An amazing Virtual World, fueled by YDreams technology and design, recently opened to the public at Istanbul’s Marmara Forum on December 15, 2011. YDreams conceived and developed an enchanted realm inhabited by friendly eccentric creatures called Marmarians for the Multi Mall Management Group shopping center, whose aim was to offer young guests a space for creative expression while simultaneously connecting with shoppers, and enhancing customer loyalty.

Young guests to the center are invited and encouraged to let their imaginations run wild and “give life” to their own exotic creations. Two touch consoles, located at each end of the video wall, comprised of fifteen 40” monitors, invite shoppers to create and customize creatures that ultimately become a type of virtual pet. Guests use the touch screens to create their new Marmarian from scratch – they decide on the shape of the body, its texture and color as well as the color of its eyes and stripes or spots. The variables available enable guests to create up to 30.000 distinct creatures, so the risk that any two will be identical is minimal! After determining what their new Marmarian looks like, guests name it and release it into the brand new Virtual World!

Creating their new pet creature is only half the fun; to make sure they grow into happy, healthy Marmarians, they need to be fed and visited, a task that can only be accomplished by checking in at the touch consoles at Marmara Forum. The more you visit your virtual pet, the bigger and happier it grows, and the more you are able to further customize it by adding new features.

In addition, a dedicated website (http://www.virtualworldmf.com/front/web/index.php) is also available so that guests can regularly check up on their Marmarian from home to see how it’s doing. Furthermore, a point system which gives way to discounts at selected Marmara Forum stores and restaurants has been implemented, so by checking in at the center to feed and visit their pets, guests are also increasing their eligibility to win great discounts.

In mid October we posted about our Virtual Aquarium project for Forum Sintra, on the outskirts of Lisbon, where guests get to create their very own customized virtual pet fish and then standby and simply enjoy the view.

Enjoy the video:

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:

In September we told you about the work we did for two booths at Rock in Rio 2011 - O Submarino and Virtual Hang-gliding over Rio de Janeiro state.

Below, the videos, to give you better idea of what we are talking about!

O Submarino:

Virtual Hang-gliding:

In the video below, Audience Entertainment, co-owned and fueled by YDreams’ technology, brings interactive fun to a nightclub event in China. Simple hand gestures enable the crowd to control and maneuver the car in a Redbull-themed virtual race:

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!

VicTour is YLabs’s final proof-of-concept resulting from its latest software research project CHAMELEON. During the development process the project generated other examples already published such as FlyAR and the “mother of all depth sensing demos”, long before the whole Kinect frenzy. This depth sensing demo was distinguished with the first Auggie award (the Augmented Reality Oscars) at the Augmented Reality Event 2010.

CHAMELEON emerged from the strong belief that the research and development of next-generation intelligent interaction devices is expected to rely on integrative efforts across several research fields. The main objective of this project was therefore to explore and implement architectures and practical design methodologies for embodied intelligent interaction, with a focus on affective and cognitive computation models, as well as autonomous adaptation and learning of system components and parameters over dynamic multimodal and multi-user environments. Read the rest of this entry »

Barcelona’s recently inaugurated Museu Blau (formerly known as the Natural Science Museum) uses YDreams hands-on, interactive technologies to bring greater relevance to museum-goers, by actively involving them in a story about the planet and its incredible diversity.

The Forum Building, located in Barcelona’s Diagonal Mar district, has been put to excellent use as home to the city’s new Museu Blau (Blau meaning blue in Catalan) because of the building’s indigo-blue structure, the building was designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, who were also responsible for Museu Blau’s museography.

The museum, covering 9.000 m2, is divided into two floors with an incredible exhibition about the planet and its biological and geological diversity. Herzog & de Meuron and Museu Blau commissioned YMed, YDreams affiliate in Spain to conceive and implement interactive tools that would afford visitors an exciting way to explore the exhibition content; YDreams responded by creating 16 enhanced-reality mobile screens and two other interactive solutions for the museum.

