Microsoft presented their Augmented Reality mapping technology at TED.
Look at the video below, fantastic what it can do.

For me, three things strike out:
*The incorporation of Photosynth processes in their maps. Great way of including crowdsourced images in a natural way.
*The abilty to augment a location by use of the mobile phone camera and being able to see their real-time view superimposed on maps.
*The ability to look inside buildings due to the use of backpack cameras.

What is your first impression on the new opportunities?

Great graphic by Randy Krum who created his personal infographic.

Of course, not everybody has all these devices, but it’s clear that we’re become increasingly mechanized beings and have many extensions that are belonging to the daily repertoire.
With the rise of the smartphone and other convergent devices, many activities can be completed at anytime and anywhere. This only will increase in the future due to more advanced processors/hardware and societal diffusion of technology in general.

What are your thoughts on the digitalization of society?
Do you adhere the Transhumanist view, that science and technology improve human lives and want to intertwine it as much as possible?
Or do you adhere the Modern World critics view which see an advancement in technology as an involution of the human being?
Or somewhere in between?

Mobile is in the spotlights, at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, like the Verizon Wireless-Skype agreement, Google’s new Mobile mantra, the Windows phone etc.
Interesting announcements are made, ubiquity is becoming clear, the Mobile Web is being adopted fast, Mobile Search rises and many more -convergent- developments.

Where does Mobile stand in your strategy?
If it’s important for you, what are you doing right now to incorporate it in your strategy?
If not, what are the reasons for that decision?

Discuss as well via Google Wave
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More news from the  Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Yesterday I reported that Verizon Wireless and Skype are at the verge of changing the industry.

Today other news reached me, this time it’s Google, who’s new mantra “Mobile First” is being put as primary focus of the company. The latest acquisition in that space, AdMob, is a result of this new strategy.

Mr. Schmidt said that three areas are coming together on the mobile device, namely the Cloud, computing power and interconnectivity. All these three areas converge in the mobile device, making it a most powerful device where strategies need to be developed in order to thrive or at least, survive.

The signs are there, smartphone sales are growing at a 30% year-over-year rate, which will eventually surpass the personal computer sales.
Even more important, the adoption of the Mobile Web is growing annualy eight times faster than the Web adoption did a decade ago.
In countries like Indonesia and South Africa more searches are done via the mobile Web than via the desktop, it simply cannot be ignored.
For other key mobile trends, have a look at the 8 key Mobile Internet themes article.

These are all serious figures developments which cannot be ignored by companies if they want to keep up the high pace of emerging and converging opportunities.

What do you think of this ‘declaration’ by Google?

That is what Verizon Wireless and Skype have announced yesterday at the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona!
It was bound to happen at one point, but I never thought that Verizon would be the operator to initiate this.
Secondly, this is a huge milestone for Skype which is trying to get access to wireless networks for several years now.

What do you think the effect of this development will be on the mobile industry and on the current relationships?

Press release from Skype:
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We hope that people in the industry will be interested in anonymously contributing their knowledge so we can all benefit from the aggregate results.   The intended respondents for these surveys are people who have built or have hired other people to build AR apps.  The intended readership of the results are people who are interested in hiring AR developers.  We hope this information will help more people feel comfortable hiring AR developers, that more information will be good for the AR economy and the people who want to be a part of it.   We’ll be sending the results out to everyone who participates, along with a discount code if you’d like to purchase the larger research report this will be a part of.   If you’ve got any questions you can email me at marshall@readwriteweb.com  Thanks for you time taking these surveys.

To access the surveys go to:

Webcam AR

Mobile AR

With a userbase big as Yahoo’s one, it’s a logic result that Yahoo is figuring out how to leverage its users to create an Augmented Reality application which differs a bit from others.
Instead of tagging pictures to a geolocation, Yahoo’s goes social by making it possible to leave notes on specific surroundings, which can be read by the user’s network.

Read here the patent which is filed by Yahoo. Read up the detailed decriptions, some interesting notes are made.
The abstract:

Disclosed are methods and apparatus for capturing information that is pertinent to physical surroundings with respect to a device, the information including at least one of visual information or audio information. Overlay information for use in generating a transparent overlay via the device is obtained using at least a portion of the captured information. The transparent overlay is then superimposed via the device using the overlay information, wherein the transparent overlay provides one or more transparent images that are pertinent to and in correlation with the physical surroundings.

There are many Augmented Reality applictions developed or in development, the potential application by Yahoo differs in terms of existing userbase and possible mass adoption. The social aspect might drive adoption, being able to identify oneself faster with overlaying data, than any kind of data which is not close to someone.

Would this move make sense by Yahoo?

Proximity Marketing as described by Wikipedia is “the localized wireless distribution of advertising content associated with a particular place.”
The commercialization of location will get a boost by the power and opportunities offered by Mobile Augmented Reality applications.

Have a look at the first real-time Augmented Reality proximity marketing platform by Insqribe:

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Due to increasing interest in Augmented Reality, the creative question rises where Augmented Reality can benefit the user?
Theoretically, all is ‘reality’ and all can be augmented with meta-data, but what are the fields that will benefit most?
If one reads the articles and watches the videos on Youtube, one cannot deny the futurisic and science fictional touch that Augmented Reality brings along and fires up creativity and innovativity.

In this article we set out a list of Augmented Reality applications which in some cases are already prototyped, investigated or in use.
This list is probably far from complete, please do complement!

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Gartner predicts that mobile will overtake the PC’s as Web access device.
There will be 1.82 billion mobile devices (smartphones and browser equipped phones), and 1,78 bilion PC’s.

Three important issues are raised in the article by MediaPost on the Gartner research.

1. Most companies have not optimized their websites for the Mobile Web. To have a good presence on the Mobile Web, an adjusted website for the device must be set in place.

2. Context will be key for mobile just as search engines are for the Web. The context will be able to service the user personalized relevant content (in time).

3. Search engines were based upon pulling information to users at their request, mobile on the other hand will be able to prepopulate or push information on unique aspects as the context, the person and content wanted at that point of time.

As outlined in my article “Mobile Marketing moving to centre of the Marketing Strategy?” , companies need to start thinking about any implications the Mobile Web might have for their business and target groups. Fast consecutive occuring life-cycles will make it much more difficult to intervene when the mobile has come to its peak of importance.
A technology like Augmented Reality, which is going to grow the coming years, will even grow further by this, where it could be possible that Proximity Marketing will have a second more contextually relevant chance. Read my article “Mobile Augmented Reality boosting Proximity Marketing” on this subject.
Last but not least, this could impact media convergence as well, where TV, PC and Mobile will blend into new cross-media experiences which shall depend much on Mobile as well.

What implications do you foresee?