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:

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!

This past March, Vale and Rio de Janeiro’s Archdiocese began work to restore and preserve the city’s iconic Christ the Redeemer statue.

To celebrate the initiative Vale and the Archdiocese are giving people from around the world the chance to win a little piece of the statue, and also developed a hot-site to promote the monument’s restoration called ‘Para Sempre Cristo Redentor’, which includes an Augmented Reality (AR) component developed by YDreams.

The technically improved AR marker, printable via the website, features an additional bonus; as visitors hold the AR marker up in front of a webcam specific points of interest are displayed on the virtual 3D statue. By clicking the mouse over each point, visitors can access detailed information about each one.

Furthermore, the YDreams app automatically detects whether the computer being used to navigate the site has a a webcam or not. If not it adapts by enabling users to rotate the 3D model using a mouse. In addition, it automatically displays a model of the monument with hotspots, if the user does not have the compatible version of Flash installed.

To explore Christ the Redeemer Statue using YDreams AR, click HERE.

Karina Israel, YDreams Executive Projects Director will be giving a lecture today at ESPM-RJ (one of Latin America´s most prestigious learning institutes for Communication, Design and Administration) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Keeping in line with the event theme, Entertainment and Multisensory Communication, and how companies and brands use entertainment and multisensory language to attract audiences’ attention and make their communication more effective and engaging, Karina will present some of YDreams’ most emblematic cases using technologies such as Augmented Reality and gesture interaction.

The event, organized by ESPM-RJ through its R&D lab in Media, Entertainment, Design and Artistic Interventions and Globo University, is part of the Entertainment and Contemporary Culture Consortium’s 6th edition debate cycle.

We’re sure the turn out will be great. Good luck to you Karina.

More info at www.espm.br/cecc