The above video is in Japanese, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be watched, as Sony shows off some impressive augmented reality. Called SmartAR, Sony’s augmented reality system is able to identify arbitrary objects; as shown in the video, the system can identify a mug sitting on a table and have balls bounce out of it, then it identifies a book, which deflects the balls and changes their direction. In a later part of the demo, a woman points her smartphone at a book sitting on a table, which SmartAR identifies, then creates an interactive e-book on her phone. Make sure you watch to the end of the video, or at least skip to 4:35 into the video, where SmartAR turns the whole room into an augmented reality paradise.
Sadly, Sony doesn’t disclose what kind of machine is running SmartAR (at least, not in English), so we’re left wondering if it is consumer-affordable, or some kind of top secret rig that’ll overthrow society and plug us into its impressive augmented reality, effectively keeping us in a vegetated state, but able to harvest our bodies for energy.
(via ExtremeTech)
