Augmented Reality has become more than a buzzword. It represents the next step in human/computer interaction. Interfaces that were once solid have become liquid. With the iPhone, we have the ability to download software from the air. With augmented reality, the interface evaporates from the liquid state into the air as well. Bruce Sterling’s keynote at Layar is a helpful introduction to this field.

There have been a number of applications developed by various companies and individuals, but what’s being done in Portland? As it turns out, quite a lot. I’ve been running an unadvertised Augmented Reality meetup for the past few months (if you’re a developer or Interaction Designer interested in attending this group, comment below), and have found the Portland tech community to be a fertile ground or AR development.

Mobile Portland brings Augmented Reality to you

Starting Monday, you can learn more about what’s going on in Portland AR as well. There will be a meetup at AboutUs.org with two of Portland top AR developers. They’re great people and I highly recommend meeting them. The meeting starts at 6pm at AboutUs.org.

Event Overview

Imagine being able to use your phone to see what that IKEA couch you’ve been considering will look like in your living room. A far-fetched science fiction scenario? No, IKEA has already released an application like that in Europe.

Augmented reality is an exciting and emerging technology. Augmented reality take real life information–typically the video display of a phone–and overlays it with computer information. Augmented reality is something that is completely unique to mobile.

This month at Mobile Portland, we’re lucky to have two speakers who are early innovators in augmented reality. P. Mark Anderson is platform architect for Spot Metrix which provides an augmented reality library for iPhone called 3DAR. Tim Sears created Robotvision, one of the first augmented reality applications for iPhone.

Mark and Tim will share how people are using augmented reality, their experiences using augmented reality, and what the future holds for this new technology.

About the Speakers

P. Mark Anderson

P. Mark Anderson has 13 years experience developing interactive applications. After receiving a degree in Computer Science from University of Colorado in 1999 he started his career as a developer for Sun Microsystems.

In addition to creating several iPhone applications, Mr. Anderson moderates the Helpful iPhone Utilities open source project, as well as My Maps, an augmented reality iPhone app built on top of Google’s personalized mapping system.

Mr. Anderson is platform architect for the 3DAR augmented reality SDK. He enjoys working with both artists and developers, and occupies his spare time with watercolor painting, mountain biking, disc golf and mentoring.

Tim Sears

Tim Sears is a software engineer who works for PR firm Waggener Edstrom by day building web applications, by night creating location-based augmented reality experiences for the iPhone. He created Robotvision, a popular augmented reality browser, for the iPhone in 2009 and currently works with clients to build out mobile geolocation experiences in augmented reality.

His work in augmented reality and social media analytics has been featured in major publications such as ReadWriteWeb, TechCrunch and CNET, and has won several awards, including the International Business Awards Best New Product/Service of 2009 for twendz, a real-time Twitter sentiment analysis application.

Date

Monday, January 25, 2010 at 6:00pm

Location

AboutUs Offices
107 SE Washington St., Suite 520,
Portland, Oregon 97214

RSVP on Upcoming.org

Mobile Portland: Augmented Reality on Upcoming.org

Website:

MobilePortland.com

Note: Dates and venues are pretty much set for CyborgCamp!

You can now:

• RSVP for CyborgCamp Portland
• RSVP CyborgCamp Vancouver

I never saw it coming

CyborgCamp occured at around 10Am from a shoutout by Kris Krug and Dave Olson of RainCityStudios. I met them both at Gnomedex and we got along really well.

The only problem was that they both lived in Vancouver B.C., and I live in Portland, Oregon. Normally, it is difficult for me to travel unless there is a conference. So I told them that.

To which Dave replied “just have a Cyborg Camp!”.

And CyborgCamp was born.

Once Kris Krug retweeted the news, 30 or so people immediately jumped into high gear. Nate Angell built a Wiki with all sorts of capabilities, and more people got on board to discuss all aspects of Cyborgs.

Meanwhile, the Twitterverse was coming up with all sorts of speaker and venue suggestions, and by 6Pm that night, the first planning meeting for CyborgCamp 2008 occured as an offshoot of an Android Developers meeting at the Lucky Lab Pub SE.

…Whew.

That was only two days ago. Now we have a venue, a sponsor, and some potential speakers. Also a @cyborgcamp Twitter account, which Bram Pitoyo has been handling amazingly, as well as a preliminary poster design.

Now what?

If you think this sounds like something you might be interested in, Sign up —> CyborgCamp2008 for Wiki access. Or follow the @cyborgcamp Twitter account for updates, general inquiries, speaker suggestions and sponsor ideas. Or you can directly E-mail caseorganic if you don’t use Wikis or Twitter.

What is a cyborg?

A cyborg (shorthand for “cybernetic organism”) is a symbiotic fusion of human and machine. Join in our pre-conference discussion about what is a cyborg?

What is CyborgCamp?

An unconference dedicated to exploring cyborg technology, anthropology, psychology, and philosophy.

Who should come to CyborgCamp?

Cyborgs, hybrids, androids, robots, and the people who love them!

When is CyborgCamp?

Nov. 21-22 2008

Proposed Topics

• Space and Time Compression
• Cybernetic Organisms - The emergence of technological systems, control and feedback in biological life
• Online Presence and Boundary Extensions
• What is Cybernetics?
• The Future of Mobile Technology
• Artifical Intelligence
• Technology and Culture
• A Brief History of Cybernetics
• Cyborgs Around & Within - How humankind takes for granted our lives as, and among Cyborgs
• Top 10 Modifications you can make to be a better Cyborg
• Cybernetics and Morality
• Wetware Hacking
• Pimp My Avatar

Hyperorganization

This should be an interesting event. It needs a lot of film and audio coverage, as well as live casting and projection screens. As many channels as possible so we can exist in as many places at one time. Our minds can supply the rest.

You can follow along at CyborgCamp.org or on Twitter by following @cyborgcamp.

“You want to really pay attention to the website architecture because it can really have an effect on how your website is organized.”
A streamlined website architecture helps search engines determine the relevance of each page when they are ranking things.
Your website must be capable of being read by both humans and machines. Your role as a search engine optimizer is to make search engines think less, users think less.