Flapi, our in-house Augmented Reality mascot, is in the spotlight again. After a high-profile stint at Engadget, this time Flapi stars in an Exame Informática (a Portuguese leading IT magazine) article and video.

You can find the video below, where Ivan Franco, our R&D Director, talks about YDreams’ work with Augmented Reality, and showcases Flapi and the Interactive Bubbles (in portuguese):

UM is one of Portugal’s first experimental and mixed media art festivals. The International Festival for Experimental and Mixed Media joins national and international artists under one roof. All of these artists are interested in creating different forms of media where interactivity and liveliness are the protagonists. The theme for the 2008 edition of the festival is Gesture and Movement.

Not only is YDreams sponsoring the event, but Ivan Franco, YDreams’ Research and Development director, will be one of the main speakers of a panel that focuses on gesture and movement based interfaces.

The Festival is going to be held throughout the city of Lisbon from the 19^th to the 22 of June, 2008.

For more information, check out: http://www.1um1.net

YDreams’ interactive installation at the Portuguese pavillion in Zaragoza’s international exhibition is drawing a lot of media and public recognition. An 18-meter wide wall projection, allows visitors to ‘grab’ words that fall from the sky directly into a Guadiana River image. The public interacts by moving their hands over the screen, selecting and watching as the words splash in mix of sound and light, amounting to a better understanding of sustainable development issues.

You can read all about it in our press release and, judging from all the comments featured in the media so far, it’s a definite highlight of the whole exhibition. Even the Portuguese Republic President, Cavaco Silva, interacted with it on the inaugural day and seemed to enjoy himself.

And please do check João Vitória’s, our Zaragoza project manager and in-house illusionist, interview to SIC tv channel, which you can find right here.

“Now watch closely as I make your logo disappear!” João Vitória, Project Manager at YDreams, offering to use his incredible magical skills to make SIC’s logo disappear into thin air.

Exactly 348 days from its initial debut in the North American market, the coveted iPhone is going to be the European accessory for the summer. However, this time was worth the wait. The new iPhone 3G is faster comes with even more applications and other goodies. Best of all, and like one YDreamer mentioned, it can be cheaper than a tank of diesel (at least for those of you who have a 2003 Land Rover Discovery that holds 93 litres of black gold.)

Various questions still remain. Will we be tied to a binding two year contract with our mobile service carrier? How will the iPhone 3G perform compared to its stiff European competition?

A few YDreamers are already carrying it around, but will the rest of the YBuilding adhere to the fad? More importantly will the rest of Portugal, Europe, the World, the Universe join the iPhone cult? We’ll just have to wait and see whilst patiently hold our “uncool” mobile phones. T minus 25 days and counting….

We’ve delivered the YBenches to CP Proximity for their client Grupo Damm, which distributes the Budweiser brand in Spain.

The campaign, called The Budweiser Sound Experience, consists in going to different bars during the weekend to promote Budweiser. Clients are encouraged by promoters to play with the Benches, in successive rounds. The winner takes home a MP3 player.

The software created is a musical game that contains the word Budweiser and each letter is a key. There are inactive keys and as the players keep playing more letters get active and the game gets more and more difficult each time. A kind of a “Simon Says” game.The action will take place in Madrid and Barcelona and will be done in 184 bars in total. This promotion will last four months, however it will stop during the summer time.

By António Câmara’s request, YBand applied to fight in the 8th edition of the Battle of the Corporate Bands - a contest promoted by Fortune magazine, seeking to find the best band formed mainly by amateur musicians working in a given company.

Well, that’s an order any of us at YBand were more than happy to fulfill! Not only there’s a personal joy to it, but a huge marketing potential as well, if we go any far in the competition.

So, we embraced the challenge with a sense of responsibility towards the company, and a great dose of childish excitement, for having an opportunity to do something different with our amateur skills for music.

First step was to decide how we would start the whole process. Each band needed to send 3 songs to the promoters. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? Keep in mind that there are 32 members in YBand. We needed to pick 3 songs, and that meant leaving some of us out of the fun.

Through a voting pole, we decided that we would pick the 3 songs without worrying about who would eventually record them. Luckily, the 3 songs that were selected in that pole were songs that we already recorded for the Xmas CD. Thus, some of us went back to the studio to either remix, retouch or even re-record the song altogether.

Next step: send it to the jury. In order to participate, we were required to create a Sonicbids EPK (www.sonicbids.com/yband2006) and wait for the results. I was always very confident that we were going to be selected, and we all started believing when the promoters sent me some emails asking whether we need to have 32 members on stage.

And then, bingo! We got the news that we were selected! You can check for yourselves at www.sonicbids.com/yband2006 how our re-recordings worked out for the jury – (please do, it sounds a lot better than the CD, I think)

Next step in the competition is to play live a 20 minutes gig in London, August 23^rd, were other 5 bands will also be playing. If we win that competition, we will play the final in Cleveland against yet another 7 bands, selected throughout the United States.

I got the confirmation that we could not change band members during the London semi-final, so we went through the unpleasant task of selecting who will go and who will not. Democracy played an important role again, as we voted the formation that will represent YDreams in the London gig: Petra Pais, Luis Ferreira, Fernando Gomes, Luis Vargas, João Afonso, Octácio Rodrigues and Bruno Neto are the lucky ones.

This week we finally got toghether to agree on a set list. Here it is:

1 - Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out 3:30

2 - When Love Comes to Town 6:00

3 - Head On 2:00

4 – Everlong 4:00

5 - Mojo Working 4:00

Rehearsals will start in mid-July. If any of you can be in London next August, 23^rd, please do, we appreciate your support!

Monica Souza, from the YDreams São Paulo office, is the ultimate multi-tasker. Not only is she an account manager, she is also responsible for all of YDreams’ public relations and marketing in Brazil… which is only the fifth biggest country in the world… but who’s measuring?

Monica looks extremely happy in her pink surroundings *(N.B) in this picture, and with good reason. She coordinated the interactive cross media Coca-Cola campaign which was an enormous triumph and success.

YDreams Brasil continues to flourish. To add a cherry on top of Monica’s achievements, the São Paulo office will soon have their own showroom to display all of YDreams’ goodies!

* Note: Pink mobile phones, pink computer, pink nail polish and coincidentally, Madonna’s wearing pink on her Confessions on a Dance Floor album cover!