ZiphiusTM, brainchild of spin-out company Azorean, the first aquatic drone controlled by a smartphone or tablet, secured a position as one of the top five finalists in Engadget’s Expand Insert Coin Competition!

We couldn’t be more excited and on March 16th and 17th, as one of the top five final projects, Team Ziphius will be getting time on stage in San Francisco to convince readers and judges alike that they deserve to take home the top prize of $20,000. MAKE Magazine Editor-in-Chief and Boing Boing co-editor Mark Frauenfelder will be at Expand to help present the top five projects. The list of judges includes four of the biggest names from the world of design, DIY, crowdfunding and gadget blogging. Exciting and a little scary!

Below co-host and judges at this year’s Engadget Expand event!

Co-host: Mark Frauenfelder: Editor-in-Chief of MAKE Magazine

Judges
• Ryan Block: Co-founder, gdgt
• Gerard Furbershaw: Co-founder and COO, LUNAR
• Jim Newton: Chairman and Founder, TechShop
• Slava Rubin: Co-founder and CEO, Indiegogo

For a closer look at the Ziphius project click HERE or follow this link: http://www.engadget.com/2013/02/25/insert-coin-ziphius/

By the way, you can watch the whole event ONLINE! Tune in to two full days of live-streamed coverage on Engadget, where they’ll have everything that’s happening on stage available online, along with a ton of special footage from backstage interviews and sneak peaks from the exhibit hall floor!

A cerimónia de entrega do Prémio “Ser Capaz – Investigação e Tecnologia 2012”, que contou com a presença de António Câmara, CEO da YDreams, entre outros, decorreu na tarde de ontem no Espaço BES Arte & Finança. A Associação Salvador, atribuiu ex aequo o “Prémio Ser Capaz – Investigação e Tecnologia 2012”, no valor de 5 mil euros cada, aos projectos “Cadeira de Rodas Elevatória” – equipamento sem baterias – e “Fisiosoft” – (sistema interactivo de fisioterapia de baixo custo).

A cerimónia de entrega deste prémio vai realizar-se dia 21 de Janeiro, pelas 18h30, no Espaço BES Arte & Finança, em Lisboa. O evento irá contar com a presença do Júri deste prémio que é composto por: Salvador Mendes de Almeida, presidente da Associação Salvador, Prof. António Câmara, presidente da YDreams e Prof. Fernando Lobo, da Universidade do Algarve.

Estarão ainda presentes os representantes dos projetos vencedores que irão fazer uma breve apresentação dos mesmos:

- Projeto “Cadeira de Rodas Elevatória” – Prémio de 5.000 € (Daniel Fortuna Correia/ João Carlos dos Santos Batista/ Ricardo Filipe Pereira)

- Projeto “Fisiosoft “ – Prémio de 5.000€ (João Alberto Sanches Homem Tavares/ João Fernando dos Santos Fradinho Duarte de Oliveira)

A YDreams volta a acolher o conceito Fab Labs. A empresa receberá o evento nas suas instalações (Monte da Caparica) no próximo dia 11 de Dezembro, em parceria com a Fab Lab EDP e Escola EDP.

O Fab Labs (Fabrication Labs) são uma iniciativa do professor Neil Gerschenfeld, do centro de Bits and Atoms do MIT, e visam encorajar o fabrico digital pessoal, proporcionando os meios e incentivando à criatividade tecnológica.

A YDreams tem impulsionado esta acção desde 2009. O seu lançamento oficial da rede em Portugal, decorreu em 2010 e em 2012, a YDreams volta a potenciar o evento, para os quais são convidadas várias entidades públicas e privadas. O Fab Labs decorre nas instalações da YDreams na medida que a Universidade EDP visa levar os seus alunos a espaços, contextos e organizações que lhes proporcionem um estímulo à criatividade e que os inspirem.

Para saber mais sobre a rede global Fab Labs, vejam os vídeos através dos links abaixo:

O que é um Fab Lab?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOPGJ2VBCPo&feature=player_embedded

Neil Gershenfeld, criador do Fab Labs:

http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_gershenfeld_on_fab_labs.html

Amanhã, 24 de Novembro 2012, em Montemor-o-Novo, António Câmara, será um dos oradores presentes no ‘Sinais de Fumo’ O tema será “Sociedade de Informação e Conhecimento”.

Mais informação através do seguinte link: http://www.sinaisdefumo.net/

Estão abertas as candidaturas à terceira edição do “Prémio Ser Capaz”:

Mais informações através do link abaixo:
http://app.follow-up.com/a/plink/row/14450862ebdhBylzczrrfxck_2_60827.html

AppCircus is a unique global traveling showcase of the most creative and innovative apps presented by their creators during some of the most influential international events in mobile/web. AppCircus is open to developers, startups and any other organization and offers participants the chance to be nominated for the Mobile Premier Awards.

