Our YVision team has been pretty busy these last few months replacing some of the engines to make sure YVision is executable on as many platforms as possible. The work’s paid off! This latest release brings better support for Silverlight 5 and mobile devices in the near future.

Check out the features for the latest release:

• Support for Silverlight 5 final (RTW) - Now you can run your 3D interactive applications in the browser. Extensive work has been done to make sure you app compiles for .NET 4.0 and Silverlight 5 with minimal code changes. Check out a couple of demos on our cases page.
• SLARToolKit on .NET 4.0 - Now you can take advantage of the popular augmented-reality engine on other platforms other than Silverlight. SLARToolKit is now included in the SDK, you don’t need a separate download. Be sure to check the SLARToolKit license to make sure it fits your needs.
• Steering behaviors - These allow you to apply behaviors (defined by Craig Reynolds) like seek, flee, pursue, evade, wander, arrival, obstacle avoidance, containment, wall following, path following and flow field following to your objects. These can be combined in behavior trees to achieve complex behaviors like flocking, queuing and many more.
• Settings and visualizers - You can now easily expose settings to users so that they can customize/calibrate the application.
• New project templates, item templates and code snippets - In our continuous effort to simplify your work, we added many more templates.  The samples are provided as templates so that you can mess around with them as much as possible. All the samples work on Silverlight and Windows.
• Multiple bug fixes - The framework has proven to be very robust but not without a few issues. If you find any new issue, please report it to us.

This release is only for Windows but we hope to have the Mac OS X release soon. We are working on optimizing the ‘build process’ so we can have simultaneous and more frequent releases in the future.

Go to our download page to get this latest version. We hope you have as much fun trying it out as we did developing it!

Associação Salvador realiza hoje cerimónia de entrega de Prémios

A Associação Salvador, com o objetivo de estimular a investigação no domínio da reabilitação psicomotora, promove anualmente o Prémio “Ser Capaz – Investigação e Tecnologia” que tem um valor de 10.000 euros. A cerimónia pública de entrega dos galardões realiza-se hoje, às 18h30, no Espaço BES Arte & Finança na Praça Marquês de Pombal, 3, em Lisboa.

A atribuição deste prémio prevê o financiamento de projetos que contribuam para o desenvolvimento de produtos, instrumentos, tecnologias, metodologias, equipamentos ou sistemas técnicos que previnam, compensem, atenuem ou neutralizem a incapacidade de uma pessoa portadora de deficiência motora.

O período de candidaturas da segunda edição do prémio decorreu entre 23 de maio e 14 de outubro de 2011, tendo o júri, composto por Salvador Mendes de Almeida, fundador e presidente da Associação Salvador, por António Câmara, presidente da YDreams e por Fernando Lobo, professor -DEEI-FCT– Universidade do Algarve, selecionado três vencedores de 22 candidaturas rececionadas.

Declarações de Salvador Mendes de Almeida, presidente da Associação Salvador: “Faço um balanço muito positivo desta segunda edição do Prémio Ser Capaz pois recebemos um elevado número de candidaturas de projetos com elevada qualidade, que espero virem a contribuir para o desenvolvimento de novas soluções que favoreçam a vida das pessoas com deficiência motora na sociedade.”

Prémios

1º Prémio – Valor € 5.000 - Miguel Silva /Jorge Martins/Paulo Melo/Carlos Vasconcelos
Projeto “DACHOR - lntegrated Design and COntrol of Hybrid Active Orthoses”

Menção Honrosa 1 – Valor € 3.500 – Projeto IntellWheels
Luis Reis/António Moreira/Marcelo Prety/Brigida Faria /Sergio Vasconcelos

Menção Honrosa 2 – Valor € 1.500 - Projeto Living Home Center
Carlos Pires/Fernando Pinto /Victor Teixeira (Microsoft)

The video powered by YDreams’ technology:

Audience Entertainment (AE) ̶  co-owned by YDreams  ̶  and NCM Media Networks are bringing audiences’ favorite brands to life on the big screen in select movie theaters across the U.S. this holiday season.

AE and NCM Media Networks worked together with a top travel industry brand to create a new interactive cinema audience game. The game, powered by a proprietary platform that enhances human-computer interactions and create engaging and robust applications, will be used for the first time in a national cinema ad campaign across the United States.

