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!
According to Robert Rice “Augmented Reality is going to be bigger than the web, and it is going to affect nearly every industry and aspect of life”.
Karina Israel is going to explain why in a course she is giving on Augmented Reality at ESPM - Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing’s (Superior Institute for Marketing & Advertising) São Paulo Campus in February 2011. Enjoy!
Karina Israel and Daniel Prado, YDreams Brasil’s Executive Director and CTO, respectively, are part of the line up for the 7th edition of this year’s iMasters InterCon Debate under way November 19th and 20th at São Paulo’s WTC Hotel. Promoted by iMasterPRO, the event is the largest IT and Internet Forum Debate in Latin America.
Keeping in line with this year’s slogan, “After the end of the web, reality lies elsewhere!” (depois do fim da web, a realidade é outra!), the 2010 event will revolve around themes like Massive Applications, Social Interfaces, Local, Data Visualization, Cloud Computing and Game Development.
Karina and Daniel will be basing their presentation on YDreams’ experience in Interactive Design and Ambient Intelligence. For a closer look at the program lined up go to: http://intercon.imasters.com.br/2010/programacao/.
YDreams’ mark can be felt at the 26th edition of São Paulo’s International Auto Show underway from October 27th to November 7th at the Anhembi Exhibition pavilion. Car lovers of all ages who flock to the event are privy to interactive technologies that make exploring the cars on display only half the fun.
The interactive technologies specialist introduced a ‘Superman’ style X-Ray vision app that proved to be a most original way for visitors to the Fiat stand to get to know the ‘insides’ and standout features of the brand new Mio prototype, the first collaborative car in the industry. Right next to the car stands a large-sized plasma that invites people to see what event-goers have to say about the Mio on Twitter. The app picks up all Mio-related tweets and playfully displays them alongside the person’s head in comic-strip style thought balloons.
See video below:
Further along, at the Toyota stand, visitors come across another YDreams’ creative application that was developed to help create public awareness and spread the word about the work the Toyota Foundation has been doing to reforest the Brazilian Atlantic Rain forest, as well as its attempts to help preserve the Blue Macaw. At the stand, people are able to see their moving silhouettes outlined on a video wall depicting tropical settings; in an adjacent video wall, people see their silhouette set against landscapes of the Brazilian Pantanal, where a Blue Macaw soars overhead before disappearing from sight.
If you are planning on attending this year’s Skol Sensation Electronic Music event in São Paulo, Brazil, expect to run into some very cool Augmented Reality (AR) experimentation by YDreams. To do so you’ll need an AR Tee, encoded with special markers. The tees (see below) are already on sale at five shopping centers in São Paulo (city); stop on by one of the malls to see what its all about or pick one up! In the meantime, here’s a preview (see YouTube Video as well.)
AR Tee featuring encoded marker
Pose for the camera and watch as your AR-Tee comes alive!
Recently, Engadget, a web magazine with daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics, picked up on our Flapi YouTube video, which gave viewers a look into what goes on at YLabs, our in-house R&D lab.
There’s more where Flapi came from, so we thought we’d share a clip about an augmented reality experiment involving foamy virtual bubbles. We stumbling upon the technology about a year back and at the time weren’t quite sure what to do with it.
YLabbies try out Virtual Bubbles
Below take a quick peak at how the creative use of an ingenuous lab experiment gave way to a fun interactive experience for movie-goers in São Paulo, Brazil:
Interactive Cinema Experience at São Paulo Movie Theaters
(see 
