Terrified that invisibles zombies will attack you in your home? Sure, we all are. Now, thanks to the insightful people at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta (SCAD), you can use augmented reality (AR) technology to see otherwise invisible zombies on your handheld device. Their newest video game, ARhrrr, is a first person shooter (FPS) that allows you to turn a table-top map into a zombie-filled city scape using a nVidia phone. Look for the amazing tech demo video after the break.

ARhrrr...zombies are invading your nVidia phone!
For those of you new to AR technology, a camera records your environment while a computer mixes this image with pre-recorded 3D designs and then displays them in real-time on your screen. The result is an illusion that you are looking into a hybrid world. Another company, Total Immersion, created interactive baseball and pokemon cards, not to mention a tour of the new Star Trek movie’s starship Enterprise.
SCAD, however, has upped the ante by leaping head-first into the realm of video games. This is where the technology can really thrive. Third-party developers, a dedicated consumer base, and sympathetic technologies could push AR as the next big thing. Several devices, such as the PSP, nintendo DSi, and the iPhone are capable of supporting the technology and are already popular enough to carry the AR video game revolution. That being said, I’m not sure how dependent ARhrr is on the nVidia phone and its new Tegra processor.




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