YDreams is proud to support AppCircus. We are particularly thrilled that they are back in Lisbon and honored that our Creative Director, Leonel Duarte, will be on the jury evaluating this year’s app submissions. This year’s event is sponsored by Vodafone and Nokia, and will take place at Vodafone Headquarters in Parque da Nações on June 26th, 2011.

This event welcomes developers, start-ups, media, platforms, investors and everyone who’s curious about the mobile app ecosystem. Attending the event is free plus there will be some pretty cool workshops open to attendees. To guarantee a spot go to appcircus.com and click on “Register now to attend!” at the top of the page: http://appcircus.com/event/appcircus-in-lisbon-1

For those looking to submit a creation, the deadline is June 11th, so make sure you don’t miss the date! The best 10 apps will be short-listed and invited to present their app on stage, in front of a jury and audience!

In case you need a little more motivation check out some of the awesome prizes up for grabs at AppCircus in Lisbon:

* The AppCircus winner will be awarded a Nokia Lumia 800 by Vodafone and they could be nominated for the Mobile Premier Awards, which will be held in Barcelona during the Mobile World Congress 2013;

* The best Windows Phone app will be awarded a Nokia Lumia 800 by Nokia;

* AppCircus in Lisbon is also happening on Facebook:
http://on.fb.me/appcircuslisboa.
The best Facebook post during the event, or the best tweet using the hashtags #appcircus #vodafone will win a Vodafone Android smartphone by Vodafone!

Good luck to all those submitting apps and enjoy the event!

Rio de Janeiro’s 1st Nave do Conhecimento (Knowledge Vessel), commissioned by the city municipality opened its doors to the public this past Friday, June 1^st. Powered by numerous interactive YDreams technologies such as multi-touch tables, touch kiosks and gesture-based projections, the vessel is located in Rio’s Santa Cruz neighborhood (the city’s west end). Its goal is to offer the local population easier access to culture and information technologies via free internet, free workshops and courses in information technology.

Intel Brazil also participated in the project by developing a course catered to the needs of Nave do Conhecimento’s future users. Dubbed Programa Intel Aprender (Intel Learn Program), the program was designed to teach and foster the basic concepts and building blocks behind entrepreneurism, thereby demonstrating how technology can be used to turn an idea into reality in the world of business.

In addition to the Santa Cruz Nave do Conhecimento, four new “Knowledge Vessels” are being built throughout Rio de Janeiro. When completed all will be part of a knowledge network overseen by Praça do Conhecimento (Plaza of Knowledge), a 1000 sq meter “mother ship” that should be up and running by the end of this year.

To watch brief news video in Portuguese (GloboTV) click on the following link: http://globotv.globo.com/rede-globo/rjtv-1a-edicao/v/nave-do-conhecimento-tim-lopes-vai-ser-inaugurada-nessa-sexta-feira-1/1973769/

To showcase some of the more unique applications of hologram technology, we wanted to share this performance by the late Tupac Shakur at Coachella 2012 (yes, we did say ‘the late’ which is probably a little creepy but please read on). It uses a 19th century theater illusion technique, called Pepper’s Ghost, after its creator John Henry Pepper, which is still the basis behind the hologram technology developed by Musion, nad used in the live performance as seen in the video below:

To read the article we sourced this from, go to: http://www.geek.com/articles/geek-pick/tupac-returns-coachella-20120416/

We were excited to hear that on a March 6th visit to the Brazilian pavilion at CeBIT 2012, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff and German Chancellor Angela Merkel sat down to try out the Alphabet Table, an augmented reality educational game, conceived and developed by YDreams for Positivo Informática, one of Brazil’s largest computer and educational technology manufacturers.

As you can see in the photo below, Dilma and Angela actually completed an activity using the didactic tool to better understand and experience what the innovative Alphabet table has to offer young learners.

The Educational Alphabet Table, which was also awarded a Gold in the Informatics category by IDEA/Brasil in August 2011, an organization endorsed by the Industrial Designers Society of America, works by combining colorful animations, video and sound to create an interactive environment. The table features a webcam, 32 inch LCD screen and Augmented Reality markers that represent characters in the story. The 2D markers are captured by the camera and transformed into real-time 3D images, which can be treated as “virtual marionettes” on an LCD screen. The educational game, which can be played by up to six students at a time, is ideal for promoting collaboration, exchanging knowledge, and teaching children and students with special needs their “ABC’s”.

