Argon, the Augmented Reality Web Browser

On February 14th, Argon, the first mobile augmented reality (AR) browser became available as a free download in the iTunes app store.  Argon is based on the KHARMA (KML/HTML Augmented Reality Mobile Architecture) open-web standards-based development platform.  The goal of the Argon project is to provide a foundation for millions of Web developers to begin writing mobile AR applications, so they can "move the web into the world," creating new experiences that are tied to the internet, yet unique to the world of AR.

Augmented reality allows people to view the physical world with computer media overlaid on top of it.  The approach is often suggested as a way of adding information to the world and improving the way that people can interact with that information, but can also be used for games, art, or any imaginable application where the media content relates to nearby people, places or things.   Argon marks the first significant step in marrying the power of the Internet to the world of augmented reality.  Until now, most AR applications had to be developed and deployed on the user’s mobile device, limiting the reach of the technology.  Commercial attempts at creating more general AR browser platforms have offered limited content and interaction options.

By building on top of open Web technologies and standards, the KHARMA development platform opens the door to AR applications with a full range of possible interactivity, collaboration, Web mashups and connections to cloud services that users and developers have come to rely on.  For example, rather than just displaying the locations of businesses or other nearby places, you can customize the content delivery as you desire.  When you use the browser to view the channel for a theater, the channel might display the movie times, allow you to view previews of the films, or create in-browser games and interactive experiences tied to the movies you choose.  Those games might be collaborative with other nearby viewers, or with people at another theater across town or across the country. The possibilities are endless.

In this talk, we will give an overview of the background and goals of project, the KHARMA architecture and the Argon browser.  Our hope is to support and encourage the Georgia Tech community to leverage Argon in their own projects.

Speaker's Bio: 

Blair MacIntyre is an Associate Professor in the School of Interactive Computing at the Georgia Tech, where he has directed (with Jay Bolter) the GVU Center's Augmented Environments Lab for over 10 years. He has been conducting Augmented Reality research since 1991, with the goal of understanding the potential of AR as a new medium for games, entertainment, education and work. He has collaborated on a variety of AR gaming and entertainment projects over the years, and in the past four years has focused on handheld AR game design, interaction and evaluation.

Dr. MacIntyre currently leads the Qualcomm AR Game Studio and KHARMA AR Platform projects at Georgia Tech.  His research has been supported by a variety of technology and content companies, including Alcatel-Lucent, Hewlett-Packard, Motorola, Nokia, NVidia, Sun Microsystems, Texas Instruments, Turner Broadcasting, and Qualcomm. He has written a wide range of academic papers, taught tutorials on Handheld Augmented Reality, and been Program Chair for the International Symposia on Wearable Computing (2000), Mixed and Augmented Reality (2003), and User-Interface Software and Technology (2003). He served as the guest editor of a 'Mixed Reality' special issue of IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications.

Dr. MacIntyre received a Ph.D. from Columbia University in the City of New York in 1998, and B.Math and M.Math degrees in Computer Science from the University of Waterloo in Canada in 1989 and 1991.