“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.

Go on! Give it a click or two.

Download now!

http://www.ydreams.com/flyar

Patrícia Martins, young Portuguese tennis hopeful, stopped by the other day and interacted for a bit with our YVision platform. The result is the video below, and as you can see, it’s kind of a different ball game than the one she’s normally used to, but she still excels.

Patrícia’s tennis career is relatively short (she is only 14) but shows incredible promise. On top of that, while visiting us, she was very courteous and nice to everyone around. It’s striking how much focused she seems regarding tennis, but genuinely passionate for the sport. You can see she’s having a lot of fun. Talking to her mother, you could also notice that her other priorities, like school and growing up as a teenager, are also kept in line. It was an honest pleasure having her here, and being able to support and witness her early steps into tennis fame.

Eduardo Dias, one of YDreams co-founders, has recently started a blog called “ATREVE-TE” (in English, “dare to”).

It is written in Portuguese and will focus on Eduardo’s experiences as a young entrepreneur and the company’s building up towards the external investment, among other topics. Eduardo will also shed some light on what he calls the three major assets on which the company was build: the people, the product and the image.

Check it out!
http://senaotentaresnuncaconseguiras.blogspot.com/

Ever since moving into our new headquarters on the FCT New Lisbon University campus, just across the river from Lisbon, we’ve made a point of keeping our company culture well and alive.

We play just about as hard as we work. After all the time spent programming, pitching presentations, brainstorming, developing concepts, crunching numbers and so forth, fun and healthy outlets are required to keep things balanced.

While we may not be located amidst the hustle and bustle of a big city, we are about five minutes away from some of the best beaches in Europe, as well as some pretty great hiking and biking trails just outside the nation’s capital.

So given our serendipitous surroundings, it wasn’t long before people started to get together to organize some pretty cool extracurricular activities.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is the challenge set forth by EnerFixe to over 300 schools in the north of Portugal and so far more than 2000 students have chosen to participate!

During 2008 Union Fenosa, an integrated energy operator, challenged YDreams to create a fun, innovative and educational game about energy efficiency. The goal was to reach students between the ages of 8 and 14 and teach them basic day-to-day actions that can lower energy consumption and reduce carbon emissions.

Working alongside BlueShark (a Lisbon-based game-design studio), we developed a point and click game concept. With the help of Union Fenosa’s Familia Blue, the gamer leads the avatar through several scenarios to detect appliances, light switches, air-conditioners and other objects and then make energy efficient choices, which will ultimately affect the electricity bill at the end of the month.

The design concept, created by Spanish designer Antonio Coca, was adapted to fit the game giving Enerfixe a really cool and distinguished look. We than added a fun and hip sound design by YDreams’ very own Nuno Pereira to set the right mood.

And that’s it!!! It really was that easy, because everyone pulled together by pitching ideas, choosing scenarios, defining game behaviors and essentially enjoying themselves.

The game was published online a week ago, and the results are awesome: more than 2,000 players have registered from 110 schools and over 5,500 games (and counting) have been played!

So, I dare you to beat the current best score! You can try it out at: www.enerfixe.com.pt

Just register and start playing. And remember you really can help planet Earth by reducing your daily carbon emissions.

EnerFixe on YouTube

This month’s Exame magazine has an article about innovation in the business world. The piece also features a survey about innovation practices and perceptions in Portugal, and a top 10 of Portugal’s most innovative companies. YDreams ranked 3rd place, behind big players like Renova and Brisa.

The complete ranking:

1 Renova
2 Brisa (Via Verde)
3 YDreams
4 Vodafone
5 Bial
6 Martifer
7 Logoplaste
8 TMN
9 Galp Energia
10 Compal

Wellcome to .yd, a blog about YDreams, YDreamers and all things YDreams (which we hope is plenty to keep you interested). We hope you enjoy your time here, have fun.