6 more examples of Augmented Reality

Busted any ghosts lately?

About this time last year I published one of my most popular blog posts, 20 real-world examples of Augmented Reality, in which I shared examples of what people in the real world are currently doing with this emerging technology – in contrast to the promise of what we could be doing.

I’d like to share with you half a dozen other examples that I’ve stumbled upon since then. They aren’t necessarily new to the world, but they were new to me.

Feel free to share your own examples via a comment below…

Hot on the heels of LEGO’s recent foray into AR – namely LEGO AR-Studio which lays virtual bricks over the real world – is LEGO Hidden Side which lays virtual ghosts over real bricks.

The hunt-and-trap game mechanics sound suspiciously similar to those of Pokémon Go, but I suppose their objective is to introduce a narrative into the playing experience, thereby increasing its engagement value.

While we’re in the interactive entertainment space, another concept evolving with AR technology is the escape room.

One app billing itself as an augmented reality escape room is Scriptum, but it looks more like VR to me. My idea of AR is what Escape the Room: AR does: place virtual puzzles in a real room.

On a more serious note, scientists have reported clinical outcomes with augmented reality prostheses to alleviate phantom limb pain.

And while we’re nerding out, I’m thoroughly impressed with something simpler: Measure, which turns your Apple device into a virtual tape measure for sizing up objects in the real world.

I wonder if it can measure a ghost?

20 real-world examples of Augmented Reality

The 2019 instalment of Virtual Reality Working Out Loud Week kicks off next month. For a couple of previous VR WOL Weeks I’ve collated lists of the examples that the participants unearthed – see 20 real-world examples of Virtual Reality and 25 more real-world examples of Virtual Reality.

This time however I’ve decided to do something different. I’ve decided to focus my attention on Augmented Reality.

As with VR, there’s plenty of talk out there about how wonderful AR is and the incredible potential it offers us. There’s also a lot of talk about how much better it is than VR, which I find comically absolutist. Surely it’s circumstantial?

In any case, I’m interested in what people in the real world are currently doing with this emerging technology, so I’ve collated the following examples.

In the post-Pokémon Go era, an increasing number of AR games pepper the market. While one game replaces Pikachu with robots, another goes a step further by leveraging the background environment as you ward off alien invaders.

For its part, Niantic is continuing to evolve Pokémon Go with occlusion, by which the augmentation integrates with the background environment. (For example, a monster pops its head up from behind your couch.) Word on the street is this kind of next level immersion will feature in their upcoming Harry Potter spinoff.

The trail being blazed by the entertainment industry is being quickly followed by workplace educators. For example, Japan Airlines uses AR to train its engine technicians, while Deakin University uses it to teach its healthcare students. In terms of performance support, doctors use AR to perform target guided surgery, while the Royal Navy uses it to aid the officer of the watch.

Some companies are also using AR to educate their customers. In my previous blog post Educate everyone I praised Hyundai’s virtual guide which helps Sonata owners maintain their vehicle. Another car maker, MINI, has glasses that not only provide its drivers with navigational prompts, but also lets them see through the car.

In the world of retail furniture, Ikea lets you see how their products look in your home and another app walks you through assembling them.

Customer education blurs with marketing, and prime examples of the latter are ModiFace’s hair colour and nail polish previewers. In a similar vein, Kinect lets you try on clothes, Lacoste lets you try on shoes, Shop 4 Rings lets you try on jewellery, while Speqs completes your look with glasses.

In regard to the point-and-play type of AR, one of the most impressive I’ve seen is that of winemaker 19 Crimes who brings the convicts on their labels to life. The eerie black-and-white treatment reminds me of Koko tormenting a cat in The Clown’s Little Brother – which was released back in 1920!

My coverage of augmented reality here is by no means exhaustive; it simply represents the instances I’ve stumbled upon recently. If you are aware of another real-world example, please share it via a comment below.

For more virtual reality, follow the #VRwolweek hashtag on Twitter and I encourage you to participate yourself.

In the meantime, who fancies running an #ARwolweek…?

5 games every e-learning professional should play

You can narrow down someone’s age by whether they include spaces in their file names. If they do, they’re under 40.

That is a sweeping declaration, and quite possibly true.

Here’s another one… Gamers are a sub-culture dominated by young men.

This declaration, however, is stone-cold wrong. In fact, 63% of American households are home to someone who plays video games regularly (hardly a sub-culture). Gamers are split 59% male / 41% female (approaching half / half) while 44% of them are over the age of 35 (not the pimply teenagers one might expect).