Ynvisible (YDreams’ first spinout company) in collaboration with Enfucell and IDTechEx, produced close to 1600 interactive badges to distribute to participants and attendees at the upcoming Printed Electronics USA 2011 tradeshow.

Ynvisible's Interactive Badge for the Printed Electronics Tradeshow

The badges contain three interactive graphic layers, activated by the push of a button. Each layer, designed specifically for the event, conveys IDTechEx’s marketing messages. Technologically, the interactive badges are a hybrid solution, based on a combination of printed electronics  ̶  Ynvisible’s electrochromics-based interactive graphics and Enfucell’s SoftBattery®  ̶  and traditional electronics, namely the printed circuit boards, buttons and wiring. Designers from Ynvisible and IDTechEx jointly designed the interactive badges, with the final assembly of badges carried out by Ynvisible.

“The combination of established color printing and printed interactive graphics brings new levels of interaction and communication power to everyday items. Consumers who enjoy the interactivity of on-line content and services will now increasingly start to find such features also in printed products”, said Jani-Mikael Kuusisto, Chief Business Development Officer for Ynvisible.

IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA 2011 conference and tradeshow is the biggest event in the world on the topic. This year’s tradeshow will be the largest Printed Electronics exhibition to date, with 105 exhibiting companies already confirmed. The tradeshow is on from November 30th to December 1st, 2011 at the Santa Clara Convention Centre.

The following video gives us a comprehensive overview of printed electronics spin-out Ynvisible and its relationship to parent-company YDreams:

A few posts ago I mentioned that the YDreams Group was expanding; turns out our family across the Atlantic has also been growing. Both YDreams Brasil affiliates (Rio de Janeiro & São Paulo) have taken on new members over the past months and in part because of it, they’ve decided to implement the Close Encounter (CE) sessions originally launched here at Lisbon HQs a few years back.

Close Encounters are small internal weekly conferences whose format varies; it can be a round table discussion, a talk about a specific topic or an artistic presentation. Speakers may be volunteer YDreamers or invested guests. Nuno Artur Silva (Produções Fícticias), Artur Arsénio (Robotics), Manuel Lima (Data Visualization) or Prof. Rui Aço (Oficina do Desenho), are some of the wonderful speakers we have had the privilege of having at our CEs. Internally we’ve also had folks talk about ‘Interactive Narratives in Cinema’, the ‘Power of Collaborative Tools’, ‘Digital Art’, and ‘Managing Your Personal Finances for the Financially Challenged’, among others. As you can see the idea is as much to discuss themes related to our core business as to inspire and inform!

Brazil’s first Close Encounter is underway in São Paulo as I write. It’s actually been a day and a half affair, and from looking at the program it sounds much like Orientation meets Team-building Seminar! The session includes an inspirational interview from co-founder and CEO. António Câmara, presentations of the company’s more emblematic cases and talks about, amongst others, “how we as a society have moved away from a ‘heavy’ and ‘solid’, hardware-focused modernity to a ‘light’ and ‘liquid’, software-based modernity” (from Zygmunt Bauman’s ‘Liquid Modernity’).

Sounds like interesting stuff! Here’s to the first of many CEs in Brazil!

O Concurso «Realize o Seu Sonho» é uma iniciativa que apoia a estruturação de ideias e projectos em planos de negócio viáveis. Temos como Júri o Dr. Francisco Pinto Balsemão, Prof. António Câmara (CEO da YDreams), Prof. António Gomes Mota, Dr. Manuel Forjaz, Dr.ª Vera Pires Coelho, Prof. Tomaz Morais, Dr.ª Isabel Jonet, Dr. José Miguel Queimado e Dr. Paulo Taylor.

Candidate já o seu projecto! Inscrições grátis até 15 de Maio em www.sonho.org. Demora só 30 segundos! Prémios até 60.000€. Pode ver aqui o vídeo promocional do Concurso. Os parceiros deste projecto são IBM, Ericsson, Grupo José de Mello, SIC Notícias, Metro Porto, Metro Lisboa, Carris, NYSE Euronext, entre outros.

A Acredita Portugal é uma organização sem fins lucrativos que tem como objectivo estimular o empreendedorismo e apoiar na realização de projectos. Mais informações em www.acreditaportugal.pt ou realizeoseusonho@acreditaportugal.pt.

Tem um projecto ou ideia por implementar?

PARTICIPE NO CONCURSO REALIZE O SEU SONHO!

Pode candidatar até 3 Projectos!

Inscreva-se hoje (em 30 secs) em www.sonho.org!

May 17th & 18th the Augmented Reality Event (ARE) is back for a second consecutive year to show off a new round of innovation to the technology, media, and marketing communities, and YDreams will be there with its very own booth, so make sure to stop on by!

