Both iOS and Android users can download the amazing IKEA Catalogue app for free(!) to discover all 43 pieces of augmented and activated content when the publication finally hits mail and IKEA stores around the world.
Check out all the great press around this innovative product catalog:
Completely free for development, the deployment cost of only 3.000€ (3,750$) per application allows for the integration of Augmented Reality applications even in websites of small companies with tight budgets. Developers and service providers can promote their services to new and interesting target groups, who may not have wanted to invest in AR technology previously.
Ready for e-commerce and the social web
The metaio Web SDK delivers the necessary technology to create online Augmented Reality applications for e-commerce which can also be integrated with social platforms like Facebook, allowing websites to benefit from the power of the word-of-mouth recommendations of their users.
Has this ever happened to you: You are in a store, you’ve found the perfect kitchen appliance, but what about the color? Will it fit with your kitchen at home? Does the vendor have any better alternatives? If you could only try it out!
This is what the new iPad 3D Studio App by Bosch (developed by metaio) does for the buyer. ColorGlass kitchen appliances from Robert Bosch Hausgeräte GmbH, from ovens to microwaves, have received various design awards and can be delivered in a range of colors and surface styles. The free app helps the buyer make the right choice. Take a picture of your kitchen, select the type of appliance you are interested in and pick a color. With the help of Augmented Reality the chosen appliance can then be placed, correctly scaled, on the image of your kitchen in order to let you see how it looks. Feel free to experiment with all colors and styles available.
Alternatively, if no picture of the user’s kitchen is at hand, the app offers a choice of kitchen scenes. This app is a brilliant idea to remove any nagging uncertainty and to guarantee the right choice for a significant purchase of this kind. Be sure to watch the video and visit the links above for more information, and easily start designing your new kitchen!
Hatsune Miky is an adorable, completely digital Japanese celebrity created by Crypton Future Media in 2007 using YAMAHA’s “Vocaloid” Software. The (evidently) 16-year-old, 5’2” songstress’s voice has been samples in thousands and thousands of user-generated videos, audio tracks, animations etc. Her albums have even topped the Japanese charts- not bad for a girl that doesn’t exist!
Hatsune Miku may be a digital construct, but the great thing about Augmented Reality is that we can take digital and 3-D content and breathe life into it by placing it in the physical world. A virtual entity could assume all three dimensions and interact with the real world- and that’s exactly what we did for the beautiful Hatsune Miku in this most recent development for Toyota.
Toyota has been enamored with Hatsune Miku for quite some time now- they’ve produced numerous (and clever) video spots featuring the star interacting with people as though she were a real person, as well as print ads, billboards (they’re everywhere here in San Francisco) and an integrated social media campaign. We were happy to be able to (literally) bring a new dimension to Hatsune Miku’s recent introduction to the states.
iOS users can immediately access the experience by downloading the free Toyota Shopping Tool App in the iTunes App store. An Android update is coming soon, but until then users with Android devices can download metaio’s free mobile AR browser, junaio, and search for the “Hatsune Miku” channel to get the same cool performance. Once the app is launched, just point the camera at the image below (called a “ToyoTag“) to see Hatsune Miku singing “Big Dream” and dancing alongside her favorite vehicle, the 2011 Toyota Corolla.
metaio used the junaio Plugin to develop this app for a Toyota, a feature that combines the technology, audience (1.7 Million Downloads) and accessibility of junaio, the most advanced mobile Augmented Reality browser, with the added value of a custom branded white-label application. We were able to use the same superior image recognition technology and tracking algorithm as we use in junaio to integrate this experience directly into Toyota’s mobile app as if it were a white-label application. Even better, the modular structure of the Plugin allows content to be easily and efficiently modified and changed, making the junaio Plugin a great development and branding solution.
Read the full press release here, and be sure to stay posted on all of Hatsune Miku’s exploits in America with Toyota. And make sure to check out this great video of the experience below:
Last week, Mayors from around the United States gathered for the 79th United States Mayor Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. Unlike the last 78 USCM’s, the mayors this year got to experience a device that is the first of its kind: Recyclable Planet‘s Augmented Reality Reverse Vending Machine, powered by metaio’s Unifeye Platform and with the help of German vending firm trautwein sb technik.
