Qualcomm promoted its partnership with Mattel on a new line of game products that utilize a vision-based Augmented Reality technology (see the online video demo). The partnership was announced last year; beta appeared in the fall; and cross-platform, peer-to-peer demos have recently taken place. The first product out of this partnership is the Android smartphone-based version of the iconic 1960s game, Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots.

The product is a two-piece system, with a game board that is embedded with Augmented Reality-ready images and a smartphone app that uses the phone’s camera system to recognize the game board’s images in order to produce a 3D image viewable on the phone. So instead of playing with the plastic figures of the original game, participants compete via their smartphones with 3D character models.

Using the phone as a control, players are able to engage in a fully-realized game that exists through their phone but is unseen by the human eye on the board. The technology holds interesting potential for gaming, especially if it works across different platforms (watch peer-to-peer video samples on Engadget).

In addition to gaming, Qualcomm sees Augmented Reality as a potential for travel, entertainment, education, and other applications.