Techie Tuesday: Featured App - Aurasma

Since it seemed like last week's Techie Tuesday post received some good feedback, I decided to stick with featuring an app for the iPad/iPhone/iPod again this week.  In fact, I might just do this every Tuesday until I can't think of anything else to feature!  Today I will feature the app for Augmented Reality called "Aurasma".  If you haven't heard of it, you better hold on... b/c it's pretty CRAZY!!!

The Aurasma App for Augmented Reality

I wanted to start with Aurasma, because Augmented Reality is all the rave right now in technology.  I first heard about AR at eTech last February, and the idea just blew my mind.  If you don't know what it is, I will do my best to paint a picture, but I would encourage you to watch this video to see Aurasma in action. 

Aurasma is an app that allows you to focus in on a picture of something and see far behind that image.  What do I mean by that?  Once you get the app downloaded, take out a twenty dollar bill, and focus your iPad/iPhone over it with the app open.  You will see that the bill turns from a piece of green paper to a multidimensional video/music/moving image.  It's unreal and terribly hard to explain on a blog.  Trust me - it's something you have to see to believe. There are TONS of images you can focus in on in order to "see beyond" its flatness.  In fact, the coolest thing about Aurasma is that you can actually make your OWN versions of augmented reality.  I have done this twice... the first with a guitar and the second with a Wizard of Oz book.  On the guitar I was able to link a video and a picture of a guy playing the guitar and the Wizard of Oz book turned into Dorothy stepping into Munchkinland after landing on the Wicked Witch of the East.  Don't get too excited; neither of these were that cool and neither provided anything worth using in the future other than simply figuring out a LITTLE about how to make my own augmented reality.  Why would this be good to know?  Well, I wouldn't mind setting up a system in my English/Theatre/Speech classroom where the students could take pics of posters in my room that would lead them to instructional videos/music/etc about that topic.  Currently that isn't really possible because my kids don't have iPads and are not allowed to use iPods in the room.  Yet maybe in a few years this will all change.  Regardless, I want to stay on top of technology so it doesn't run me over!  Seriously, before February if I would have been told about this app I would have thought the person speaking about it was from the future.  Actually, it's kind of like that.  There is so much "from the future" that is available today, it's virtually unreal! PUN INTENDED!

When I was first introduced to Augmented Reality, I was informed that people are using it everywhere for tons of different purposes.  The most interesting thing I heard about was that there were specific t-shirts being made for augmented reality.  I heard that some people are wearing them at college sporting events and you can walk up to the t-shirt wearer and zoom in on their shirt and their school mascot will come alive and their fight song will play.  To me that seems a bit intrusive.  I mean, think of it... complete strangers are walking up to you and zooming in on an image that is plastered across your chest.  Yet I guess if you bought the shirt, you want people to do that... so it's your choice!  Anyway, I haven't been able to find anything like that to show you but I did find this video on marketing with Aurasma. Pretty crazy stuff, eh?

This Techie Teacher Recommends Aurasma for:

• Teachers! Play around with creating your own augmented reality for a more inner-active classroom.
• People who are interested in new marketing techniques.  This is like the next "QR Code" phase.
• People who are creative and want to tell stories within stories within stories.
• People who want to stay on top of what's next in technology.

This Techie Teacher does NOT Recommend Aurasma for:

• No one really!

Main Downfall of the App (if any):

• Augmented Reality is new and expanding every day.  I wouldn't say that there is a DOWNFALL to this app, it's just that you might not use it all of the time unless you create your own.
  

If you think that Augmented Reality is just a fad that will be leaving soon, think again.  In my opinion, this is just the tip of the iceberg of the future.  Here is one final video on the possibilities for Augmented Reality within the new few years.  In fact, I bet that this video becomes truth in less than a year's time.

What are your thoughts?