Excuse the pun but we pulled this rabbit out of the hat to remind everyone how much of an impact our first interactive floor projection had on the company, our partners and more importantly our clients.
Virtual Garden developed back in 2003, starred a virtual agent in the form of a cuddly bunny rabbit (who challenged audiences to a game of catch) and colourful flowers that mysteriously blossomed beneath your feet. Ultimately the app was more than an interactive floor projection; it was our foray into the world of conceptual environments.
The app, an excellent ice-breaker for most any setting was immensely popular with kids of all ages, immersing audiences in a wonderland all their own, and more importantly helping us realize the potential that lay in applying creativity, technology and design to countless venues. In sum, Virtual Garden was part of what led us to where we are now: a company dedicated to crafting interactive conceptual environments and experiences for audiences the world over.
Outside the Expo proper, next to one of the entrances, was the brilliant Digital Water Pavillion (DWP). Part of a future technological park project called Milla Digital (designed by MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning), the DWT showcased an array of interactive water curtains.
By means of asking the pavilion’s staff, you could have a word of your choice appear written in the curtains.
Specially at night, when lighting played a big role, the effect was very unexpected, seamless and poetic (except for the “slippery when wet” yellow signs). Video here.
The Sub-Saharan Africa pavilion, actually an entire building that housed several countries, put on an impressive out-door show, everyday.
The entire outside wall was covered by a mosaic of 15cm square plaques. These pieces were decorated with translucent silvery vinyl and were hung from the top, as if sequins, so that they would sway with the wind creating a very convincing, and soothing, building-sized water rippling effect.
At night, though, the thing would burst into light and serve as a gigantic screen, in which the plaques acted as black-and-white pixels, each powered by a set of 4 white LEDs. Of course images could only be perceived from a relatively large distance and had a CGA-comparable pixel resolution.
Content featured a long and exciting sequence of animations and real video, intended to pass some water-related awareness message, according to those who designed it.
(Allow me to say that in front of a sun-bright thousand LEDs, environmental awareness -or any kind of awareness, for that matter- isn’t the first thing that pops into your mind. Nothing really pops into your mind. You just feel amazed, kind of happy, physically overwhelmed, and for those in the mood, a pure technological bliss.)
Apparently, design and concept (not sure about technology) were the works of German Atelier Brueckner. Project and construction from Swiss Nussli. Both with powerful portfolios.
We are really glad with our work on the Banco Best branch located on the new BES Arte & Finança Center. Another great example of applying interactivity to create a remarkable customer experience.
We are also especially happy that Banco Best is actively promoting the store with a series of cool print and online ads, like this one.
The Virtual Promoter on one of her rare break moments.
Our Architek software is now ready to be released. Architek is a platform that allows users to create their own interactive installations, without having to deal with programming and algorithms. Basically, we’ve rounded up some of our most successful products, like the yWalk (Interactive Floors) or the yMagic line, and integrated them into a web-based content manager. Interesting to note, Architek started as an in-house project that was aimed to bring more efficiency to programming work on some of the less elaborate types of interactive installations. We will start by licensing it to authorized distributors and partners, expect more information about this product on our website soon.
Picture this: you walk into a store and take a ticket for customer service. A462 is your number. You glance at the screen, and A391 is flashing. You look around the store, and all you see are walls that used to be white and 100 people dispersed, some sitting down, others asleep, and a vast majority chatting away on their mobile phones. What to do?
This is the worst-case scenario of a bad shopping experience. The Internet has completely changed the way we shop, and traditional retail is suffering because of that. Many companies have already taken this into consideration, and have altered their stores’ concept, to give people a reason to buy things off of the World Wide Web.
Portuguese telecommunications giant TMN is opening what Portuguese newspaper Expresso is calling “a state-of-the-art shop with distinctive experimentation.” YDreams transported the concept of an interactive playground to a ‘normal’ store, giving people a reason to get off online points-of-sale, and go to the new BlueStore to experience things first hand.
