3D projection mapping combined with a multiplayer game

Really great to see these technologies being combined together, the result is quite beautiful. Nice work from B-Reel London.

Do you have Sweden’s safest hands?

Cool idea by Swedish agency Åkestam Holst.

I had to Google translate it from Swedish but still reads well… (article from the agencies blog).

“Sweden’s safest hands”, is a contest in the iPhone, which is organised by the Post. The contest is part of a larger e-commerce campaign that is about to record is the safer choice when you send your packages.

The contest is to carry a digital package a certain distance using an iPhone app. This applies to transport package is as safe and secure as the Post.

42 packages have been packed with secret content to a value between 300 and 5000 dollars. Every day at 6, 12 and 18 released a new package. Do you deliver the package intact before anyone else, you win the contents. You decide where to begin and end, so it does not matter where you live in Sweden.

Download the app and compete on posten.se / safe hands

See contest trailer:

Watch it:

Read full article.

@danKrause

Advertisement

Angry Birds – for Chrome.

Don’t have a smartphone, iPad or Android tablet? But you do want to play this “Angry Birds” thing that people keep talking about?

Chrome to the rescue!

The folk over at Rovio have ported their smashingly popular game to the Chrome browser, and it’s 100% built in HTML5. Very, very neat.

If you haven’t given this simple physics based bird-hurler a whirl, why not see what all the fuss is about? Won’t cost you a dime, and is playable in both standard and high definition.

Either click the picture above, or this link, and you’ll go straight there. Enjoy!

~@tali3sin

Ultimate list of Cool Touch and Gesture Based Video Walls

So who has the best interactive walls? Here’s some of our picks below. As we move into a world which is transitioning to devices using the NUI (Natural User Interface) there’s a lot to keep an eye on. If you know any more please post them in the comments.

1.University of Groningen:
Pros: Looks awesome, very responsive. Multi-user capable.
Cons: You can’t go out and buy one off the shelf. Touch based only?

2. Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect AND Windows Phone 7, working together!
Pros: Kinect SDK on the way for PC (fingers crossed) so a very affordable way to develop. Multi user. Facial recognition. Supports second screen in this video.
Cons: None. Seriously! SDK pending, this will be the easiest entry point to start building your first video wall.

3. Toyota Vision Multi Touch Wall:
Pros: Massive 82 inch screens at high res. Very responsive.
Cons: Expensive setup.

4. HD 18 Screen 20 ft Paint Wall with iPad integration.
Pros: Very cool. Huge. HD. Responsive. Works with a second screen (iPad)
Cons: Looks a bit like a one off application for now. Can’t go out and buy one.

5.Yahoo’s Gesture based Video Wall. http://vimeo.com/19177169
Pros: Looks good, hi-resolution and seems responsive.
Cons: Tiled screens. Looks like only one user at a time?

6. Microsoft LightSpace
Pros: It’s a true 3D interface for an entire toom. It projects working interfaces onto your arm/ hand.
Cons: Early days. Long way to go here (but still very cool).

7. Hard Rock Cafe Vegas:
Pros: Multi user. Smooth and responsive. Great content.
Cons: Looks expensive?

8. Ring Wall http://vimeo.com/6648869
Pros: It’s a massive 425 square metres in size. Enough room for everyone to play.
Cons: With 15 HD projectors we’re betting the ongoing running costs might stack up? 

9. The Schematic TouchWall with RFID
Pros: It recognises RFID cards allowing you access to personal info. Social integration.
Cons: Nothing obvious. This wall is pretty cool.

10. The BendDesk.
Pros: It’s horizontal AND vertical.
Cons: Not quite wall sized! It’s a prototype so a little rough round the edges.

 

11. Canon’s big wall – Expo 2010
Pros: It’s looks big and multi user.
Cons: We can’t quite tell if this is a ‘smoke and mirrors’ job. This video is more about the camera than the wall itself.

12. HP’s video wall of touch (link):
Pros: Nice tight looking tiled screens. Cons Already looking a bit dated compered to the others. Touch only. Touch looks a little laggy.
 

13. The Giant iPhone – Table Connect
Pros: Pretty simple concept. Just plug in your iphone and mount it on a wall!
Cons: Do they make a wall sized one yet?

We’re pretty sure we’ll be seeing a lot more of these soon. Please send us any good ones we might have missed! 🙂

The Future of Translating

From now on if you are in a (spanish for now) restaurant and you don’t know what it says on the menu or you are in Spain and you can’t read those street signs, all you have to do is take your iPhone out and point Word Lens at it.

It will translate on the fly and looking at the video below it is pretty amazing tech – check it out.

