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.

Meet the rabbit!

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.

Over the summer I spent a few days in Chicago; I knew a little about the windy city by the lake, with the impressive architecture. What I didn’t know was that Chicago has a world-renowned collection of public art, which seems to abound particularly in downtown Millennium Park.

The park pretty much doubles as an outdoor gallery and concert hall with plenty of impressive stuff on display! Day or night the place was always crawling with visitors of all ages who came for concerts at the Jay Pritzker Pavilion, to laugh and pose in front of the Cloud Gate sculpture, or gawk at the massive Crown Fountain glass block towers at each end of a shallow pool, while waiting expectantly for a burst of water to spout from the mouth of the Chicagoan up on the massive screen.

Granted, Crown Fountain is pretty fantastic as is, but I couldn’t help wondering how much more immersive it would be if there was a way of displaying the grinning faces of the folks actually looking on, in real-time. Ok, call me narcissistic but yes, I would’ve gotten a kick out of having my “mug” plastered on the giant glass block, and admit it, you probably would have too.

The Digital Signage Today website, part of the established NetWorld Alliance, has published an article titled Gesture-based digital signage: A new marketing future, where YDreams is referred as ‘Portugal’s gesture-based innovator’, alongside other respected global players Reactrix and GestureTek.The article mentions our work with gesture based interfaces for the Coca-Cola, Vodafone, Compal and Dove campaigns, as examples of the rising trends and, especially, the effectiveness of this new kind of marketing tool.

SXSW Interactive 2009 is already gearing up and we’ve got some YDreamers applying for panels. Though not as widely popular as its Music counterpart, SXSW Interactive is one of the most conceited interactive media festivals around. From March 13 to 17, Austin will be buzzing with media entrepreneurs, curious geeks, technology evangelists and any other interactive aficionado variants you’d care to make. We’d really appreciate it if you’d give us a hand by voting for our panels.

Marta Vieira has two submissions for the Mobile / Wireless category. Since her early days at the company, as an Account Manager for our Entertainment division, Marta has amassed a profuse knowledge on location-based systems and gaming, both panels propose to put some perspective into current state-of-the-art and future trends.

Ivan Franco, our Research & Development Director, is set for the New Technology / Next Generation category, where he sets to share his expertise in new interfaces, DIY concepts and his own musicianship (check out Ivan’s blog for more info).

More info and voting links below:

Inches vs Miles – What Makes Location-Based Games Fun? (Marta Vieira)

Is accurate location what makes a location-based game “real”? Or can we broaden the concept of location until it fits our idea of what a fun game design would be? In this panel experts will discuss location-based gaming, its present and possible evolution.

(click to vote)

Location-Based Applications – Dead on Arrival? (Marta Vieira)

Location based applications have long been hailed as the wireless industry’s “next killer app”. But will they disappear before they’re ever big? In this panel the experts will discuss if location is likely to emerge as a powerful genre or be used as a feature boost for applications.

(click to vote)


New Interfaces for Performance (Ivan Franco)

Realtime computation allowed new media artists to develop interactive performances but typical computer interfaces don’t offer appropriate interaction models for these contexts. In the DIY generation artists learned new techniques to build their own instruments. Novel interfaces have surfaced and this presentation is a reflection on New Interfaces for Performance.

(click to vote)

Thought I’d a round-up on interesting things recently posted by YDreamers on our internal mail forums.

Intellectual property has been a hot issue this week, as it becomes more and more relevant to YDreams’ strategy, starting with William Patry’s announcement that he was going to shut down his excellent blog about Copyright issues. IBM’s thorough IP strategy (as this example well illustrates) was also on the discussion table.

With a couple of upcoming YDreams projects related with interactive urban furniture and environments, we couldn’t help noticing REACTIVATE!!, a really interesting looking exhibition, dealing with the concept of Instant Urbanism. (via we make money not art)

We don’t do robots, but that doesn’t mean we don’t find them cool.

Data visualization is such an interesting area, especially when working with interfaces and information design, with results that go from annoying garble to stunning functionality. Take a look at this article about the ‘most interesting modern approaches to data visualization‘, some really great trends here.

To round things off, a well-polished (and funny) look at the ‘Unfulfilled Promises of Virtual Reality‘, all the way up to Augmented Reality.

