You might have spotted the huge buzz that has been building around Google’s new glasses project but a new kid on the block over on kickstarter could be about to steal all their fire. This is a new start up company called Vergence Labs who are aiming to create glasses that not only record HD video, allow you to flick to sunglasses mode but also stream the content or share it to your social networks. It is a massively impressive and ambitious project and as they say themselves
We are working with-in an accelerated startup environment to create these stylish computing enabled social video sharing, trend setting electric powered sun glasses. Our product will record 1st person point of view, and have “magic-glass” (chromatic shifting conductive glass) lenses for an instant on/off “electric powered sunglass” feature. You can then share the experiences you record across social networks like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It’s a consumer electronics fashion accessory designed with technology to enable cool new social video and new electric sunglasses lens capabilities while being fashion-forward and stylish in the process.
Even though we are getting used to seeing new improved computing technology it really does feel as if we are about to enter a whole new age where the gadgets we get to use are like something from a Sci-Fi show of the future. We know that if these do make it to mass market that we will be the first in line for a pair! The only small thing they might need is a bit of styling but with their 50k already nearly raised on Kickstarter that could become a reality very soon.
One of the most impressive TV shows launched last year which had millions of viewers and huge critical acclaim was Frozen planet from the BBC. Now in a bid to increase the reach of the show and introduce it to a whole new audience the BBC along with Appshaker (thanks to Kevin for sending this in) have created an augmented reality app that brings the animals from the series to a shopping mall near you. The main thing that stood out in the show was the stunning video footage that the team captured and in a bid to highlight that users were able to download the app and start interacting with the animals as if they were standing beside them in the wild. The footage within the app is so impressive and realistic that it brought the whole shopping mall to a stand still and raised massive awareness around the new series which the BBC are launching in the USA on DVD and Blue Ray.
Everywhere you look car manufacturers are starting to push electric cars as we all move to a new model of transport that helps to save the planet from Co2 emissions. The big problem with this new mode of transport is that as consumers none of us are especially educated about how these cars work or how much energy they actually use. Volkswagen aimed to fix this problem with the launch of their new electric Golf model in the lucrative Chinese market with an augmented reality campaign that helped to show people test driving the car just how efficient these cars are. You were able to scan regular household items like a computer, a fridge and a blender with a short animation popping up and showing you how far you could drive on a day’s supply of energy from that device. By matching it up to real world items in a visual way this is a great way of getting the message across about the environmental benefits of driving one of these new cars.
After touchscreens, gesture controlled screens is where we seem to be heading with different companies using webcamsand Microsoft Kinect to ensure that the next generation laptop and computers don’t need a mouse to function. With so many devices and prototypes out there, this has to be the one that not only promises what it delivers, but could provide a viable alternative to mouse controls with its accuracy and affordability.
Leap Motion is a gesture control device that prides itself with its accuracy. Able to distinguish thumbs from fingers and handheld items like pencils, the device is able to sense specific movements so instead of having to flail your arm wildly to pick up movement, it will be able to pick up specific movements so even subtle movements are picked up. Users will also be able to create custom gestures. The development team, LEAP Motion, describe the product:
“Leap represents an entirely new way to interact with your computers. It’s more accurate than a mouse, as reliable as a keyboard and more sensitive than a touchscreen. For the first time, you can control a computer in three dimensions with your natural hand and finger movements.
This isn’t a game system that roughly maps your hand movements. The Leap technology is 200 times more accurate than anything else on the market — at any price point. Just about the size of a flash drive, the Leap can distinguish your individual fingers and track your movements down to a 1/100th of a millimeter.”
Imagine typing away on your keyboard and only having to hover your fingers above it to select or highlight something on screen. Leap Motion offer a number of scenarios where the technology could be used such as design and gaming. The tech demo (found below) looks impressive and will be retailing at $69.99 when it’s made available. A limited number are available to pre-order for the device’s first shipment this winter.
Usually, the first rule of advertising is to make it as visible as possible and make sure lots of people see it, but Lynx have flipped that concept on its head and created the world’s first invisible advert. The concept was created in an abandoned house in Sydney where the windows were all replaced with LED screens.
To the normal passerby, it looked like nothing was happening, but as soon as you were handed a pair of LYNX sunglasses, the house turn into a huge steamy advert. It’s not the first example of LYNX’s brilliant digital work and it ties in with their current raunchy theme which sees them position the product as something that will attract ladies and turn you into a super stud.
We just love it because in a world that is completely saturated with media and advertising, this is something different, unique and creative that engages people and drags them into the advertising. Smart.
Augmented Reality (AR) has played a part in many brand campaigns, either through smartphones to bring an otherwise static campaign to life, or through large screens which the audience reacts to. Because of this use, augmented reality is usually seen as gimmicky and having no practical use beyond superimposing cartoons or graphics on a otherwise normal scene.
Microsoft Phone and Bing, neither of which has enjoyed a great deal of success after being muscled out by Apple and Google, has released a new app that starts using AR in a way that is both practical and useful. They have released a new version of Bing’s Translator app, which not only has the usual features you would associate with such an app, but gives you the ability to translate text by simply highlighting it with your camera.
All you have to do is point your camera towards the text you want translated on, say a menu or sign, and the app will automatically scan it and offer you a translation, which appears over the original text. One major feature of the apps is that you can also download language packs so that you don’t need a connection to be able to translate. As the Windows Phone team say on their blog:
“Nothing takes the fun out of a foreign vacation faster than an afternoon spent deciphering street signs or pointing randomly at menus (mmm, mystery dinner!)…Now you can point your phone camera at printed text—street sign, dinner menu, train schedule, newspaper headline—and the app will translate it. If I wanted to ask a stranger for directions to the Eiffel Tower, I could also just speak into the phone in English—and wait a moment for the French [translation to be spoken].”