Reverse vending machine? Yes! It rewards you for using it, and most importantly, for doing your part to help the environment. The concept is simple, much like redemption machines that already exist around the US where you can redeem recyclables for a small bonus, usually around 0.05 per item, depending on state regulations. This new “Green Machine” is universal- users can be rewarded with prizes and discounts at local retailers, just for recycling. Even better, these impressive devices come equipped with interactive augmented reality. Check out the video below to see how it works:
This is a major step for urban connectivity, commerce, and especially the environment. I’ve traveled through over 85% of the United States, and I can’t tell you how many places I came across where recycling was a foreign concept. I even stopped at cafeteria-style restaurants that sold bottled and canned beverages, only to be met with blank stares when I asked for the nearest recycling bin at the end of my meal. These machines could be a large move to educating people on the value of recycling through reward-based incentives and progressive-minded, interactive technology.
Attention Mayors of major US cities: Recycling just got gamified- let’s play “Save the Planet”.
I found two very intersting stories, which fit perfectly to an ongoing discussion in the AR sphere: property rights of virtual space. Is it possbile to place your interaction POI directly in front (on top, behind, around…) the outle of a competitor? Can you use the logo of a company to display your own point of view? Or: Who Owns the Advertising Space in an Augmented Reality World? The author of the one latest story John Havens points at many more open issues, which will be discussed a lot in the next years. If you do not share my opinion, what about the other story: “Heavy’s “Pirate Banker” channel is an augmented reality takeover of the Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides “Captain Barbossa” (Geoffrey Rush) movie poster. You can place the poster in your camera view to trigger a short movie texture that reveals Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein as the real “pirate”. (…)”. More information about this nicely done guerilla campaign can be found: here. So, who owns the space in front of a poster? I think my new colleague Trak should make an interview with Lawrence Lessig soon… (http://www.lessig.org/info/bio/ )
While tablet computing may in future transform the whole computer industry, it is already changing the way we look at augmented reality. And this is not only because of the big display. More and more different devices for multiple OS platforms are expected to appear on the market, equipped with advanced sensors such as high-resolution cameras. The cost of data roaming is likely to drop and considering the millions of people expected to buy such a device in the next few years, there are incentives enough for optimizing augmented reality (AR) tablet software and to start creating really useful and fascinating applications taking full advantage of the promising, new capabilities. metaio, with its junaio 2.6 release, a junaio plug-in for third party app integration, and the revised mobile AR SDK Unifeye 2.5, is well prepared and ready to go for the next generation of AR applications. If you want to learn more about mobile AR in general and on tablets, everything is summed up here: http://www.metaio.com/specials/augmented-reality-on-tablets/
And here you can find a movie with almost everything we´re working on: 3D tracking, markerless 2D tracking and image processing, virtual manuals, interactive TV, smart packaging, advertising as a service, context sensitive product visualization, AR gaming and so on. By the way: to my knowledge it´s the first AR demos running on the Android 3.0 based Xoom!
Ball Packaging Europe and the junaio team are doing great stuff these days. On the one site Matthias, the product manager of junaio, is experimenting with various tracking approaches in order to track a can. This is not as trivial as it sounds. Obviously a can is not flat and besides that the material has some reflections and the trackable pattern is not too big. Nevertheless, the first results make me confident, that we will have a promotion or game or whatever comes to the mind of the creative Plattform “Dosionair” (Dose is German and means: can). Please find the first try out here:
As mentioned, this is only the beginning. A print campaign running right now, integrates the current advertising clip into the ad. You can find more about this here on the other site: http://www.dosionair.de/augmented/ Also there´s a growing canbase (sorry for this one…) on facebook, discussing about packaging ideas of the future and getting connected to the brand and values. Summing it up: Ball is really into AR and I am looking forward to the results, when a can for one of these huge soft drink brands will become one of the first “things” in an internet of things as an augmented object…
Aloha. I am not participating in Carnival, nor have I been on vacation or partying the UEFA (European Football Association) 5-years ranking to hard, where Germany finally succeded over Italy, yeah! No, we are completely revamping our website and several other channels and while this was and is keeping me pretty busy I was also working on some of the cases, which I want to share with you in a plain list this time. Please take my apologies, but I bet some of you appreciate more info and less talking anyway…
See how German and Russian magazines are going digital in a very special way. And keep updated about metaio´s one and only augmented reality browser junaio on this really worth to bookmark and read blog, now mostly maintained by my colleague Ulf.
metaio is very proud to present one of the hottest trends of this winter: the “mytrend winter” catalaogue by Otto with augmented reality integration. The virtual catalogue features superb and exclusive digital content connected to the printed reference through a webcam. And it is highly interactive: You can rotate the models, take a closer look, create your own catwalk show or walk through a gallery. For many years, OTTO has been polishing the profile of its brand, using well-known German slogans such as “Otto… find’ ich gut” or continually renewing its message “Lust auf Neues” – “wanting something new”. It is one of the most grounded and innovative brands in Germany and featuring a project done for them “find ich gut!” See:
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