Our team recently had the agency’s first stab at the Augmented Reality craze that’s going down lately. We launched this a few weeks back. We didn’t have much of a budget at all so it’s no great masterpiece and we’re relying on our target audience (8-18 years) not having been previously exposed to the technology, so hopefully they’ll find it fresh and fun. Basically the packaging and magazine ads have the image needed for the experience, we’re not promoting it in any way, it’s just a viral seeded campaign. Here’s a neat example of how it works:
For the most part it seems many of the implementations of this technology so far have been very gimmicky, though I just recently came across the USPS Package Simulator which is the first practical usage of the technology I’ve seen. Of course as practical as it seems to be, its real world usefulness could be limited which could land it back in the gimmick column, I don’t send packages ever so I just don’t know.
Gaming so far seems to be the best way to highlight this technology. And I really love what Topps has done, in a time when the baseball trading cards industry was in serious decline due to modern day gaming, they found a way to marry their product with gaming, by using the augmented reality technology. I’ve yet to try it out for real, though I keep telling myself I’ll buy a pack of baseball cards next time I’m at the 7-11. It looks really fun (as in innocent, simple fun), I hope it’s helping turn the industry around. Checkout the instructions and watch the video below:
Another game I’ve come across, which is breaking away from the confines of the desktop, is a Tegra Zombie game. I won’t go into it much, if you haven’t seen it yet it’s pretty amazing, just watch the video:
I can picture this taking place on a huge scale, the size of a football field or bigger, with hundreds of gamers walking around with the device in their hands, all connected wirelessly in one giant game! And better yet the devices wouldn’t be hand held but tv goggles, and the buildings and zombies would be life size! It’s really not that far away folks, in fact Jobs and Gates probably play this shit already in each others basements!
Of course all this isn’t really true augmented reality, it is to an extent, but it’s limited to a certain environment and true augmented reality lives in the real world. This type of technology has just started coming out recently thanks to mobile devices with built-in camera, GPS, compass, and fast internet that are capable of placing what they see with pinpoint accuracy. I can barely imagine what’s to come, what’s currently being developed, or even what currently exists in some mad scientists laboratory. But check the following video out if you haven’t already. It’s a true augmented reality app released by IBM for Android phones for people wandering around at the Wimbledon tennis club. With the entire Wimbledon complex tagged and hooked up to monitors you can look through your device and see what’s going on around you with supplemental information. I think what really blew me away was the fact you can look across the lawn club and see where all the restrooms are and it even shows you how long the lines are so you can make sure you join the one with the shortest wait!
Tags: Augmented Reality, Flash, Mobile Devices, Web Apps