The View From Above: In Hard Focus Round-up (August 15, 2011)

AR is Making Sweet Music: Geeky Gadgets checks out a cool new app, TableDrum, that allows you to jam out on any surface and translate these sounds into quality drum beats. Spare your neighbors the noise (and you the cost of a drumset). See a demo of the app above.

Lessons on the Facial Recognition Frontier: The Huffington Post shares an interesting perspective with regards to new technologies such as facial recognition that is definitely worth a read. Associating facial recognition technology with past events and innovations (think There Will Be Blood) that have sought to push the boundaries before the potential is known, the article mentions the power (for better or worse) that one photo can hold for opening doors to “our digital domain.” Lesson learned? Know the boundaries of your "domain" and the rules of the game before dipping into unknown waters. 

Augmented Reality Hype, According to Gardner: We cover quite a bit of Augment Reality campaigns, technology and companies on this blog and we certainly see its potential for applications of today and tomorrow (like the TableDrum app above!). Yet Gardner, as reported by CNET, take a step back to examine the greater hype (as well as subsequent enlightenment and productivity) of technologies using the mainstream adoption cycle as a guide. While AR appears in the ‘Trough of Disillusionment,’ one could similarly pinpoint AR in ‘Refinement & Augmentation’ area on The Long Nose Theory. Regardless, there’s more to AR (literally) than meets the eye.