VENTURI · immersiVe ENhancemenT of User-woRld Interactions

Augmented Reality (AR) is a concept and a vision that has been with us, and will be with us, for the foreseeable future. We're already augmented today using mobile devices with a connection to the Internet allowing us to almost instantly gain access to the collective global human knowledge. We're starting to add visual augmentation into some devices, but we are only tapping into a small part of the available potential. VENTURI aims to create a pervasive AR paradigm, where available information will be presented in a 'user' rather than a 'device' centric way. This requires a change in how we think of and develop user interaction interfaces, making 'context' the starting point of all interactions. Our goal is to create an experience that's always present whilst never obstructing.To date, convincing AR has only been demonstrated on small mock-ups in controlled spaces; we haven't yet seen key conditions being met to make AR a booming technology: seamless persistence and pervasiveness. VENTURI addresses such issues, creating a user appropriate, contextually aware AR system, through a seamless integration of core technologies and applications on a state-of-the-art mobile platform. VENTURI will innovate and enrich contextual awareness: exploiting a richer sensor set and innovative sensor fusion to extract multi-depth context: at home/on the move; user type and level of activity; noisy urban/quite countryside; smart object/other user proximity. Responding to contextual factors and data connection state, VENTURI will have the ability to change the modality of data delivery. Currently, mobile platform evolution is not driven by user expectations nor by AR core technologies/applications leaving the user isolated from information, creating a poor sense of immersion.VENTURI will exploit, optimize and extend current and next generation mobile platforms; verifying platform and QoE performance through life-enriching use-cases and applications to ensure device-to-user continuity.