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.
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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.

The WIRED UK August 2011 issues profiles ‘Sigas’: Santander’s friendly bank bots”, YDreams’ avant-garde project implemented in 2010 for the Visitors’ Center at Ciudad Group Santander, a gargantuan financial complex in Madrid, Spain.

Click HERE to view the article online; this edition is also available on WIRED UK for iPad.

For a complete overview of the project, click HERE to watch the video.

Ynvisible, YDreams’ first spin out, was recently at LOPE-C (Frankurt’s Large-area, Organic & Printed Electronics) Convention from June 28th to the 30th, 2011 to showcase the printed electronics developer’s various prototypes.

Ynvisible’s revolutionary technology was a key factor in convincing Jani-Mikael Kuusisto to come on board as Chief Business Development Officer, a position he previously occupied at VTT Finland. Mr. Kuuisto officially joins Ynvisible on August 1st, 2011.

The video below shows Ynvisible CEO Inês Henriques explaining the prototypes developed thus far:

Parent-company YDreams now counts three spinouts and one joint venture

The YDreams Group is proud to announce that its members are growing in number. A joint-venture with a North American partner brought us Audience Entertainment in December 2008; Ynvisible, dedicated to developing and producing electrochromic displays was officially launched in early 2010, and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in February 2011.

2011 ushered in two more spinout companies – Yvision, developer and producer of software development kits, and more recently YDRobotics, which will specialize in robotics and mechatronics fields.

More information about each one HERE!

Today, YDreams’ Natural User Interfaces (NUI) division is officially releasing the free Beta version of its YVision software development kit (SDK), via its dedicated website at http://www.yvision.com.

YVision is the result of ten years of research and development in human-computer interaction. Created by the company division that focuses solely on NUI design and software architecture, this framework is behind many of YDreams’ interactive solutions and has been deployed in thousands of engaging and robust NUI applications.

According to Ivan Franco, YDreams’ Director of R&D, “Our framework is the missing link between traditional Game Engines and Natural User Interfaces. It promotes creativity and expressivity, by offloading the complex interoperability of the multiple technologies, which are indispensable to deliver state-of-the-art interactive products.”

YVision is a component-based framework that allows programmers to develop complex systems based on pre-built modules, which are operated by behavior trees. The .NET – based framework assures faster development, removes the need for complex resource handling and offers users multi-platform deployment for desktops, mobiles and consoles.

The SDK features a full abstraction layer for real-time 3D rendering and was also designed to support the upcoming Microsoft Silverlight 5, enabling users to build the next full 3D experience for the web browser. In addition, YVision offers state-of-the-art physics and computer vision. The creation of NUI applications also depends heavily on sensor acquisition and processing, so YVision is ready to process complex sensor data and manage several kinds of input devices.

“The current beta release is for PCs only. Because we want to offer the best possible experience, extensive testing is being carried out for the Mac and Silverlight platforms, and mobile platforms will soon follow”, explains Mr. Franco,“Stay tuned, because we intend to follow the ‘release often’ motto”.

The SDK, along with detailed information and instructions, is available for download via the following URL: http://www.yvision.com. We hope you will enjoy it and look forward to hearing your feedback!

Castelo Novo is one of the member villages that make up Portugal’s ‘Historical Villages’network, a cluster of urban nuclei, which came into being before the founding of the Portuguese nation.

Atop one of its town’s castle turrets sits the Virtual Sightseeing Scenic Viewer (VSSV), a type of virtual guide that Fundão Municipality assures will leave no visitor asking “What exactly am I looking at?”

The VSSV, deployed for the first time at another castle in north-central Portugal in 2005, lets visitors use the unit to scan the surrounding landscape. Points of interest are detected and displayed in real-time on the unit’s built-in touch-screen. Using Augmented Reality technologies, the VSSV lets visitors view information in the form of text, images and videos about any selected point of interest.

In addition, the VSSV at Castelo Novo also offers visitors a taste of what traditional life was like in that part of the country by including a 3D recreation of a Sheppard herding his flock just outside the castle walls, and a video of a Knights Templar scouting the surrounding countryside from atop Castelo Novo.

YDreams has deployed 13 similar VSSV units throughout Portugal over the last six years. Click HERE to watch a video of the VSSV in Cascais, just outside Lisbon.

YVision was created by the company division that focuses solely on Natural User Interfaces (NUI) application design and software architecture. The innovative development framework has been efficiently deployed in engaging and robust NUI applications that have been, and are, the motors behind many of YDreams interactive solutions.

Click HERE to experience YVision firsthand on your browser. (Note: webcam needed!)

For more detailed info about YVision, go to: http://www.ydreams.com/yvision/

We also recently demoed the YVision app at are2011. You can check it out at the following video link. Demo starts at 05:06 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsN0tCkAR-Y

YVision, our proprietary tech platform, now runs on all major browsers! Brief video below shows Beta version with real-time, 3D interaction, being tested: