Layar is a self-titled mobile augmented reality browser.
Layar is a free application on your mobile phone which shows what is around you by displaying real time digital information on top of reality through the camera of your mobile phone.
After having a little play with this application I can see it has real potential. Augmented reality data sets are starting to become quite popular. An application, such as Layar, that can aggregate this content and display on 1 platform for users is helpful.
There is an article in this month’s wired magazine about Stamen, who are doing some fascinating data visualisation work.
Stamen is a San Francisco design and tech team that’s reinventing how to display information. Now it’s coming to London to map the 2012 Olympics – and demonstrate the new power of live data visualisation.
The CLOUD proposes an entirely new form of observation deck,connecting visitors to both the whole of London and the whole of the world, immersing them in euphoric gusts of weather and digital data. Each individual footstep on the ascent to the CLOUD participates in a vast collective energy-harvesting effort. Everyone around the world can contribute to the Cloud – whether by visiting or by sponsoring an LED, helping to keep the London lamp aflame.
http://raisethecloud.org/
New York city subway are apparently using some rather nice looking dynamic LED signage.
via Information Aesthetics
This looks like an interesting web site. A great example of the architecture industry using web 2.0 to aggregate and present information on architecture projects, inviting peer and public engagement.
Will be keen to watch this develop.
http://www.architizer.com/
Living Light is a building facade of the future that displays air quality and public interest in the environment. It is a permanent outdoor pavilion in Peace Park, across from World Cup Stadium in Seoul, Korea.
http://www.livinglightseoul.net/
(via www.interactivearchitecture.org)
A nice visualisation of CO2 emissions.
This real-time simulation displays the CO2 emissions of every country in the world, as well as their birth and death rates.
http://www.breathingearth.net/
Similar visuals for live energy consumption levels in buildings would work really well.
Hungarian company Aether Architecture do some pretty interesting work. The latest is a panoramic wifi camera that builds images of spaces using a wifi camera
Panoramic Wifi Camera creates a live panoramic image of a space seen through Wifi radio and other 2.4 GHz radio signals – how they bounce back form the architecture, composing an image, just as light would do.
However, the ‘light sources’ in this case are laptops, wifi hoptpots, iPhones, and even microwave overs (see the video for more on this).
Panoramic Wifi Camera from Adam Somlai-Fischer on Vimeo.
I went to Helsinki last week for the Creative Economy & Beyond conference. There was a fascinating talk from Professor Joachim Sauter from the Berlin University of Arts. Joachim runs a company called ART+COM that does some pretty cool stuff.
One interesting project of his was new media development for the BMW Museum. ART+COM developed several features for this museum that you can see on their website, one of which was creating a dynamic environment in the vast central hall of the museum that could represent the museum theme of mobility…
It was clear from the outset that the surface not be seen as a giant screen but primarily as a dynamic façade. To achieve this transformation from a screen-based cinematic to a dynamic architectural surface, the 700 square meters of the walls are completely covered with monochrome white LEDs. The LED layer is then covered with opaque glass. With this, no technology is visible any more, and the regular glass façade elements are in the foreground. This mediatecture, on one hand, enlarges the space by extending it virtually through three-dimensional moving images. It also sets the exhibited “parked” cars into motion relative to the animated walls. The moving reflections of the mediatecture on the cars are an additional movement, making the cars “drive”.
The façade is illuminated with both abstract and figurative motifs. In conjunction with a video-tracking system, this mediatecture can be switched to reactive mode, in which the pattern of illumination changes according to the mere presence of visitors and thus actively involves them in the scenario. Around 20 different illuminations create an environment that conjures up an atmosphere of technological yet poetic and emotional dimensions. The individual themes do not form self-contained narratives but are arranged in sequences of three to seven minutes, each flowing into the next.
