Proximity-based augmented reality social network games and how they improve communities

It's an exciting time to be a gamer. In the next year or two there will be an explosion of new games for augmented reality and Articulated Naturality-capable devices. One of the most interesting is the potential for a hybrid between a first person shooter game and a social network game.

Imagine the Zynga game Mafia Wars. Millions of people connect every day to button click their way to the top. In areas with a high density of Mafia Wars players there is a possibility that two people will walk past each other as they go about their day. Knowledge of location and predicted location means the users' smartphones can sound a proximity warning and the users quick draw their phones in a show down to see who's the best mobster. The game is also based on having a mafia, i.e. other players who are part of the individual's network, and this could extend into the proximity game by providing a boost to attack power based on the number of local mafia members. This creates a reason for people to add local players to their account much like social network gamers often collect other gamers on their Facebook profile.

The new games aren't just for kids. The trip to the office can be an opportunity to have a little excitement. People who often walk past each other have a new way to break the ice. This new form of gaming will make for many more of those serendipitous moments that lead to strangers becoming friends. The social network game has also significantly broadened the age group and demographic of gamers such that these new games could be a way to make business contacts or even find the love of a lifetime.

The benefits for an enhanced real social network allied with an online social network is exciting. Whole new gaming communities and social groups located near each other will be created and there will be a significant increase in social cohesion through these new forms of games.

The stars

Use the phone to explore the night sky.

This is a simple application that allows people to access information using the advanced capabilities
of the Ouidoo Gaian.

The phone can recognise star patterns even in a city sky. It can brighten them and access information about the different constellations with a touch of the touchscreen or use of the
gesture interface on the Ouidoo Gaian AN. It can access astronomy images so you can explore the cosmos at home just like a NASA scientist.

The Ouidoo

The augmented reality market is predicted to explode over the next two years and this is because the modern smartphone has become a barely capable device. The user experience from the current tranche of AR-smartphones is lacklustre because of poor quality sensors and the
exciting applications can't run because of the low performance processors which are overspecified general processors. Organic progress will see a capable AR device in 2012 however the capability to design an AR-capable phone is possible today.

The Ouidoo Gaian from QderoPateo seems to be the best attempt at bringing the technology together and making it market ready ahead of its time while other manufacturers are watching to see what happens. The vision is admirable and it's clearly driven by the passion of the team
at QderoPateo. The Ouidoo range and the Divinitus platform at its heart have been custom-designed to be Articulated Naturality-capable. The platform was desperately needed
and without it the mobile processor would have evolved at a snail's pace.

The Divinitus has two general purpose processing cores for handling the standard smartphone functions and 26 signal processing cores for handling AR and Articulated Naturality Web applications. It's the Scene cores that make the Ouidoo the first AN-capable phone because
these provide the power for the overlay of 3D images and what make it the world's first 8 gigaflop mobile processor.

The Ouidoo is a Scene device which is a significant leap ahead of it's competitors. Google Goggles and Nokia's Point-and-find applications attempt to give smartphones a basic ability to sense their environment and understand what they're being pointed at. The Ouidoo takes this one
step further and uses the latest technology to really sense the environment. This is an ambitious attempt to make significant leap forward in pervasive mobile computing and create a new device. The results will be interesting and it is likely the second offering in the
Ouidoo range will see this capability better realised.

Eye interaction for the ANW

The opportunity for interaction with the environment using eye movement is possible with scene devices like the Ouidoo Gaian. Canon debuted this technology in the semi-professional EOS 5 film SLR over a decade ago which could track eye movement using a low resolution digital sesnor
near the eye piece. This technology evolved to its epitome in the EOS 3, the last of Canon's professional film cameras.

The 1 megapixel video camera could be used to track eye movement. The SLR provides a better opportunity with the close proximity of the 1 kilopixel sensor and the eye. A phone held 30cm away from the eye could be close enough for accurate recognition using the latest algorithms and
high available computational power.

It would be an extraordinary interface. Simply looking at a building on the screen brings up the articulated naturality information. The experience is science fiction. Hand, touch or phone orientation gestures could also be used to provide pan and zoom functions interfaces. The
user can interact easier and with one less step. It will make the interface with the ANW exciting and novel as well as functional.

This technology could be extended to modern digital video cameras and could enable a new standard of creativity and high quality output.

Proximity social network applications - the future of Facebook?

Websites like meetups.com already provide a platform for likeminded people in a local area to get together. An upgraded version would bring this to a phone interface and locate meetups within easy distance of the user.

Would this be the AR application that takes over from Facebook? The proximity-based social network platform has a wealth of opportunities for convenient socialisation. This may be a natural progression of the Facebook platform or a usurper may capture the market.

The smarter phone

The first mobile phones did one thing: they handled calls. SMS was developed for the engineers to recieve a 'ping' from the base station but the obvious opportunity was quickly brought into the feature set. The first Nokia Communicator brought mobile phone computing and internet
access to the masses in the late 1990s and its in the 21st century that the phone is changing into a multipurpose mobile computing device.

Today sees people reach for their phone for more than answering a phone call. The Blackberry brought pervasive business email. The iPhone is succeeding in mobile gaming where the Nokia N-gage series failed. Almost every new phone has a music player as well as a Swiss army knife
of useful digital utilities like diaries and alarm clocks. Mobile TV has becoming commerically viable and the next step will see people reaching for their phones to access the Articulated Naturality Web.

The mobile phone has evolved beyond its inventors' visions. The modern smartphone is a powerful, portable computer that is connected to voice, text and digital networks. The additonal of sensors, applications and advanced algorithms to sense the world around the phone is a significant leap of evolution for the cellular device. These new capabilities are the tools for the architects of the future to build the applications and the new channel for the content creation herd.

Questions about ownership of the ANW

The ANW exists upon real space. Someone's house can have all sorts of articulated spaces or advertisements but does the owner of the house own that space? The answer is yes I think. It may not make sense for it to be otherwise.

At the moment there are no laws about the new virtual world of digital overlaid on physical objects. What would the future bring?

Would an AN billboard automatically be owned by the owner of the physical billboard? Yes. I guess that would make sense. The alternative would be a free market in ANW space and the potential for new 'stolen' billboards or other aggressive marketing tactics is high.

Anywhere where reviews are posted could delete unfavourable reviews? Yes. That would be inevitable unless there was a free 'layer' of the ANW that was unmoderated like alt. newsgroups.

And for free? If the law was the ownership of property came with the ownership of the land area and body of the property in virtual space then it would be hard to justify a charge unless the business take tried to exploit this opportunity was successful long before a legal challenge.

But what about the street? Who owns that? Would that be left anarchic or would it become moderated by a large, provider that sold advertising space to fund the free ANW platform for users?

And what if a company wanted to advertise using the sky in the ANW? I don't know who would own the sky in the ANW.