In other words, the playing of video games has normalised. As time marches on, not gaming is becoming abnormal.

So what does this trend mean for e-learning professionals? I don’t quite suggest that we start going to bed at 3 a.m.

What I do suggest is that we open our eyes to the immense power of games. As a profession, we need to investigate what is attracting and engaging so many of our colleagues, and consider how we can harness these forces for learning and development purposes.

And the best way to begin this journey of discovery is by playing games. Here are 5 that I contend have something worthwhile to teach us…

1. Lifesaver

Lifesaver immediately impressed me when I first played it.

The interactive film depicts real people in the real world, which maximises the authenticity of the learning environment, while the decision points at each stage gate prompt metacognition – which is geek speak for realising that you’re not quite as clever as you thought you were.

The branched scenario format empowers you to choose your own adventure. You experience the warm glow of wise decisions and the consequences of poor ones, and – importantly – you are prompted to revise your poor decisions so that the learning journey continues.

Some of the multiple-choice questions are unavoidably obvious; for example, do you “Check for danger and then help” or do you “Run to them now!”… Duh. However, the countdown timer at each decision point ramps up the urgency of your response, simulating the pressure cooker situation in which most people I suspect would not check for danger before rushing over to help.

Supplemented by extra content and links to further information, Lifesaver is my go-to example when recommending a game-based learning approach to instructional design.

2. PeaceMaker

Despite this game winning several prestigious awards, I hadn’t heard of PeaceMaker until Stacey Edmonds sang its praises.

This game simulates the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which you choose to be the Israeli Prime Minister or the Palestinian President, charged with making peace in the troubled region.

While similar to Lifesaver with its branched scenario format, its non-linear pathway reflects the complexity of the situation. Surprisingly quickly, your hipsteresque smugness evaporates as you realise that whatever you decide to do, your decisions will enrage someone.

I found this game impossible to “win”. Insert aha moment here.

3. Diner Dash

This little gem is a sentimental favourite of mine.

The premise of Diner Dash is beguilingly simple. You play the role of a waitress in a busy restaurant, and your job is to serve the customers as they arrive. Of course, simplicity devolves into chaos as the customers pile in and you find yourself desperately trying to serve them all.

Like the two games already mentioned, this one is meant to be a single player experience. However, as I explain in Game-based learning on a shoestring, I recommend it be deployed as a team-building activity.

4. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes

As its name suggests, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a multi-player hoot. I thank Helen Blunden and David Kelly for drawing it to my attention.

In the virtual reality version of the game, the player wearing the headset is immersed in a room with a bomb. The other player(s) must relay the instructions in their bomb defusal manual to their friend so that he/she can defuse said bomb. The trouble is, the manual appears to have been written by a Bond villain.

It’s the type of thing at which engineers would annoyingly excel, while the rest of us infuriatingly fail. And yet it’s both fun and addictive.

As a corporate e-learning geek, I’m also impressed by the game’s rendition of the room. It underscores for me the potential of using virtual reality to simulate the office environment – which is typically dismissed as an unsuitable subject for this medium.

5. Battlefield 1

I could have listed any of the latest games released for Xbox or PlayStation, but as a history buff I’m drawn to Battlefield 1.

It’s brilliant. The graphics, the sounds, the historical context, the immersive realism, are nothing short of astonishing. We’ve come a long way since Activision’s Tennis.

My point here is that the advancement of gaming technology is relentless. While we’ll never have the budget of Microsoft or Sony to build anything as sophisticated as Battlefield 1, it’s important we keep in touch with what’s going on in this space.

Not only can we be inspired by the big end of town and even pick up a few design tips, we need to familiarise ourselves with the world in which our target audience is living.

What other games do you recommend we play… and why?

Paper cuts

I’m late to the party, but finally I’ve gotten my hands onto Google Cardboard.

I’ve been tinkering with it and, in the spirit of Virtual Reality Working Out Loud Week, I’ve decided to share with you what I’ve learned so far.

I’ll also share my problems – and there are plenty of them – so if you can solve any for me I’d be grateful!

The device

The ROI for Google Cardboard is through the roof. For about $20, you gain access to a world of wonder.

While high-end virtual reality hardware is available – and more will become available this year – the folded paper option is the perfect gateway for exploring this emerging technology.

Apps

Some brilliant Cardboard apps are available at Google Play.

