Ubiquitous animated agents for augmented reality

Most of today´s Augmented Reality (AR) systems operate as passive information browsers relying on a finite and deterministic world model and a predefined hardware and software infrastructure. We propose an AR framework that dynamically and proactively exploits hitherto unknown applications and hardware devices, and adapts the appearance of the user interface to persistently stored and accumulated user preferences. Our framework explores proactive computing, multi-user interface adaptation, and user interface migration. We employ mobile and autonomous agents embodied by real and virtual objects as an interface and interaction metaphor, where agent bodies are able to opportunistically migrate between multiple AR applications and computing platforms to best match the needs of the current application context. We present two pilot applications to illustrate design concepts.