It tries to find out what the letters are and then looks in the dictionary. Then it draws the words back on the screen in translation.

From what I have read it doesn’t work as smooth as it does in the video and it only works on iPhone 3GS, 4 and the latest iPod, but it is still impressive. I’d love to try it, but it isn’t available on Android (hint hint).

It is available on the App store, so check it out. If you do let me know in the comments what you think

maniac13

Is you iPhone screen big enough?

If you just answered no then you should get yourself one of these:

simply connect your iPhone and start up the app (for now it is still an app, but they working on not even using that) and you can see your iPhone on a 58-inch multitouch display.

awesome – yes
fun – yes
practical – no

@manaic13

Mini get-away: Virtual reality game from Stockholm

I love this game. The rules are simple but the game is not easy. You download the iphone app. Find the virtual mini and you ‘take’ it if you get within 50 metres of it. Then comes the tricky bit … you have to keep other players from taking the mini from you. Keep hold of it and you win a real life mini. Nice.

Watch this space for mash-ups from every agency going 🙂

From here

@handypearce

 

No! You can’t enter our social media competition

I just had a rather interesting experience with a guy from Vodafone Australia looking after the Android Man Social Media comp. The problem – I tried to enter with a photo of Android Man and an iphone:

Full size image and actual caption here.

The story goes like this:

I went down to checkout Vodafone Australia’s Android Man competition. The game: locate Android Man from his cryptic tweets, take a creative photograph, upload it to facebook and you could win a HTC Desire HD.

My idea for the ‘creative photograph’ was to give Android Man my iphone in the hope that he would give me a shiny new HTC Desire HD in return. However, after I took the shot I was approached and encouraged to delete the shot. The conversation went something like this:

Vodaman: “You can’t take a photograph of Android Man and an iPhone”
Me: “Why not? The competition is take a creative photo. That’s creative”
Vodaman: “I want you to delete the photo of Android Man and the iPhone”
Me: “Sorry mate, it’s user generated content, social media, my phone, my picture and a public space”
Vodaman: “Delete the photo or I can help delete it for you”
Me: “Seeing as you put it so nicely … Sorry I’m not deleting it”
Vodaman: “Look if you upload Android Man and the iphone to the Vodafone AU facebook group it will be removed and you won’t win the competition”
Me: “Fair enough … You know. You sometimes see dolphins here some times. Seriously. I’ve seen one once.”
Vodaman: “Just one?”
Me: “Just once. It was looking for something.”
Vodaman: “Maybe some food?”
Me: “Yeah maybe”

Well … yeah …I made the dolphin bit up, but the rest actually happened.

I love social media competitions like this. In fact I helped create The Smirnoff Secret Party Treasure Hunt a few years ago. However, this incident highlights just how important it is that everyone from the ground up is aware of just how transparent social media is. Your people are your brand and they need to know that everything they say and do can be repeated and tweeted and be the make and break of such campaigns.

Just sayin 🙂

@handypearce

Update (16.54 on 28/10): Nice response from @vodafone_au

Unboxing the Parrot AR Drone

We love unboxing gadgets! …and the AR Drone from Parrot is GREAT fun. The Drone is controlled via an iPhone app which works by tilting your phone to steer whilst viewing a live video feed through a camera mounted in the Drone. It’s a truly usable Augmented Reality device.

 

How to buy in Australia: We ordered it from Amazon.com. It took 3 days to be delivered to Sydney from the US and cost just under $350.00 AUD including delivery.

So here it is the unboxing through to a test flight…

 
Amazon delivers it in a HUGE box…

Slightly smaller, but still big box inside…

The Drone is neatly packed surrounded by protective cardboard.

No unwrapping necessary. It pops straight out. Nothing to assamble.

Battery, battery pack and stickers for the external shell.

It comes with the outdoor shell, and adaptors for Au, UK, US, EU.

Below: Unboxed looking at home in the studio…

Below: @bradyohalloran takes an instagram photo of the AR Drone:

Below: Flight Test: This a video taken from the Drone’s camera in the studio.

Below: We do like the idea of attaching a GoPro camera to the Drone to attain HD video – here’s a nice clip of someone flying the drone pretty high… (you can unlock the altitude sensor in the iphone app allowing you to go up as hi as the wifi lets you).

Below: The Promo Vid for the AR Drone.

Things you should know before you buy:

You get one battery that lasts for about 15 mins flying time.
Charger comes with four adaptors incl AUS, UK, US, EU.
You need an iphone or ipod touch to control it.
You don’t need a wifi network (the Drone creates one).
It takes about 5-10 mins to get to grips with the controls.
You need a seperate app to record video.
Onboard Video is 15fps
There is a secondary camera on the bottom of the Drone.
You need 2 of them to have a virtual dogfight.
It’s much bigger than it looks.
It’s a lot of fun.

