Image recognition that triggers augmented reality - Matt Mills

So wouldn't it be amazing if our phones could see the world in the same way that we do? As we're walking around, being able to point the phone at anything and then have it actually recognize images and objects like the human brain, and then be able to pull in information from an almost infinite library of knowledge and experiences and ideas?

Well, traditionally that was seen as science fiction, but now we've moved to a world where actually this has become possible. The best way of explaining it is to just show it. What you can see over here is Tamiya, who's holding my phone that's now plugged in.

So let me start with this: what we have here is a painting of the great poet, Robbie Burns. It's just a normal image, but if we now switch inputs over to the phone running our technology, you can see effectively what Tamiya's seeing on the screen. When she points at this image, something magical happens; I no matter blinks.

Now, what's great about this is there's no trickery here. There's nothing done to this image, and the technology is allowing the phone to start to see and understand much like the human brain does. Not only that, but as I move the object around the book, it's going to track it and overlay that content seamlessly. Again, the thing that's incredible about this is this is how advanced these devices have become. All the processing to do that was actually done on the device itself.

Now, this has applications everywhere, whether in things like art museums, like you just saw, or in the world of, say, advertising or print journalism. A newspaper becomes out of date as soon as it's printed. Here is this morning's newspaper, and we have some Wimbledon news, which is great. Now what we can do is point at the front of the newspaper and immediately get the bulletin ring.

You adapt, and you have to be flexible; you have to be willing to change direction at a split second, and she does all that. She's won this title, and that linking of the digital content to something physical is what we call an aura, and I'll be using that term, Anila, as we go through the talk.

So what's great about this is it isn't just a faster, more convenient way to get information in the real world, but there are times when actually using this medium allows you to be able to display information in a way that was never before possible. So what I have here is a wireless fruta, and my American colleagues have told me I've got to call it a router so that everyone here understands, but nonetheless, here is the device.

So now what I can do is rather than getting the instructions for the device online, I can simply point it; the device is recognized and then begin by plugging in the "grate it yourself" cable, then connect the power, finally the yellow Ethernet cable. Congratulations, you have now completed setup! Awesome, thank you!

The incredible work that made that possible was done here in the UK by scientists at Cambridge, and they work in our offices. I've got a lovely picture of them here; they couldn't all be on stage, but we're going to bring that over to the stage. So here they are; they're not very animated, so this was the fourth take, I'm told.

Okay, so as we're talking about Cambridge, let's now move on to technical advancements. Since we started putting this technology on mobile phones less than 12 months ago, the speed and the processor in these devices have grown at a really phenomenal rate. That means that I can now take cinema-quality 3D models and place them in the world around me.

So I have one over here; Tamiya, would you like to jump in as Sleeping? Then, after the fun comes the more emotional side of what we do because, effectively, this technology allows you to see the world through someone's eyes. For that person to be able to take a moment in time and effectively store it and tag it to something physical that exists in the real world.

What's great about this is the tools to do this are free, they're open, and they're available to everyone within our application. Educators have really got on board with the classrooms; we have teachers who've tagged up textbooks, teachers who've tagged up school classrooms, and a great example of this is a school in the UK.

I have a picture here from a video, and we're now going to play it. Now move to the other side; see what happens, move away from it and come back to it. Have you got it again? So it's not magic; it's available for everyone to do.

Actually, I'm going to show you how easy it is to do by doing one right now. So, I sort of, I'm told it's called a stadium wave. So we're gonna start from this side of the room on the count of three and go over to here. Tamiya, are you recording?

Okay, so you all ready? One, two, three, go! Fellows, very good now! Okay, now we're going to switch back into the Aurasma application, and what Tamiya's gonna do is tag that video that we just took onto my badge so that I can remember it forever.

Now we have lots of people who are doing this already, and we've talked a little about the educational side. On the emotional side, we have people who've done things like sent postcards and Christmas cards back to their family with little messages on. We have people who've, for example, taken the inside of the engine bay of an old car and tagged up different components within an engine so that if you're stuck and you want to find out more, you can point and discover the information.

We're all very, very familiar with the Internet; in the last 20 years, it's really changed the way that we live and work and the way that we see the world. What's great is we sort of think this is the next paradigm shift because now we can literally take the content that we share, we discover, and that we enjoy and make it a part of the world around us.

It's completely free to download this application. If you have a good Wi-Fi connection or 3G, this process is very, very quick. I'll play up; we can save it now. It's just going to do a tiny bit of processing to convert that image that we just took into a sort of digital fingerprint.

And the great thing is if you're a professional user, so in the newspaper, the tools are pretty much identical to what we've just used to create this administration. The only difference is that you've got the ability to add in links and slightly more content. You're now ready?

Okay, so I'm Toby ready, which means we can now point at the image, and there you all are. Well done! Creeping around my thankee!