The Audi "carless" (AR) Car calendar. (video)

This news isn't "uber fresh", but worth passing along., I've read about this, but couldn't find anything "re-broadcast worthy", until now. The Audi Augmented Reality car calendar...in video.  We all know car enthusiasts *love* their particular brands, right? You can always find a car calendar somewhere, but not like this one. Audi has taken the next step: A car calendar without cars.

To view the cars, you download an iPhone app, and hold it up to the background images, and the Audi(s) come to life.



Now, how practical is this? Are you really going to fire up your smartphone, everytime you want to check the calendar? Probably not. But for an AR enthusiast, or an Audi enthusiast, this will definitely be a historic collector's item.

Just a little something to while away your time.

Go, and see.

Coming soon, to a wallet near you

Z-Card, makers of the the unique pocket media card that unfolds like road-map origami, has announced a partnership with Total Immersion to provide augmented reality in it's products.

Given the amount of data a single z-card could hold (in barcode, QR, or semacode) there's a lot one could do with one, given the right vision.

"AR and 2D codes more than bridge the gap between print and digital – they offer a synergy with measurability and interactivity," said Z-Card managing director Liz Love. "Print and digital together can deliver tenfold on the results individually."

Z-Card’s pocket planner for the Cannes Lions Advertising Festival last month featured a QR Code that registered a 5% follow up from delegates. The firm was able to track what country the visitors came from and what mobile phone they were using

Full article at printweek.com


go, and see.

Augmented cards.

Hot on the heels of the Home Depot Gift cards, Atomic Greetings has personalized greeting cards, enhanced with user-defined video. Videos for making, (and viewing a card can be found at AG's YouTube channel HERE )

Atomic Greetings EVX marker sample

Read the full article at Augmented Planet.

Go, and see.
Stay Augmented

Augmented Twitter, and the future of Social Media

Yup, as if that little 140 character text box wasn't enough for the vexing the verbose, Twitter , as well as many other 'social media' apps, will be augmented in the future (if they're not already, like Twitter 360).See the future, (both promise and pitfall), in this video "conversation with three futurists" from Jeff Pulver’s 140 Characters Conference (#140Conf), from April, 2010, (remember "back then", when Iceland had a volcano erupting?) It's 'dated', sure (by internet standards), but it offers a fascinating look into the minds that are focused on the direction Social Media is going.




Like I said, this is not "current news", per se, but it's also a good indication of how AR is "already out there", and accessible by you, in the here-and-now. Not everything AR has to be super-high-end, wiz-bang animation. It can also be practical and seamless in our daily usage.And it should be, if it's going to leave it's mark on Mr. and Mrs. Average Consumer.

And no, there's no way I could condense that to 140 characters.
Go, and see.
Stay Augmented

The Future of Books II: AR page turners

Recently unveiled, Thailand's Institute for the Promotion of Teaching Science and Technology (IPST)  demonstrated it's vision of AR in the classroom with AR capable, plain-paper textbooks.

The above example is used with QR codes, and probably a bit dated, considering Total Immersion's tagless AR, but the concept still stands.

Read the full article HERE.

The Future of Books- beyond the looking glass

Eventually, we'll have content floating before our eyes, (like we don't, already, right?). But what about that content? Will it be as static as this blog entry you're reading right now. or will reading become an ever more immersive experience? Take Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", (no, not the recent Tim Burton movie, the original 1865 story, itself). Sure, any codemonkey can burn a .PDF file, and scoll it in their reader, but what if it were a little more interractive? Thanks to Atomic Antelope, "There's an app for that":

Alice for the iPad

Sure, it's a cute bag of animation and accelerometer tricks, but it definitely shows how far a little creativity can invigorate any text, even a time-honored tale from 1865. Kinda funny, well over 100 years later, we're still viewing through a 'looking glass', of sorts.

Go, and see.

Stay Augmented.