About a year ago (in June 2010) YDreams headed out to Santa Clara, California, to compete for the coolest Augmented Reality (AR) demo at ARE 2010, the first Augmented Reality Event. After braving a legendary, American Idol-style judging panel comprised of Bruce Sterling, Jesse Schell, and Mark Billinghurst, plus a live audience – who by the way, actually determined the winning demo – YDreams picked up the first ever Auggies Award for their 3D AR tech demo!

Below, raw footage of the first annual Augmented Reality Event (2-3 June, 2010 in Santa Clara, California). YDreams presents their demo at minute 01:00:01

“The Auggies Unplugged” – Best Augmented Reality Demo Competition at ARE 2010 from Ori Inbar on Vimeo.

YDreams’ mark can be felt at the 26th edition of São Paulo’s International Auto Show underway from October 27th to November 7th at the Anhembi Exhibition pavilion. Car lovers of all ages who flock to the event are privy to interactive technologies that make exploring the cars on display only half the fun.

The interactive technologies specialist introduced a ‘Superman’ style X-Ray vision app that proved to be a most original way for visitors to the Fiat stand to get to know the ‘insides’ and standout features of the brand new Mio prototype, the first collaborative car in the industry. Right next to the car stands a large-sized plasma that invites people to see what event-goers have to say about the Mio on Twitter. The app picks up all Mio-related tweets and playfully displays them alongside the person’s head in comic-strip style thought balloons.

See video below:

Further along, at the Toyota stand, visitors come across another YDreams’ creative application that was developed to help create public awareness and spread the word about the work the Toyota Foundation has been doing to reforest the Brazilian Atlantic Rain forest, as well as its attempts to help preserve the Blue Macaw. At the stand, people are able to see their moving silhouettes outlined on a video wall depicting tropical settings; in an adjacent video wall, people see their silhouette set against landscapes of the Brazilian Pantanal, where a Blue Macaw soars overhead before disappearing from sight.

Lisbon City Hall is sponsoring a campaign to create awareness and educate primary school students about the meaning and significance of the upcoming holiday on October 5th, date when Portugal will be commemorating the centennial anniversary of the implementation of its first republic. To do so, City Hall called on YDreams to come up with a fun and highly interactive solution, aimed at children between the ages of 8 and 10, to pique their interest about one of Portugal’s most significant marks in history.

YDreams conceived and developed ten Augmented Reality (AR) collectible cards and a dedicated website for exploring the cards’ contents online. The AR-based cards, a total of 8,000 in packs of 10, will be distributed to students throughout Lisbon city schools on October 5th. Each card in the pack features a brief description of key events, symbols or ideals that led to the republic’s implementation, accompanied by illustrations and an AR marker that can be viewed and explored in an entirely unique way by accessing the dedicated website lodged on Lisbon City Hall’s homepage. Using a PC with an Internet connection and a webcam, children hold the Augmented Reality cards up in front of the webcam and watch as the respective marker comes alive on the screen in the form of a 3D model that they may observe from several angles by turning and tilting around.

Children may choose to collectively explore the card’s AR contents at school, or at home. Although the website was designed specifically for Magalhães net books, the 1st PC designed and produced entirely in Portugal, and aimed at predominantly young audiences, it will run on any computer make or model. Anyone interested in learning about the fledging Republic’s earliest moments may digitally browse the cards and 3D images online at http://cartoesdarepublica.cm-lisboa.pt/.

Miguel Remédio, YDreams Co-Founder and International Operations Executive interviewed (minute 2:36) by RTP International TV show at AICEP sponsored event at the Portuguese Consulate in San Francisco that brought together Portuguese companies and individuals doing business and R&D in the USA.

Watch the video:

YDreams’ Solidarity Movement has been up and running since 2007; the initiative involves raising funds and donations (such as clothing, books, CDs, bikes, computers, DVDs and so forth) from the folks at the company. The donations are then channeled to those who most need them through Solidarity and Charity Institutes in the Lisbon area.

The text below in Portuguese, courtesy of our HR department, explains in greater detail the aim and results of the project. The pics below tell the rest of the story.

“Decorreu mais uma edição, a 3ª consecutiva, do YDreams Solidarity, um projecto iniciado em 2007 pelos Recursos Humanos da YDreams. O grande objectivo deste projecto é anualmente proporcionar a pelo menos uma instituição de solidariedade, a oportunidade a todos os que por lá vivem, uma vida um pouco melhor, um dia repleto de alegria. Assim, é pedido a todos os YDreamers, que tragam roupas, livros, CDs, aparelhagens, bicicletas, computadores, DVDs, etc, no fundo tudo o que já nos foi útil e que hoje podemos e queremos dar ao próximo.

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