reality

Though you might be obsessing over the next MacBook Air or the latest and greatest Android smartphone, your future laptop or mobile device might already be lying around your house.

Researchers at the Ishikawa Oku Laboratory at the University of Tokyo have come up with a concept called "invoked computing" that turns everyday objects into computer interfaces and communication devices using a ubiquitous augmented-reality system.

The concept is based on the idea that technology should learn our behavior and respond to us, instead of the other way around. As such, with invoked computing, one would just need to mimic a certain task and the computer should recognize the gesture and turn any object into a usable electronic device. … Read more

Amazon subsidiary A9 has just launched the Flow iPhone app. It's yet another visual shopping aid: you point it at a product, and it looks it up and gives you a price and an ordering link.

The difference is that Flow is more real-time and more fun to use than other apps, including the Amazon app and eBay's RedLaser. Just point it at a boxed item and it will recognize it and pop up a "buy" link. If you do nothing, the link will just fade into your log of scanned items. Keep pointing your phone at products, and it just keeps collecting links. It's like the Furni scene in "Fight Club" come to life. … Read more

Imagine sweeping your phone around a room and seeing a plethora of information about the pictures, music, and video around you. The Digimarc Discover app lets your phone read QR codes printed on products, identify tunes playing nearby, buy tickets when movies are advertised on a TV playing near you, and follow watermark links hidden in articles and product packaging.

Digital watermark purveyor Digimarc demoed the technology this spring and has now made the free app for iOS and Android available for download. The app falls somewhere between simple bar code readers and augmented-reality apps that recognize real-world objects and link information to them.

Digimarc Discover is the Swiss Army knife of real-world identification. It figures out the most appropriate identifying technologies for a given situation--QR code, watermark, audio and/or video--depending on where you are and how you've used it in the past.… Read more

Augmented reality in smartphones is just getting started.

If you have a smartphone or Nintendo 3DS, you've probably played with some form of augmented reality, which superimposes graphics, words and other useful information over real-life images.

Yelp, for instance, offers its Monocle feature, allowing you to see local listings superimposed over the image captured by the phone's camera. It uses the compass and gyroscope to locate the specific listings, which move in and out of view depending on where you hold the device. The augmented browser Layar came to prominence by accomplishing the same feat on Android smartphones. … Read more

I've been waiting half my life for the phrase "in your face!" to finally die. Now that it seems to be fading, I may have to contend with the rise of "On your face," as in "I'm gonna kick your ass, on your face!"

It's all thanks to a new technology that allows game players to actually fight their digital battles on their own faces. The iOS game Skinvaders uses an augmented-reality (AR) platform to take advantage of the devices' front-facing cameras and transform players' faces into the game terrain on which alien invaders must be defeated to save the world, or your face, or whatever... … Read more

All that work to build 3D graphics into the Web just bore fruit on one of the Internet's most useful and widely used sites: Google Maps.

Google has enabled a "MapsGL" option to show 3D buildings on the site through the use of WebGL, a 3D graphics technology for the Web that four of the five top browsers have embraced.

The move marks another step in the convergence of the browser-based Google Maps and the more immersive Google Earth software that stemmed from Google's 2004 acquisition of Keyhole. Google Earth lets people fly around, overlays imagery … Read more

Someday we may say size doesn't matter for tablets. Researchers from Intel, Microsoft, and the University of Washington have extended the interactive action beyond the tablet screen to the surface where a tablet computer sits.

Portico is similar to existing tabletop computing systems like Microsoft's Surface that recognize gestures and real-world objects, but is more portable and affordable. It re-creates the tabletop experience on a tablet by breaking free of the confines of the tablet's screen.

The system features a pair of downward-facing cameras mounted on stalks affixed to the back edge of a tablet. The cameras enable the system to see the tablet's screen and the surface around the tablet. Portico's augmented-reality software recognizes objects on and near the tablet. This allows interaction to be both on and off the tablet. (See the video below.)… Read more

PBS has long provided programming for children along with "viewers like you." It's famous programs, such as "Sesame Street" and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," reach millions of children each day. But like other media companies, PBS is also on the Web and mobile devices, providing videos, songs, and learning games for kids to use at home and school.

The extensive classroom material the nonprofit broadcaster provides includes this lesson on explorer Henry Hudson, aimed at grades 3 through 12.

I recently spent an afternoon at PBS headquarters in Arlington, Va., where, in addition to … Read more

Do you know high-minded, self-absorbed characters who are deeply committed to "Keeping Up With the Kardashians"? (Do they ever get to keep up?)

Do you happen to live with someone whose very being is rocked every time a Real Housewife or a Situation invades your TV screen?

If you happen to be one of these purgatorial souls, I bring supreme tidings. For it appears that Bravo, perhaps the greatest of the reality show cable channels, is casting a new show about Silicon Valley.

How can I possibly know this? Well, it seems that a nice lady at GigaOm … Read more