Admittedly, there has been one or two apps in development that have touched upon this, but this is probably the most complete translation app on offer. Alongside AR translations, verbal translation are also available, as mentioned in the earlier quote, which will speak what you said but in a different language. At the moment, the app’s AR translation is supported in six languages: English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Chinese Simplified, while the only one out of that list that isn’t supported by voice translation is Chinese.
Bing’s blog say that they’ve been developing this technology for years, over the last decade to be exact, and it shows. While it won’t reverse the fortunes of Windows Phone, it’s certainly a powerful and useful app that will give budding travelers some food for thought.
Every day while researching the latest trends for clients or finding stories for the blog, I come across some brilliant reads that I bookmark and keep for myself to read when I have a bit of spare time.
Rather than being selfish and keeping all that great content to myself, I decided to start a feature here where I share ten must-read social media and technology stories of the day. Most of these will go beyond breaking news and will be insightful posts, articles or videos that are worth starting your day with.
Most people have been very positive about the social readers on Facebook, but the guys over on Readwriteweb take a view from the other side of the fence: Why Facebook Social Reading Apps Don’t Work
Anywhere you go in the world of social media these days, people are talking about influence and how to measure it, but this is a good piece on The Fallacy Of Influence
A little video today that has nothing to do with marketing or social media, but that put a huge smile on my face and will hopefully do the same for you. These children will never have heard of Facebook or Twitter, but look how happy they are!
There’s been many rumours surrounding Google Drive, the company’s challenger to online cloud storage services like Dropbox, the latest one is that it’s coming sometime this month. However, that rumour may have some truth to it as online diagramming tool Lucidchart had added (and subsequently removed) a link which allowed integration with Google Drive.
The screenshot above, taken by The Verge, shows that Lucidchart users have the option of automatically syncing documents created from Google Drive to be added to their Drive account or the option to sync documents created in Lucidchart to their Drive account. The Verge also noted that the CEO of Lucidchart is Karl Sun, a former senior figure at Google, who presided over Google’s move into China and founded its patent department.
The possibility of Google having enticed both Lucidchart and other companies to act as launch partners when Drive does arrive is quite high, although there’s no hints to say who else is involved in the testing process. This could also tie into the development of Google’s Chromebook, which plans to do away with hard drives and work over a constant wifi connection, where everything will be accessed over the cloud.
The idea would be that for Chromebooks and any tablets that would like to be cloud operated only needs to concentrate on running the basic specs needed to operate. Whether this is a blessing or a curse will depend on how you would plan to use one, but you can pretty much guest that it will be automatically included with any future Chromebooks releases.
Now that Drive is being tested with at least one company, the big question is now “when will it arrive?”
Every day while researching the latest trends for clients or finding stories for the blog, I come across some brilliant reads that I bookmark and keep for myself to read when I have a bit of spare time. Rather than being selfish and keeping all that great content to myself, I decided to start a feature here where I share ten must-read social media and technology stories of the day.
Most of these will go beyond breaking news and will be insightful posts, articles or videos that are worth starting your day with.
Google has been coming under lots of pressure in recent months from many different angles. Now one of their founders, Sergey Brin, has gone on a major rant against Facebook and Apple for locking down parts of the internet and not allowing Google Spiders to access them.
Everybody knows that networking is a massive help in business, but this article in the New York Times takes a good in-depth look at how important a role the scene in Silicon Valley played in the success of Instagram.
Jason Calcanis is always somebody who will have a rant on his blog and in emails on a weekly basis, but this week’s one is well worth reading as he makes a great case for Apple becoming a trillion dollar company off the back of mobile payments.
More news on the Google being mildly evil front. This time, MG Siegler has a look at why splitting their stock could be seen as evil as the founders try to gain ultimate control over the company for the long run.
There has been a lot of fuss about the Facebook Instagram deal and one of their competitors (Camera +) have come up with a brilliant little description in their app page on the iPhone.
This citizen journalism app lets you create the news and decide which story matters. It’s a space that is really hotting up at the moment and this app looks to put even more power in the hands of the reporter on the street.
Startups have a language of their own and Virgin have come up with a brilliant series of translations that will have you laughing all day long about the rubbish that gets talked on the scene.
Normally when companies want to promote that a product is faster or more powerful than its competitors, they usually throw stats, figures and technology that sounds impressive but glosses over the heads of the casual user. Intel has solved this problem by not only emphasising the capabilities of its new laptop, but creating an easy to follow narrative.
To promote its new Ultrabook laptops and to highlight just how fast they are, Intel’s latest campaign, A New Era of Computing, is set in the past and has time travel as its theme. This one, set in a cliched wild west scenario, shows a standoff between one cowboy and a modern day consumer who comes in with an Ultrabook.
The idea is that in comparison to the Ultrabook, everything else around it appears to be old fashioned. As more ads are being broadcast on Youtube first before making their TV debut (this ad won’t broadcast on TV until next week), it’s proving to be an popular strategy for building up hype around a product.
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You might have spotted the huge buzz that has been building around Google’s new glasses project but a new kid on the block over on kickstarter could be about to steal all their fire. This is a new start up company called Vergence Labs who are aiming to create glasses that not only record HD video, allow you to flick to sunglasses mode but also stream the content or share it to your social networks. It is a massively impressive and ambitious project and as they say themselves
