(The BTEK project is particularly close to the hearts of our fellow YDreamers over in Barcelona, as well as our neighboring country. Therefore the post that follows is in English and Spanish.)

Last year we announced the official kickoff of the BTEK Interpretation Center project; this past June 9th it was officially inaugurated and is now open for business! BTEK is the first technology interpretation center in the Basque Country. It is located within the Bizkaia Technology Park in Zamudio (on the outskirts of Bilbao) and after the creation of the Visitors Center at Ciudad Grupo Santander in Madrid, another major project in Spain.

YDreams conceived and delivered 24 interactive solutions and two sound environments that welcome visitors before entering the center until they reach the first hall. Ain3Team studio was responsible for the interior design and exhibition scenography.

We collaborated closely with the Elhuyar Foundation, the entity responsible for managing and overseeing the project from start to finish. We developed all contents for our interactive installations, contents that ranged from computing and consumer electronics to communications, the Internet and the social implications technological development has on product life cycles.

The significant deployment of technology and creativity involved the concerted efforts of a team of over 15 professionals, as well as artists and external studios, which after many months rendered a result we are all extremely proud of. Technologies employed included Augmented Reality, image processing and gesture based technologies, as well as effects such as 3D contents, illustrations, videos, sound and musical theme creation. In addition to this furniture to support the numerous apps had to be designed, adapted and assembled as is the case of the sci-fi ‘Gene Workshop’!

Take a look at the video below for a peek into the BTEK Technology Interpretation Center:

Al inicio del año pasado anunciábamos el comienzo de los trabajos en este proyecto. El Centro BTEK se inauguró el pasado día 9 de Junio. Para lo que es el primer centro de interpretación de la tecnología del País Vasco, ubicado en el Parque Tecnológico de Bizkaia, en Zamudio (en las afueras de Bilbao), hemos entregado 24 soluciones interactivas, además de 2 ambientes sonoros que acompañan a los visitantes desde el exterior mismo del Centro hasta la primera sala. El diseño del museo ha estado a cargo del estudio ain3Team.

En colaboración y bajo la dirección de la Fundación Elhuyar, responsable de la dirección de proyecto, fuimos responsables por todos los contenidos científicos de nuestras instalaciones, en temas como la computación, electrónica de consumo, comunicaciones, Internet, las implicaciones sociales del desarrollo tecnológico o el ciclo de vida de los productos.

El importante despliegue tecnológico y creativo ha implicado a un equipo de más de 15 profesionales, así como artistas y estudios externos, a lo largo de muchos meses, en un esfuerzo conjunto del cual estamos muy orgullosos. Se han aplicado realidad aumentada, procesamiento de imagen y tecnologías basadas en gestos, la Wii de Nintendo, contenidos 3D, ilustraciones, vídeos, efectos sonoros y temas musicales. El paquete se completa con el diseño industrial y montaje de algunas piezas de mobiliario, como la Célula (”Taller de Genes”), así como las componentes mecánicas y electrónicas de diversas soluciones.

Más info en la página de YDreams. Vídeo del Centro, cortesía de Teknopolis. PDF con fotos y descripciones de todas las soluciones.

The iFest ’08 event, organized by Infonomia, had its fourth edition held in the Forum Building in Barcelona between the 10^th and 12^th of July. After the amount of attention attracted at the 2007 edition, YDreams Med returned as an interactive technology partner, with the yFaces. Participants would write down free comments about the event on nearby post-its, that would then appear almost instantaneously on a giant 103” plasma, gently provided by Panasonic Spain.

iFest aims to accelerate business growth through innovation and creativity. There were over 25 speakers present including: Hiroshi Tasaka, David Weinberger, Alberto Alessi, Peter Watson, Tom Kelley, Antonella Broglia, Ricardo Baeza-Yates among others. Our own Miguel Remédio made a brief presentation about YDreams.

Some interesting bits:

- The Sustainable Dance Club (vid 1) (vid 2), from the Roosegaarde Studio (2). A dance floor geared with sensors and piezo-electric components that can power an entire disco, sic, and make it interactive. Opening next September, at the Watt in Rotterdam.

- Just rub yours against mine and we’re done. It’s “E“, the gadget set to replace business cards.

- A lot of content on fabrics and textiles: the entrepreneurial Sensing Fabrics with stylist Joan Fabregas, the free-minded XS Labs (vids) from Joanna Berzowska and two Dutch girls and their Taeppedyr that keeps babies from crying. Even Philips had something to say on the subject.

- Unlock your cell-phone just by staring at it, with VFacer (download available for the N70), from Visual Engineering.

- Philips’ drive for innovation was put forward by Emile Aarts, founder of Philips Home Lab. See if this sounds familiar in any way.

- And then there was the toy section. ALAVS (Autonomous Light Air Vessels) and their funny Blubber Bots. Goofy looking toy robots that look paradoxically vintage, from Fadisel. Download a bed-time story and stuff it into the storytelling Nabar teddy-bear. The oddly real and sensor filled Pleo dinosaur, 2007 Engadget Robot of the Year, from Ugobe.

- Telefonica I+D showed off a very prototypical Visual Search Engine, where a photo taken by your own cell phone can act as the “key word” for the search: take a photo of a CD cover on a shop-window and immediately buy that CD online…

- The solar powered scooter, from Sun Red.

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.