanied by her dog and four camels. As you'd expect from Nat Geo, there were stunning photographs with the story taken by Rick Smolan, a photojournalist who met up with Davidson five times during her trip. The article spawned a book by Davidson - Tracks - that sold more than a million copies, made the jump to ebook format, and is now being made into a movie that opens in theaters this fall. Now Smolan wants to bring Tracks into a new format with a coffee-table book titled INSIDE TRACKS that will feature photography from Davidson's original journey and scenes of the movie, as well as something completely new: integration with an iOS and Android app that will display clips from the movie when pointed at specially marked photos. The free app is currently available on the App Store - it's Aurasma, which provides readers with instant access to augmented reality content called "auras" by simply pointing their smartphone or tablet at a target on a page. Looking at the image above this paragraph, you can see the target to the lower left of the photo of the children playing. Smolan had pitched INSIDE TRACKS to a number of traditional publishers, but eventually decided to take the crowdfunding route in order to provide the high level of printing and production quality that most of those publishers forgo these days. The Kickstarter campaign, which ends two weeks from today, has reached 70 percent of its goal. TUAW readers who appreciate both the way that their smartphones or tablets can now bring traditional print media to life and have a deep respect for the art of photojournalism can reserve a copy of INSIDE TRACKS for as little as $45. Higher pledges can earn pledgers one of Smolan's original Kodachrome transparencies, signed archival prints, and even more. INSIDE TRACKS is one of the few Kickstarter campaigns I've viewed recently that really melds both traditional publishing and state-of-the-art technology in a way that's accessible to everyone. And think of it this way... by backing this project now, you can get some really amazing Christmas presents for yourself and friends.
Aurasma Virtual Browser and virtual world hands-on
Watching Aurasma in action is very impressive, it is tech that looks like magic. Aurasma is software that picks out objects, shapes, symbols -- which are called triggers -- with its Virtual Browser and understands what they are. Once the trigger is recognized, relevant content gets pushed across to the user using enhanced reality. For example, we have a look at a $20 bill during our demo and the bill in the phone display starts to deconstruct ending in some pretty serious rah rah sis boom bah. Aurasma is getting traction in advertising and we can only see this growing, it is really addictive fun. Users can grab the app free on either iOS or Android -- another mobile platform is coming with a name that doesn't rhyme with BlackBerry -- and get playing and creating. Aurasma also has a pro version -- also free -- with much more serious development tours for folks that really want to stretch its boundaries. Aurasma has been around for a while now but this is the first chance we've had a demo and we were very impressed. Click through to see money do crazy things and a Harry Potter poster come to life.
Aurasma's AR iPhone app to turn everyday objects into multimedia triggers (video)
We've seen augmented reality done what seems like a million different ways, but we've never seen it quite like this. The New York Times reported Wednesday on a forthcoming iPhone app called Aurasma that has the power to turn ink-and-paper publications into interactive mine fields. Aurasma, conceived by enterprise software firm Autonomy, uses a scaled down version of the outfit's IDOL pattern recognizer to identify images stored in a vast database, and then converts those images into related video. Unfortunately, the first release of the app, scheduled for sometime next month, comes in the form of an AR advertisement / game for an unidentified upcoming movie, and the company's founder seems solidly focused on the technology's marketing potential. No word yet on when or if we can expect to see our New York Times come to life, as seen in the video at the source link below, but if this is the future of augmented reality, count us in.
