Augmented reality has been touted as revolutionizing everything from shopping to surgery, but let's not forget how delightful overlaying the digital onto the real can be from a pure entertainment perspective.
Case in point: Chip Sineni of Trixi Studios, a VR/AR content house, has taken the iconic "Take On Me" music video from the 1980s and turned it into an augmented reality application for Apple's ARKit.
As a refresher, ARKit is an augmented reality framework within iOS 11 that lets developers create AR apps and experiences for iPhone and iPad.
It's a unique approach to AR because it works with the millions of existing Apple devices, making it the biggest AR platform in the world when iOS 11 releases in the fall.
And it allows for awesome AR mashups like this:
The video above shows Sineni's unreleased ARKit application in action, and it's basically a mini-recreation of the band A-ha's music video for Take On Me.
The viewer is beckoned into the comic book world of the lead singer, and from here can see the real-world through a window pane in the middle of the living room. Objects and people in the real world are also drawn into the AR realm when they come into view, attesting to the tracking and sensing capabilities of ARKit on iOS devices.
The whole thing is well-done and fun to watch, not to mention a great way to get Take On Me stuck in your head for the rest of the day.
It's exciting to see developers taking ARKit and running with it. In addition to Sineni's creation, we've been treated to teases of applications that let you drop furniture anywhere, measure a room, play Tic-Tac-Toe on the floor, enter inter-dimensional portals and a whole lot more.
With augmented reality reportedly a big feature of the iPhone 8, we'll likely see plenty more applications take full advantage of ARKit between now and the phone's expected September release date.
Via TechCrunch
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