Once inside the store, people will almost be thankful (”almost” because they aren’t crazy) to have their A462 number. The store itself will keep people occupied and interested until their number is called out. There is something for everyone, like the interactive slide that uses sensors to measure speed and will make children want to run even more errands with their parents, which can be considered a minor miracle.
If renewing my passport was this fun, it wouldn’t have expired in 1996.
No need to wait for those sliding doors to part to be greeted by family, friends or the friendly driver holding up the huge sign with your name on it.
Barclays has done the next best thing. Along with YDreams, they’ve crafted an interactive walkway that welcomes passengers to Lisbon in 12 different languages. The 32-meter long walkway extends throughout most of the baggage claim section of Lisbon international airport and reveals the welcome note in a multitude of tongues as people stroll over the animated pathway.
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):
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.
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.
After delivery of the first information point to a school in the greater Lisbon area, a second information point has reached the Azores. A school in Ponta Delgada, the archipelago’s capital city, was the proud recipient of a pair of solar panels as well as one of our “Escola Solar”(Solar School) information points.
The info points give students a chance to learn more about how Solar Energy is produced and the processes involved. They also provide additional updated info about how much solar energy is being produced by the panels installed at each of the twenty schools involved in the project.
The initiative was promoted by “Better World”, Rock & Rio’s agency for sustainable development, which has selected the environment as this year’s theme.
2 down, 18 to go!
The premiere launch at school in Estoril, Portugal
Games Alfresco has just referenced YDreams’ SimVideo as one of the top 10 Augmented Reality engines around (post). The blog is dedicated to the pursuit of the ultimate augmented reality game, and features a lot of information about AR and related developments. Jump to gamesalfresco.com for more.
YDreams and Ovibeja together in the same sentence could be unlikely but the truth is: if you visit this year’s edition of the Ovibeja fair you will find YDreams technology in Mértola’s municipality exhibition area. This fair is known for being the biggest ‘agriculture do’ in Portugal, combining best of breed tradition and innovation. Mértola municipality hosts the best of innovation presenting its historical, cultural and natural heritage with YDreams technology.
Mértola Landscape Projection
You can discover several interesting locations in Mértola’s landscape projection by pointing a flashlight that pops up information as you find heritage spots such as “Oficina de Tecelagem” (Weaving Workshop), “Castelo” (Castle) and “Torre do Relógio” (the Clock Tower). Another interactive solution showcased in Mértola’s exhibition area is a sand-like walkway. As you walk over the sand, it fades and reveals incredible Arabic tile work that once covered the floor of Mértola’s Castle.
Sand-like Walkway
This innovative way of presenting historical, cultural and natural heritage is a preview of what will be a re-qualification project for “Casa Romana” (the Roman House) and “Núcleo do Ferreiro” (the Ferreira Nucleus), two important museums in the region, to be developed together by YDreams and the Mértola municipality until the end of 2008.Ovibeja’s 25th edition started last April 26th and runs till May 4th. For more information please go to: www.ovibeja.com. And for more news about Mértola municipality check their website.
Few things are more characteristically Portuguese than the famed Calçada Portuguesa or Portuguese pavement. A joy to behold, there is nothing more picturesque than a stroll along our highly recognizable sidewalks, so long as you aren’t wearing stilettos.
With this in mind, YDreams and OMG Digital made sure the very first thing visitors set foot upon when entering Portugal, was exactly that – a virtual Calçada Portuguesa - created for Nissan, and aimed at promoting the brand’s recent launch of the Nissan Qashqai.
The 34-meter walkway extends along most of Lisbon’s baggage claim area and surprises visitors by unraveling some very cool images of the Nissan Qashqai as they stroll over the virtual pavement, without the embarrassing risk of anyone getting their heels caught in the cracks of the pavement!
