Press Release

junaio for Android - Mobile Augmented Reality Browser with Natural Feature Tracking

Munich, Germany, and San Francisco, California, April 28, 2010 - junaio is now also available for Android. With the release of the closed Beta for developers, metaio makes an important step on its way to a multiple-platform AR browser.  The client version is expected to be released by mid-May. The most important new and unique feature will be a natural feature tracking, which is openly available for external developers.

Until now, junaio has been available for the iPhone and the number of registered developers has reached over 250 since opening up the API in February 2010. junaio is already available as a closed beta for developers and a client version is expected to be released in May. As with its iPhone version the closed beta-version for Android allows registered developers to create AR mash-ups, information channels or game concepts with the open API which can be deployed to iPhones and Android phones. As with other AR browsers, users can find nearby POIs like shops, restaurants or train stations by simply pointing their mobile phone's camera on their environment. But junaio want's to be much more than an AR browser. Peter Meier, the CTO sees junaio on it's way to becoming an "Augmented Reality experience platform". junaio provides unique features, which emphasize AR's capabilities to provide fascinating user experiences. Because Android allows access to analyze the video stream, the Android version will be the first free and open mobile platform to provide natural feature tracking to the developer community. "We expect these capabilities to revolutionize outdoor or print advertising, packaging and mobile gaming", says Peter Meier. Users now can point their phone to a billboard and virtual characters might be jumping out of it. Finally the vision of the shark jumping out of the billboard in "Back to the Future" is becoming a reality. The software recognizes the image and overlays dynamic data, true to position, scale and target group into the real-world view of the camera.

metaio CTO Peter Meier sums it up: "As a company doing image processing for such a long time now, it's great to see, how we can finally leverage our core competence within the new mobile devices. It's a technological breakthrough." And Daniel Gelder, VP of Sales and Marketing adds: "Connecting ads, packages, billboards, signs or whatever image with multimedia content within a channel on junaio is a fantastic new cross-media way for brands to get in touch with users. At the right place and in the right moment."

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About junaio

junaio is metaio's mobile Augmented Reality platform that allows users and developers the ability to create content channels in the real world. Users can flip through channels like entertainment, nightlife, travel and many others and see information digitally displayed around by simply pointing their phone. With junaio's open API, developers can create state of the art Augmented Reality applications. junaio is available as a version for the iPhone and for Android. The Android version includes natural feature tracking which allows image recognition and thus totally new fields of applications, especially in the consumer market.  For more information, please visit: http://www.junaio.com.

About metaio

As the world-wide leader in Augmented Reality technology, metaio develops software products for visual interactive solutions between the real and the virtual world. Based on the software platform Unifeye, 3D-animations can be integrated seamlessly into live-video streams respectively into pictures of the user's real environment. Founded in February 2003, metaio currently employs 70+ people at two different locations. The company is headquartered in Munich with the subsidiary metaio Inc. located in San Francisco USA. metaio has been working with more than 450 renowned customers from different industries and geographical locations. Among them: BMW, Daimler, Siemens, Toyota, Peugeot, EADS, Bertelsmann, KUKA, LEGO, MINI, Popular Science, Focus Features and Volkswagen.