WIN an exclusive Razorfish iPhone cover

We’ve been asked to submit an A4 image for the Digital Who’s Who of Australia. It would be boring if we just submitted the image so in true socialist media stylee, we thought we’d throw it open to you to pick an image.

Here’s the brief:

‘Lastly, please provide a single A4 image (at 300dpi) that you feel most effectively communicates your strengths to prospective clients.

The content is absolutely up to you, as long as we can print it on an A4 page.’

Submit your entry in the comments below.

Best image wins one of these snazzy Razorfish iPhone covers:

@handypearce

It’s almost here: The iPhone controlled quadcopter drone

Update: I’ve been waiting  to buy one of these since I blogged it back in January. Well – the wait is almost over. June 15th sees the launch and pricing details of the AR Drone. Sick … as a Parrot. Details here

I’m planning to get one shipped over. Let me know in the comments below if you want to come and have a play with it 🙂

Here’s my original post.

Santa didn’t bring me one, but I wish he had. An iPhone controlled quadcopter drone with onboard cameras … yes really. It says it’s controlled using ‘wifi technology’ so I’m hoping you can’t just fly within a wifi zone. Big brother footage of Sydney coming soon. More here

@handypearce

My Gadget wish list for 2010

In my line of work (and because I love it) I come across a lot of cool gadgets and usually (at least if you ask my wife) I spend too much money on them.

So this year I will follow my moms advice and make myself a list.

Usually I start these lists with the least and work my way up to the best, but I want to start with the device I really really want this year.

1. Samsung Galaxy S

I have been using my 8310 blackberry for too long and for a while there I was carrying around 3 devices to do my phonecalls, emails and browsing and gaming, but the Samsung will be able to do all that.

So why do I want it?

for a start I don’t like the iPhone (don’t get me wrong I think it is a good phone for “normal” users), but it just doesn’t do what i want from a phone.

apart from that here is my  shortlist on why I want it:

* 4 inch WVGA Super Amoled screen (finally a device i can use outside)
* big (as in big capacity) battery – 1500mAh
* 16GB internal memory + extendable with micro sd
* wireless n
* camera capable of 720p video @ 30fps
* support of MPeg4, H.263, H.264, WMV, RV, DivX, Xvid and MKV – no more converting movies
* Samsung Social Hub – no more opening up app after app after app – I just have it all in one inbox – sweet

 

2. Tablet

I had a chance to play with the iPad for a few weeks now and I have to say I am not impressed – especially since Apple announced the AU pricing for it today and again, Australia gets screwed – all you really get is a big iPod

so what do I want in a Tablet?

Adobe responds to Steve Jobs’ “Thoughts on Flash”

Kevin Lynch, CTO of Adobe responded to Steve Jobs’ ‘Thoughts on Flash‘ open letter (summary here) with a short blog post late last week.Kevin writes that if Apple tried to cooperate with Adobe a bit more, then they could “provide a terrific experience with Flash on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch”.

Kevin wrote:

However, as we posted last week, given the legal terms Apple has imposed on developers, we have already decided to shift our focus away from Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices for both Flash Player and AIR. We are working to bring Flash Player and AIR to all the other major participants in the mobile ecosystem, including Google, RIM, Palm (soon to be HP), Microsoft, Nokia and others.

Read the full thing here.

Street Fighter IV iPhone Covers are Win

If you’re reading this blog you’re probably a tech, or design nerd of some kind, and if you’re a nerd there’s a pretty high chance you’ve wasted (read: appropriately utilised) a good portion of your time playing Street Fighter in its various incarnations. Regardless of whether or not that’s a broad generalisation, these Street Fight iPhone covers are totally rad.

Click to see that exact same picture, but larger.

Oh, and enjoy this video.

Personally, if I wielded an iPhone in my daily life, I’d have a hard time not purchasing anything that made it look like Ryu. Got a favourite?

~@tali3sin

[Source: Capsule Computers Australia]

iPhone OS 4.0: The 7 “Tentpole Features”

A few hours ago, Mr Jobs delivered a presentation introducing the next version of the iPhone operating system. Expected to be released  around the middle of the year for all existing iPhone models, its reported to bring 1500 new APIs to developers as well as more than 100 new user features, seven of which he discussed in detail.

These are the “tentpole” features highlighted briefly.

1) Multitasking

At last! Run multiple applications and swap between them on the fly. Previously only possible on jailbroken phones. This feature will only be available to the 3GS, iPod Touch 3rd Generation and later models.