I´m very sad this week because the cutest project that I’ve ever worked on in my entire life … just finished. I literally shed a few tears once it was over because I don´t quite know how to explain my feelings about it. Maybe the child inside of me will miss the sensation of Happiness every time I saw the people interacting in front of the screen, taking pictures of the giant Coke bottle (with real coke inside … imagine the smell) or just laughing along with the TV Coke commercial.
The Happiness Factory from Coca-Cola was such a pleasure and a job perfectly done. Everything was perfect. Of course there were endless nights running tests and some nervousness, but from the very start, when we were invited to be a part of the it, we could see that this would be “The Project”, here in Brazil. One month of hard and pleasurable work.
I would like to congratulate every YDreamer involved. Capeta, Renan, Caetano and Daniel Prado, as well as the people at Gringo (our partner ad agency) and Coca-Cola, thank you for making my dream come true.
Recently, Engadget, a web magazine with daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics, picked up on our Flapi YouTube video, which gave viewers a look into what goes on at YLabs, our in-house R&D lab.
There’s more where Flapi came from, so we thought we’d share a clip about an augmented reality experiment involving foamy virtual bubbles. We stumbling upon the technology about a year back and at the time weren’t quite sure what to do with it.
YLabbies try out Virtual Bubbles
Below take a quick peak at how the creative use of an ingenuous lab experiment gave way to a fun interactive experience for movie-goers in São Paulo, Brazil:
Interactive Cinema Experience at São Paulo Movie Theaters
Following other YDreams’ products with AR, such as the Virtual Sightseeing Scenic Viewer and augmented books, SimVideo extends the possibilities of these technology applications by providing a large set of tracking, simulation and composition functionalities with very low hardware requirements, due to a very powerful proprietary platform.
With this technology we envision applications such as real time competition with F1 drivers during a Grand Prix Tv transmission, the re-enactment of famous movies, performing alongside or replacing ones favourite actors (imagine Woody Allen´s Broadway Danny Rose inverted) and an enormous variety of augmented reality applications.
With SimVideo, video feeds that are either live or pre-recorded can gain new levels of interest through the addition of an individual layer of contextualized interactivity.
SimVideo implements static and dynamic occlusion, static and dynamic shadow casting, collision detection and physics.
Related experiences have demonstrated real characters interacting with virtual objects, new developments already undertaken in SimVideo are leading to virtual characters affecting and controlling real world objects. Soon one will be able to see Flapi turning real lights on and off and other real world objects controlled by virtual characters.
The main idea is merging real and virtual life in a seamless universe that tends to become one.
Since mid February, booth contractor Grup Servis has been the keeper of two YDreams’ Magic Books.
These Magic Books, originally created for client Turismo Madrid, for the FITUR ‘08 fair, are now roaming the country’s other tourism exhibitions, set at smaller versions of the successful stand built in January for Madrid’s renowned Tourism Fair.
So far, the Magic Books’ interactivity has been featured at tourism fairs in San Sebastian, Valencia and Barcelona. The system’s plug-and-play simplicity, YDreams availability and the metal-stand’s sleek design have proven to be key factors for Grup Servis.
Last month YDreams Med launched a Magic Book installation, commissioned by agency MPG Spain for Nike.
The book is viewed through a 2m wide plasma-wall placed inside the shop-window of Nike Woman store at the L’illa Diagonal Shopping Mall, uptown Barcelona. Users may browse through Nike Woman’s seasonal brochure and the campaign is thought to last one month.
The shop-window has undergone a complete redecoration for the occasion and the set-up looks really nice. Check out the video:
For more perspectives (in spanish), click here or here.
The Sea Monsters Interactive Exhibition for Lisbon’s Oceanarium movie has also been made available recently:
Watch out also for Filipe Freitas (a Portuguese Computer Science student at University of Aveiro), who wrote a detailed description of Microsoft’s TechDays event, complete with some videos of the installations we had at the show, like this one:
