Karina Israel, Ydreams Brasil’s Executive Director’s live presentation on Augmented Reality (AR) at TEDxSudeste in Rio de Janeiro this past May has opened up many doors in Brazil and the requests for presentations on the exciting field of AR abound.

Today, Karina will be giving a talk on AR for an audience of 200 at Jornal Golobo, and tomorrow, the 17th of July, she will be a guest speaker at Interact 2010, an international conference on Digital Creativity. Both events will take place in Rio de Janeiro and the theme will focus on how to apply Augmented Reality creatively.

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.

Campus Party Brazil 2008 opened last week expecting 30 thousand visitors. Yesterday, the event closed its doors accounting for an incredible figure of 50 thousand people throttling around YouTube, Flickr, Yahoo!, Intel, CAIXA - Caixa Econômica Federal, Telefónica, Limão, Windows Live, and many other exhibition stands.

YDreams Brazil has took part too, at Limão (YBillboard and Bluetooth hotspots), CAIXA (YVision interactive game, YBillBoard, Step on It timeline and 1 Bluetooth hotspot) and Intel (YVision interactive game).

Both interactive games were a huge success: the Poupançudos game (CAIXA) had nearly 7,000 players (including the minister of culture Gilberto Gil), and Intel’s game was played by 4,700 people. Our 3 Bluetooth men went around with the Bluetooth appliances in a backpack.

CAIXA - YBillboard and people waiting in line to play Poupançudos game