Museu Blau is yet another successful foray into the Spanish market for YDreams; in early 2010, the Lisbon-based interactive technologies provider was responsible for conceiving and implementing all the interactive components, including robotics, at the cutting edge Ciudad Grupo Santader Visitors Center on the outskirts of Madrid. Later that year, YDreams technological creativity gave way to an impactful and exploratory experience for visitors to the BTEK Interpretation Center in Zamudio, Bilbao in northern Spain.

The interactive technologies-based theme park, ‘Parque Família Blue’ is back for a second year, but this time in Porto, northern Portugal’s largest city. The theme park, conceived by YDreams for Gas Natural Fenosa, one of Europe’s principal energy companies, was implemented for the first time in April 2010 at the Dolce Vita Tejo Shopping Center on the outskirts of Lisbon.

‘Parque Familia Blue’ is made up of a numerous interactive technologies that engage children through a series of games and activities designed to foster environmental awareness and teach energy efficiency.

Gas Natural Fenosa was extremely pleased with the results from last year’s event and decided to bring the theme park to Porto in 2011. In addition, after Porto ‘Parque Família Blue’ heads for Coruña in Northern Spain until May 1st, and then to Barcelona in October.

‘Parque Família Blue’ is up and running at Dolce Vita Porto’s Urban Plaza and is open to the public daily from March 17th to April 5th from 10h00 to 19h00. The park also welcomes and schedules daily school trips from all over Portugal.

For more information click HERE!

To watch the YouTube video from last year’s event click HERE.

The winners of the INVENTA – Caixa/INPI Award were announced February 24th at the awards ceremony that took place at Caixa Geral de Depósitos headquarters in Lisbon.

YDreams was shortlisted for the INVENTA.COM – Future and Communications award for their Virtual Sightseeing patent. The overall grand winner for the evening was Coimbra University for their “Nouveaux derives de porphyrine, notamment chlorines et/ou leurs applications en therapie photodynamique” patent.

For a complete list of winners click HERE.

About INPI
INPI, the National Institute for Industrial Property, was constituted in 1976; their mission is to protect and promote Industrial Property on both a national and international level and to serve as a mediator between Portugal and international organizations, where Portugal is a member state.

Click over image to activate!

AMA booth at Portugal Tecnolóico 2010

AMA, Portugal’s Agency for Administrative Modernization, commissioned YDreams to develop intuitive, interactive solutions that would allow visitors to their booth at Portugal Tecnológico 2010, an event dedicated to showcasing the latest trends and breakthroughs in technology and innovation on a national level, to explore the public institute’s Simplification Projects and latest services for citizens.

Interactive touch table

Visitors to the AMA booth can browse digital touch displays to learn more about the new Portuguese national identity card (first launched in mid 2006) as well as the latest administrative operations, among others, which can now be performed online. Another YDreams app on hand is an interactive touch table for exploring the extensive network of citizen shops and single point of contact counters administered by AMA throughout Portugal, and locate any specific one, anywhere in the country.

Tactile digital info display

The event, which kicked off on the 22nd September will run till the 26th September at FIL (Lisbon’s International Fairgrounds) in Parque das Nações.

“Augmented reality will change the way we market and use products, communicate and entertain ourselves,” said Ivan Franco YDreams´ R&D Director. “But, to date, implementing augmented reality solutions has only been possible with very specialized techniques. By working together with Canesta, we look forward to making augmented reality a part of everyday life.”

YDreams has been working on Natural User Interfaces (NUI) for more than 9 years for some of the largest corporations in the world. To do this, the company has developed a sophisticated proprietary software platform, combining multiple advanced technologies such as computer vision, physics simulation, artificial intelligence and several others.

“One of the most difficult aspects of designing NUI applications has been to create a sense of real world interactions. We envision consumers naturally browsing through digital catalogs, adding to the user experience of ecommerce or being inside movies, delivered by IPTV platforms.”

Until now Augmented Reality has delivered limited applications to the general public, mostly offering 3-D objects on top of visually obtrusive markers. By using Canesta’s 3-D vision sensors, YDreams applications can do real-time capture of any object in 3-D, without the aid of any special markers or enhancements. “This completely changes the scope of where and how augmented reality can be used, said Franco.

“YDreams is among the world’s leading organizations in developing augmented reality experiences,” said Jim Spare, president and CEO of Canesta. “By combining our mass market 3-D input sensors with YDreams’ expertise, we will see broad uses of these formerly very specialized applications. This will change how immersive and realistic so many kinds of communications and interactions will become.”

A video of a demo can be viewed on YDreams’ official YouTube channel and it will be possible to experience the technology live at the ARE2010 event (augmentedrealityevent.com) on June 2-3, in Santa Clara, CA.

Karina Israel, YDreams Brasil’s Executive Director, does an excellent job of demystifying Augmented Reality at Rio de Janeiro’s independently organized TED event. Through a mix of humor, simplicity and anecdotes she explains and showcases concrete examples of AR applications YDreams has developed over the years, forecasts where AR is going and gives concrete examples of its future uses

Take a look at the live video below (in Portuguese). Keep in mind that it may take a bit to kick off because of streaming.

Click on image to find out more!

Ivan Franco, the Portuguese company’s I&D Director was invited to take part in three leading international events: Emerging Communications (eComm), and Screen Media Expo, dedicated to the telecom and mobile communications, and digital signage industries respectively, and the Augmented Reality Event (are2010), the first global event for advancing the business of augmented reality

Ivan Franco will showcase some of YDreams’ most groundbreaking advances in Augmented Reality technology that will, in a very near future, enable us to manipulate 3D structures, drive virtual cars in a real-time sports event, or interact directly with contents on a movie screen. All of these amazing applications will depend on a number of technology and design capabilities, which Ivan will explore in his talks.

The first of the events, eComm, will take place at the San Francisco Airport Marriott (USA) April 19-21. Ivan’s session entitled Advancing AR – Beyond Labels is scheduled for April 21st at 10:05 a.m. Up next is the Screen Media Expo at Earls Court in London, May 5-6, where YDreams will mark its presence at the Futurology sessions, dedicated to looking into the technologies, approaches and methods that will shape the screen media and out of home markets in the next 1,000 days. Rounding things off is Ivan’s participation in are2010, the inaugural event dedicated to advancing the business of augmented reality, held at Santa Clara Convention Center (USA) June 2-3.

Karina Israel, YDreams Brasil’s Executive Director will be co-chairing a seminar on the 16th of April at Rio de Janeiro’s ‘Casa do Saber’ (House of Knowledge in Portuguese) alongside Suzana Apelbaum, partner and VP for Creation at REDE agency, a multidisciplinary communications agency that is a part of the ABC Marketing Communication Group.

The course put together and administered by Suzana Apelbaum, is comprised of four sessions, set to take place on the 29th March, 5, 12 and 16th of April at 8 p.m. The sessions will revolve around and analyze new consumer profiles, the changes that have resulted from new agency and media formats as well as the new creative and production processes, the explosion of social networks, the emergence of ‘products that sell products’, brand experience and brand content, amongst others.

Karina was invited by Suzana to round off the seminars by sharing her experience at YDreams, a global company known for combing creativity, design and technology to create innovative communication formats. Karina will be showcasing the company’s more emblematic cases that feature some of the latest trends and novelties in interactive installations resulting in innovative experiences that are revolutionizing the way people today interact with brands.

‘Casa do Saber’ is a well- referenced center for debate, reflection and knowledge, located in both Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. The extra-curricular environment also offers courses and workshops in areas like social sciences, literature, history, plastic arts and music.

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http://www.ydreams.com/flyar