Day 1 of ISMAR ‘09 in the bag.

Lessons:

• Wow, this is a much smaller community than I envisioned.
• These folks are really passionate, smart and visionary.  I’d invite everyone of them over for dinner.
• In some ways the technology is ready for market, but the utility is still fuzzy.

Hats off to all the wonderful people that I met today.  You have welcomed me into this cadre of visionaries, and I’m looking forward to building the future, not just talking about it.

Kudos to the guys who get the press:

• Markus Tripp with Mobilizy (Wikitude)
• Dirk Groten (Layar)
• Chetan Damani (AcrossAir…Nearest Tube)

But the real congratulations go to the guys who have been at these for years, and whose technology is just coming into realization:

• Peter Meier with Metaio
• Daniel Wagner with Studierstube Tracker / Imagination.at (congratulations on your new baby, sorry to have missed you)
• Mark Billinghurst of HIT NZ

Finally, special mention goes to Ori Inbar and Robert Rice.  It was a bold move to bring together commercial organizations to begin to lay out a road map getting AR / Mobile AR to market.  I doubt it yielded your expected results, but the energy behind standardization was palatable.  Let’s move forward on the Consortium.  Great Idea.

Up early this morning.  Taking the next week off to attend the ISMAR 2009 (International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality) conference in Orlando.

I’m absolutely fascinated by this technology and it really inspires my imagination.