Vrse showcases the 360° nature of VR, while Inmind VR is a somewhat childish game that nonetheless demonstrates the order of magnitude that immersive 3D animation offers over 2D. I foresee biotech companies leading the way on this.

Evidently, though, VR apps are still very much in their infancy. While a sizeable number are currently available, they are accompanied by reams of poor reviews. Many are free, but an astronomy app I tried stopped part way and wanted me to buy the premium version to continue.

I also found it tricky to identify the apps that were compatible with Cardboard. Most that are have the little goggles icon integrated into their artwork, but it would be preferable if the Play Store simply let us filter the results.

360° videos

These are great! A couple of my favourites are Red Bull F1 360° Experience and MythBusters: Sharks Everywhere!

On your PC, you can use the navigation arrows or your mouse to shift your point of view; on your smartphone, you can physically move your device; and if you watch it through Google Cardboard, you get the full immersive experience.

Strangely, 360° videos don’t work on my iPad. I either get the Cardboard-oriented double vision, or else the regular pov stuck in one direction.

I also find the videos a little blurry. This may have something to do with the age of my S4, but I recently read that Facebook is getting serious about resolution.

The good news is you can record your own 360° videos using special cameras that are reasonably priced IMHO. A virtual tour, perhaps?

360° photos

These are just like 360° videos, but they’re static. Don’t let that put you off – they’re surprisingly immersive.

Google calls them “photo spheres” and they remind me of Microsoft’s Photosynth. Whereas Photosynth stitched together discrete photos, you record your photo sphere in a continuous circular motion.

Here’s my effort from a friend’s rooftop. (Note: This link is not supported in the mobile web version of Google Maps. Oh the irony.)

All you need to record your own photo sphere is the Cardboard Camera app. Having said that, I found it highly temperamental. The app is not very forgiving of human shaking, so a tripod would be helpful. It also drops out frustratingly easily. Clearing the app’s cache and my phone’s RAM appears to help, as does keeping a super-tight turning circle and moving painfully slowly.

Any kind of movement in the scene is a no-no; I tried it at Circular Quay and had no chance. Again, this could be due to the age of my phone, but still I’m surprised there is no photo-stitching option as per Photosynth.

Yet I struck more problems. My photo sphere works perfectly within my Cardboard Camera app; I wear my papery goggles and it’s like I really am surveying Sydney Harbour. Alas, that’s where it stayed.

I tried to upload my photo sphere to SphereShare (not a Google site) but it doesn’t play nice with IE11. Even in Chrome I received the following error: Please provide valid Photo Sphere JPEG image. Umm…?

Then I found out Google had a site called Views, but not any more. It appears they now want photo spheres uploaded to Google Street View. There’s an app for that, but I couldn’t open it – and I’m not the only one. (It appears I need Android 5. My phone only goes up to 4.4.2.)

Google has a slick Street View website, complete with PUBLISH subsite, which inexplicably fails to explain how to publish photo spheres. Thankfully I stumbled on this article by Phil Nickinson and learned that instead of starting at the map and uploading your photo sphere, you start at the photo sphere in your phone’s image gallery and share it to Maps. Then nothing happens, which is disconcerting, but Phil warns that Google must approve your photo sphere which takes about a day or so. It would have been nice for Google to have explained that. A week later, I’m still waiting.

However a more pressing problem was that my photo sphere was rendering in Maps as a photo. This I could not understand, given the file was being transferred from one Google application to another Google application via Google’s operating system. I even tried uploading it via PC, but again it rendered as a regular photo. I posted this conundrum to Reddit’s Google Cardboard subreddit and to one of LinkedIn’s virtual reality discussion groups, both in vain.

Thankfully I stumbled upon this discussion thread in the Google Photos Forum about a different problem, for which Russ Buchmann refers to the Photosphere XMP Tagger app (not a Google app). Hurrah! After using this app to tag my file, it rendered in Maps as a photo sphere.

A final tip: Populate your tagged file’s property details (eg title) in Windows Explorer prior to uploading it to Maps.

Milestones and millstones

My VR learning journey thus far may be described as joy punctuated by disappointment.

I applaud Google for giving Average Joe the gift of virtual reality – not only to consume, but also to produce.

Yet I am astonished by the lack of interoperability between Google’s own platforms, our reliance on third party products to perform seemingly simple tasks, and the tech giant’s customer uncentricity.

No doubt the boffins at Mountain View know exactly what they’re doing… but how about the rest of us?

They’d probably tell us to Google it.