In the game, moviegoers are able to join a classic cartoon character in a 90-second interactive, big screen version of a wild water ride from the comfort of their movie theater seats. By moving their arms and acting together as a group, the audience creates a virtual “human joystick” to control the videogame action onscreen – zipping down the slide and retrieving objects along the way. The score will be posted at the end of the game, but no matter what the tally, the audience always wins by being among the first in the U.S. to experience the future of cinema advertising.

The new AudienceGame is being presented exclusively during NCM’s FirstLook pre-feature program in select movie theaters in major markets including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Knoxville, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washing-ton, DC.

This exciting new campaign features Audience Entertainment Group’s first-ever use of the combi-nation of live video and animated overlays in an AudienceGame.

To view the game, CLICK HERE.

Ynvisible, YDreams’ first spin-out company, has successfully set up the first production site for the assembly of its interactive displays and their integration into final products, enabling the company to take on its first higher-volume commercial projects. This first production capacity is the result of a partnership between Ynvisible and Guide, a printing house with over four decades of experience specialized in graphic design and printing services for the publishing industry.

The partnership between the two companies brings together Ynvisible’s technological know-how and Guide’s experience in industrial printing. In addition to the installation and optimization of the production process, Guide will also be involved in the production efforts to deliver Ynvisible’s commercial projects.

After a successful series of tests, Ynvisible is currently producing batches of final products for its first commercial projects. First products will be delivered in the coming weeks to international clients. The installed capacity allows Ynvisible to produce up to tens of thousands of units of a final product per month, using in large part conventional printing processes.

According to Jani-Mikael Kuusisto, Ynvisible’s Chief Business Development Officer, “the set up of Ynvisible’s first production line is a major achievement that will allow the company to start delivering commercial projects and test different market applications. In addition, it is also a critical infrastructure for developing and testing future generations of Ynvisible’s technologies and products”.

Nuno Penedo, Guide’s CEO, added that “Ynvisible’s technology brings new life to traditional printed/graphic products. The combination of electronic elements and paper products provides new opportunities for an ancient substrate – paper – and offers an energy boost to the graphic arts and printing industries.”

The partners are looking to expand their forms of collaboration, as Ynvisible introduces its technologies and interactive solutions to further production locations and geographical markets.

An Augmented Reality Billboard experience, by Disney Parks, that spans across Times Square!

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:

The exhibition Viagens Italianas (Italian Voyages), sponsored by UNESCO, recently inaugurated at the Brazilian National Archive in Rio de Janeiro, and YDreams Brasil was responsible for conceiving and implementing interactive solutions for the exhibit that include a Magic Book, an interactive walkway, multimedia projections and directional sound columns geared at presenting contents and helping visitors explore the intricate and complex relationship between Brazil and Italy, largely due to the huge influx of Italian immigration to Brazil between 1887 and 1930, as well as Brazil’s strong Italo-Brazilian heritage.

The exhibition, which opened November 3rd, 2011 will run through till February 10th, 2012 at Rio’s National Archive.

For more information: http://www.arquivonacional.gov.br/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm?infoid=882&sid=40

Following Portugal and Switzerland, the Sensorium (a sensorial experience initially developed by YDreams for L’Oreal Portugal’s Luxury division, and launched in November 2010) roll-out continues. Another interactive gondola was just installed in Stockholm at Åhlens, Sweden’s largest department store!

A great example of augmented reality for young kids. It’s an augmented book, developed by YDreams’ R&D group, where kids can take control of the story. The app is totally powered by YVision:

Antão Almada, YDreams’ Strategic Software Development Director, will be hosting a workshop dubbed “YVision, an Interactive application for Learning” at the Creative Learning Conference at Centro Congressos de Lisboa on Monday, October 26th, 2011.
:
Antão presently heads the company’s YVision team that has been working on the development of a platform for applications based on Natural User Interfaces (NUI) and Augmented Reality (AR).

For more information go to: http://www.creativelearning-conference.com/2011/

Rock in Rio, one of the largest music festivals in the world, is going strong in its namesake city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The festival kicked off on September 23rd and is underway till October 2nd. Also going strong and determined not to miss the music festival is YDreams Brasil, which is bringing its own brand of interactivity to the festival with two very different stands!

