Now let us look at some of these intriguing questions that just might catch your fancy:

• What if you could hold your smartphone to the sky and see how the weather will change during the day?
• What if your phone could recognize trams passing by and tell you whether you could use it to go back home and/or when the next one is coming?
• What if you could see which of the Burj-Khalifa – or any other hotel –rooms that are available, and their price, only by taking a picture of the building itself?
• What if you could see when a museum is open and what are its current exhibitions and opening hours?

Thanks to video analytics, augmented reality is on the way to become part of our habits. But what is it? Augmented reality is a type of virtual reality that aims to duplicate the world's environment in a computer. An augmented reality system generates a composite view for the user that is the combination of the real scene viewed by the user and a virtual scene generated by the computer that augments the scene with additional information. The virtual scene generated by the computer is designed to enhance the user's sensory perception of the virtual world they are seeing or interacting with.

Since over a year now, we have been hearing a lot about this innovative technology and more particularly about the google glass and how it will revolutionize the way we see and interact with our surroundings. Everyday we can witness new applications that are bringing us closer to this this revolution.

With this idea in mind, and a constant development in the field of augmented reality has led to birth of applications like Layar and Blippar, which focuses on apps that are developed for smartphones, giving consumers a more interactive look into the world AR.

I'm sure you all aware of the Google glasses as mentioned before. But for augmented reality, it is just the tip of the iceberg for the future it holds for this technology.

A lot of retailers have already leveraged on this concept of AR incorporating into their sales and marketing operations, allowing consumers to take full advantage in helping them choose their product. Augmented reality is changing the way of how consumers can interact and shop at the same time. An example of this is illustrated in the IKEA 2013 catalogue video below:

The Nespresso Case:
Another similar example would be in the case of Nespresso machines.The concept is quite simple, the customer had to print a qr code, put it on a desired location, download the Nespresso app that would use the smartphone camera to reproduce the machine on the screen. The customer could then change color to check which one would better fit its environment.
This allows the potential customers to picture how well the Nespresso machines would fit their homes.

The Automotive Case:
HUD or Head-Up-Display is the use of any transparent display that displays information data without users' requiring to look away from their usual point of view. BMW was the first car manufacturer to adopt this technology into their commercial vehicles, where by the information on speed and other vehicle information was displayed on the bottom of the windscreen allowing the drivers to a more efficient and safer driving experience. It makes the drivers more aware of the car comportment and soon will be able to inform him from potential dangers using cameras at the back of the car reported on the windscreen. The cameras, together with infra-red light, will be able to analyze potential threat and communicate them to the driver, this latter won't even have to change its field of vision and will be able to concentrate only on what is in front of him!

Links:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57588128-76/the-next-big-thing-in-tech-augmented-reality/
http://mashable.com/2012/12/19/augmented-reality-city/
http://www.koloss.se/project/nespresso-augmented-reality
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/technology_guide/articles/head_up_display.html

Video Analytics Is A Hole-In-One!

The perfect swing through Video Analytics

„Golf is more than a sport, marriages which were divorced, relationships, which were ended, careers which were lost because people are so keen to learn this complex movement in golf“ says Prof. Dr. Martin Rohr, passionate Golfer himself .

It is widely known that golf is a complicated game and swinging a golf club correctly is not a natural thing to do. The technique behind timing a golf shot has to be taught and has to be practiced many times before a player can achieve the perfect swing.

Video analytics helped Prof. Dr. Martin Rohr, after playing Golf for years to improve his swing movement substantially and to consequently improve his Handicap. Additionally, through the help of video analysis Prof. Dr. Rohr was experiencing a relief from his chronic back pain. By being able to closely monitor his body movements and having a trained golf pro and a physician revise the captured material, he was able to take efforts to help relieve the pain in his lumbar spine that almost made him quit his most beloved sport.

We were able to get a testimonial from Prof. Dr. Rohr about his experience in Golf with Video Analytics.

please click here to see the interview

Prof. Dr. Martin Rohr being filmed at his Golf practise

The coach Richard Foster uses detailled video analysis on each of the students. The main goal is to achieve an improvement of the playing potential. He used software called GASP Lab Golf Analysis Software.