2) An improved email application

The mail application is getting a major overhaul with a unified inbox, multiple exchange accounts, threaded conversations and the ability to open file attachments in applications.

3) iAds

Apple will be providing application developers access to in-app advertising to help generate revenue on cheap and even free applications. Ads are built using HTML5 and come up at the bottom of the screen like in-video YouTube ads. They can be closed by the user.

4) Game Center

Basically, it’s Xbox LIVE for iPhone games. Their are already a number of systems such as Plus+ and OpenFeint, but a single Apple-run system would likely attract a lot more users.

5) Folders

Another “about time”! With the capacity on idevices increasing yearly, users are installing more and more applications at a time. Now we will have a way to organise them into folders. Folders appear as icons with smaller icons inside.

6) iBooks

Basically, the iPhone/iPod version of the iPad ebook platform. Books can be purchased and read on the device as well as track bookmarks.

7) Enterprise features

Apple is working to make the iPhone more attractive to big companies with a number of new enterprise features such as email encryption, remote administration and application installs, Exchange 2010 compatibility and more.

Tested.com has a detailed breakdown here. Great site, too!

These all look great, but I can’t wait to see the other 93+. I’m sure some of them will give hints about the next iPhone hardware’s features. Going on previous years, we can probably expect a new phone in June and a new iPod in September.

@bradyohalloran

(via Tested.com)

Stickybits

This looks exciting.

It’s a network that allows you to attach photos, music text, PDFs, zips, etc to any barcode. Use existing barcodes or generate your own through the site. Think we may be seeing a whole lot more of stickybits.

@handypearce

Official promotions roll out across FourSquare

As I am sure anyone with an iPhone is currently aware, the latest darling of the social app scene is a little location based game called FourSquare. FourSquare allows a user to “check in” to locations and through doing so you can become the ‘Mayor’ (most frequent check-in’s in a designated period) and earn ‘badges’ for completing certain combination of check-in’s.

There has been a lot of conversation around the potential use of FourSquare by local businesses but until today the only Sydney based use I had seen was a cafe that gave a free coffee to the “Mayor.” However earlier this morning I was visiting Sydney creative agency Lowe Sydney and when I went to check in I was presented with an interesting little tab in the top right corner (fig. 1)

Fig. 1

When you select this tab you are then taken to a promotion screen for a local business (in this instance the Baroque Bistro Patisserie) and you are presented with the opportunity to earn a gift if you check in 3 times. (Fig. 2)

Fig. 2

This is a brilliant use of location based data to target users and bring a point of difference to a business. While FourSquare doesn’t have a large enough user base to work as a reach medium, it is perfect for small businesses working to increase their repeat business. Were I in area and assuming that Baroque do reasonable food and drinks this incentive offer could very well be the differentiator in where I go to get my morning coffee, after all if their coffee is just as good as the next place why wouldn’t I go there and get a free French Macaron.

From a glance it appears that the process of implementing one of these specials is a reasonably straight forward matter of filling out an online form.

The one feature I would really love to see added to the promotion page would be a ‘tell your friends’ feature, so that even if you’re not checking in there, you could push a ‘shout’ to your friends via FourSquare/Twitter/Facebook and share the promotion with others who might find it interesting.

I personally will be paying very close attention to see what kind of traction this gains with Australian businesses.

– @JoelyRighteous

iPad vs Kindle vs Rock

So how does an iPad really stack up against its competitors? We did a quick analysis and compared it with the Kindle and a ten thousand year old rock. The results are in:

Sidenote: Just for fun ok! Also full respect and homage to the original iPhone Vs Rock parody from a few years ago (author unknown) here:

Pepsi powered mobile phone

My iphone ran out of battery last night … pesky thing. I’m too impatient to wait and see if Steve has a solution to this problem so I started searching. Anyway, I stumbled across this piece of innovation: a phone that runs on pepsi … well any fizzy pop.

This little beauty is made possible thanks to a bio battery:

Bio battery has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium batteries and it could be fully biodegradable. Meanwhile, it brings a whole new perception to batteries and afternoon tea.

Genius. More here

@handypearce

Fantastic Contraption

This is an oldie, but a goodie. Fantastic contraption lets you build contraptions from wheels and support structures in order to reach your goal of getting the pink ball inside the pink rectangle.

We recently rediscovered this game, and spent an obscene amount of time trying outdo each other creating the most poorly designed machines possible. It’s also available on the iPhone. Here are a few of our attempts:

• http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=9262461
• http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=9262530
• http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=9262549
• http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=9262461
• http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=9262500
• http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=9262512
• http://fantasticcontraption.com/?designId=9262641