The first immerses visitors in an underwater voyage aboard the Nautilus of Rock – a stand-come submarine, where visitors can, among other things, create and customize their very own virtual rocker-fish, which immediately come into being in the sub’s virtual aquarium. The latter stand developed for the state government of Rio de Janeiro, and of a very different nature, keeps the adrenaline pumping by giving folks a chance to take a virtual flight over the breath-taking sights Rio de Janeiro state has to offer.

Both are without a doubt two excellent ways to make sure there is never a dull moment at Rock in Rio 2011.

The Nautilus of Rock

Virtual Hand-gliding over Rio de Janeiro State

YVision, YDreams’ Natural User Interfaces (NUI) division, has just announced that its Beta version now supports development on Mac OS X.

For more info and to give it a try, go to: http://www.yvision.com/2011/09/15/yvision-development-now-also-supported-on-mac-os-x/

Interact 2011, the 13th Conference on Human - Computer Interaction kicks off today, September 5th in Lisbon and will run till September 9th, 2011.

The theme of this year’s INTERACT 2011 conference, Building Bridges, recognizes the interdisciplinary and intercultural spirit of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. The conference welcomes research that bridges disciplines, cultures and societies. Within the broad umbrella of HCI, Interact is looking for high quality contributions that will open new and emerging HCI disciplines, bridge cultural differences, and tackle important social problems. INTERACT 2011 provides a forum for practitioners and researchers to discuss all aspects of HCI, including these challenges.

YDreams is one of the event sponsors and the company CEO, António Câmara will be delivering a Keynote on Natural User Interfaces on Thursday, September 8th.

For more info on Interact 2011: http://interact2011.org/

Sport Club Recife, a football team in North-eastern Brazil, recently posted the video below showing the club using YVision’s free Beta version of its software development kit (SDK) to create a Boxfall application featuring 3D Augmented Reality cubes customized with the team’s logo!

Yvision, a YDreams’ spinout, is dedicated to the research and production of software development kits. To find out more about them, or download their SDK, visit their website at http://www.yvision.com.

Positivo Informática, the largest computer and educational technology manufacturer in Brazil commissioned YDreams to develop an Augmented Reality (AR) - educational table they named Alphabet. The educational solution debuted at the 55th Congess for São Paulo Municipalities, this past April, at the Centro de Convenções Costa da Mata Atlântica in São Paulo state.

The table, which has been endorsed by the Brazilian Ministry of Education, combines colorful animations, video and sound to create an interactive environment. The table features a webcam, 32 inch LCD screen and AR markers that represent the 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 the LCD screen.

Carla Flores, Positiva Informatica’s Product Manager explained that the company chose to go with a ‘virtual theater’ theme so that the product could progress and grow from there. Basically the ‘made for the classroom’ Alphabet Table starts by telling the students a story. The students, aided by teachers, then select a character and re-enact what they’ve heard. The camera transforms the markers into on-screen 3D characters, which the students interact with by playing out what they’ve listened to or read. At a more advanced stage, the students may also use Alphabet to create a story of their own, which they can record and edit resulting in a short animated film.

The educational game, which can be played by six students at a time, is ideal for promoting collaboration, exchanging knowledge, and teaching children and students with special needs their “ABC’s”.

Starting at minute 1:00, the video below shows the Alphabet Table in action:

This past June, Ynvisible and Enfucell, a leading Eurpean Cleantech company, collaborated on an integrated prototype for the 2011 edition of LOPE-C in Frankfurt. Both companies are now looking to extend this partnership in order to pursue integrated commercial applications and joint development projects. Potential joint products include magazine covers and greeting cards.

Furthermore, the YDreams spinout has a new edition to its team: industry veteran Jani-Mikael Kuusisto, previously Business Development Manager for Printed Intelligence at VTT, the largest applied research organization in Northern Europe, joins Ynvisible as its Chief Business Development Officer.

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!

Ynvisible, YDreams first spin-out company, and Inês Henriques, its CEO and Virgina Tech alumna, were recently profiled on the university’s website. To read the article click HERE.