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.

For more details read here.

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.

We’ve delivered the YBenches to CP Proximity for their client Grupo Damm, which distributes the Budweiser brand in Spain.

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.

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 25^th edition started last April 26^th and runs till May 4^th. 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.

For many people interactive branding is still only about the Web.

It’s true that the Internet is full of exciting new possibilities, like viral marketing or the social media channels. But outside the two dimensional web there is a real world full of interactive possibilities.

The creative use of technology and new interfaces are changing the way people can be digitally approached in the physical realm. Intelligent Billboards, Digital Signage or Interactive Catalogs, controlled by gestures or multi-touch systems, are some of the solutions that we are starting to see on the streets, stores and public spaces that are part of our daily routine.

If the Internet was a milestone in the development of Permission Marketing, this new tangible interactivity allows us to go even further. You don’t force people to touch an interactive shop window or play a game at a cinema venue. So the challenge is on for marketers, copywriters and art directors, to create engaging content that people choose to activate. The result is a dynamic dialogue between the consumer and the brand. And this dialogue takes place within the physical world, making it even more remarkable than interacting on the virtual world of the web.

It is exciting to think that we can integrate some of these new tools with what web 2.0 has to offer. Particularly, the power that consumers are developing in defining the terms and conditions by which they want to be approached by brands, which will hopefully grow online and offline.

Imagine, for instance, having an online store’s characteristics in the physical world. Innovative interfaces would allow you to instantly compare items, browse suggested related articles based on datamining and other people’s suggestions. Clients could even write and leave reviews for others. Products and brands risk being more vulnerable, but quality standards would sure go up - and in the end we’d all benefit.

*(adapted from here)

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.

Most of us have heard of South by Southwest but think of it exclusively as a music festival. SXSW is that and much more. It is a 2 week long event that takes Austin over and it’s starting on Friday!

The Wikipedia description:

“South by Southwest (SXSW) is a set of interactive, film, and music festivals and conferences that take place every spring in Austin, Texas. Originating as the Austin Battle of the Bands, SXSW officially began in 1987 and is centered around the downtown Austin Convention Center. Each of the three parts run relatively independently, with different start and end dates. SXSW is one of the largest music festivals in the United States, with more than 1,400 performers playing dozens of venues around Austin over four days in March. Though it is an industry-based event, SXSW Music links locally with events such as the annual Austin Music Awards show. SXSW is the highest money-making public event for the Austin economy, bringing in more revenue than the Austin City Limits Music Festival or the Texas Longhorn home games.”

Music is cool, and we all love Film but this year Interactive is the place to be at – especially because YDreams will have a special say in how it turns out. I’ll be a speaker at one of the panels on Saturday, “Location-based Entertainment, Animating Overlooked Spaces” (learn more about it here).

I expect to take advantage of my Gold Pass as much as possible over the next week and will try to report back frequently.

Wish me luck!

Looks like companies are catching onto the idea that people really enjoy interacting with on-screen content and information through simple hand gestures or natural body movements, minus the hassle of mice, keyboards or complicated controllers.  It’s all the rage, and many companies are creating products that mimic the experience as recently witnessed at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

We’ve been creating natural interfaces for computing and entertainment experiences that work with gesture-based controls for some time now, only we call it Reality Computing – user interfaces that are natural, intuitive and instinctive. We pretty much made it our guiding principal.

We won’t say we set the trend, but we definitely realized things were headed this way early on in the game.

Video: Reality Computing in action, VIVO Campaign at Cirque du Soleil in Brazil

The Virtual Sightseeing concept, back in 1990, by Jeffrey Shaw:

http://www.inside-installations.org/artworks/artwork.php?ref_id=&r_id=15

OFFF, design conference, multimedia trade fair and digital animation festival all rolled into one, is described as an “enthusiastic celebration of a new visual culture” and “one of the essential meeting points for the international scene of post-digital creation”.

Next spring sensational OFFF is coming to Lisbon 8, 9 & 10 May. The event promises sensorial exercises in synesthesia, stage performances comprised of computer code and legendary participants from the fields of graphic design and visual communication.

I am personally looking forward to OFFF Lisbon 2008 and would love to see YDreams amongst the headlining participants because from the sounds of it, this one is right up our alley. Read more about OFFF.