Golf Video Analysis Software

He points out, it is crucially important to receive immediate feedback. After a lesson the player has learned how to improve addressing the ball, and having perfected this he feels his game should now improve but then he momentarily forgets the best way to control the speed of the club head during the downswing and his game suffers. Without the immediate feedback one might improve 90% the first, 70% the next time practicing but eventually fall back into same old routine. Only by receiveing constant and immediate feedback the improvement performance can be maximized.

Golf student being analysed via Video Analysis

On the market so far are so called Golf Analysis Apps that help to connect coaches and athletes around the world. These apps allow you to record and analyze videos using slow motion, drawing and comparison tools, which can then be shared to anyone in the world. You can compare videos side by side with professional athletes, watch instructional and drill videos from coaches and browse videos from other golfers in the app community.

Another new technology for professionals is called „Monitors Track Man“. This application uses doppler radar technology that has been widely used in military applications to track missiles and projectiles since the 1960s. The app has a radar unit that tracks the trajectory of a golf ball from launch to landing and has the ability to measure the full ball flight, which is essential. The golf radar can give a precise picture of the club during ball impact.

Applying „Video Analytics“ and creating algorithms that would automatically assess and analyze the player’s performance would substancially support and in some occaisons substitute  the coach and allow precise feedback right away. Furthermore many issues that are not capturable at „first sight“ can be evaluated; such as, how the motion is affecting our body and how we develop a tecnique designed for our specific needs and health issues.

That health injuries are considered while playing is a great opportunity when addressing physically challenged people – no matter to what extent. Specifically, all parts of the body would be measured during the swing and then analyzed using video analytics. This new trend and opportunity is comparable with technologies applied in other sports industries, for example running or cycling:  in running the heart rate monitor and in professional cycling the motion maesurement system that helps to practice efficiently in order to improve performance.

This opens doors to new business opportunities for many professional golf trainers. Golf is a serious business, players are extremely passionate and are have a high willingness to pay, which has great revenue potential for video analytics. 

References:

http://www.richard-foster.com/

http://www.sloansportsconference.com/?p=630

http://www.ubersense.com/learn_more

http://trackmangolf.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN4wmwQojhQ

Prof. Dr. Martin Rohr

Frederike Rohr

Have you ever heard about a company from Copenhagen called Eye Tribe? I am sure you didn’t. Soon it may change, as this small venture already received millions of euros from private investors as well as from EU funds and started partnerships with some of the biggest companies on the market. All thanks to its cutting edge video analytic software.

So what’s so special about this particular firm?

Eye Tribe is a producer of a software that will really soon revolutionize mobile phone and computer usage. It intends to become the leading provider of eye control technology for mass market of consumer devices. Programmes developed by Eye Tribe will enable our eyes to control and navigate electronic devices completely handsfree. Just imagine that you don't have to touch you ebook reader to change a page, click a mouse to surf the internet, touch a phones screen to shoot and smash your angry bird into a wall. Sounds tempting right?

How does it work?

Very simple. You plug a device of a size of a dice to your mobile phone. This device sends out a beam of infrared lights and uses its reflection to locate the pupils in a user’s face. It doesn't even have a chip to process the eye tracking data. Instead it uses a processor that is already installed in your phone! Sounds unbelievable but this technology tracks a sub-millimeter moves of your eyes and enables very precise pinpointing! What makes it even more impressive is that you can use Eye Tribe while wearing glasses or lenses.

It’s available now!

Eye Tribe does not only promise pies in the sky. Its eye scanning technology is already on sale! For just 99 dollars you can purchase the smallest eye tracker in the world. It does not need a separate power supply so you can use outdoors and it works with most of the newer desktop and laptop computers as well as with tablets. Eye Tribe realizes that there is still less than a few software companies supporting eye tracking devices, that is why in the box with the device, we will find also easy programming software so that customers can improve existing programmes and add eye control to them.

Whats next..?

Eye tracking technology have countless opportunities of application. For now it seems to be limited to mobile device use but who knows, maybe in the long run it will prove useful in medical, army, car and many other industries. It is hard to predict the future but I am sure that in 10 to 15 years our sense of sight will become much more talented than it has ever been.

Sources:

https://theeyetribe.com/

http://www.androidmag.com/eye-tribe-lets-you-use-eyeball-movements-control-your-android-phone

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/the-eye-tribe/