In the video below, Audience Entertainment, co-owned and fueled by YDreams’ technology, brings interactive fun to Bon Jovi’s Open Air Tour 2011 in Greece:

Antão Almada, YDreams’ Strategic Software Development Director, will be hosting a workshop dubbed “YVision, an Interactive application for Learning” at the Creative Learning Conference at Centro Congressos de Lisboa on Monday, October 26th, 2011.
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Antão presently heads the company’s YVision team that has been working on the development of a platform for applications based on Natural User Interfaces (NUI) and Augmented Reality (AR).

For more information go to: http://www.creativelearning-conference.com/2011/

Forum Sintra, located on the outskirts of Lisbon, is the 12th and most recent Multimall Management shopping center in Portugal. The center, which opened its doors to the public in April 2011, wanted to offer shoppers an innovative attraction that would appeal especially to younger audiences, and help foster enjoyable memories and positive connections between guests and the center.

After brainstorming with client Multimall, creative technologies specialist YDreams proposed a giant-sized interactive virtual aquarium they dubbed Fixelândia, for the enjoyment of the center’s guests. (Note: the name is a play on words because in Portuguese fixe means cool, but also sounds like the word ‘fish’)

The experience, unique to Forum Sintra, gives guests the chance to create and thoroughly customize their own virtual pet fish. Two touch consoles, located at each end of the giant virtual aquarium, comprised of fifteen 40” monitors, invite shoppers to customize their pets. Guests use the touch screens to create their new friend from scratch – they decide on the shape of the body and fins, as well as the color of its eyes and stripes. The variables available enable guests to create up to 30.000 distinct fish, so the risk that any two fish will be identical is minimal! After determining what their new pet will look like, guests get to name it and release it into Fixelândia!

Creating their new pet fish is only half the fun; to make sure they grow into happy, healthy Guppies, the fish need to be fed and visited, a task that can only be accomplished by checking in at the touch consoles at Forum Sintra. The more you visit your virtual pet fish, the bigger and happier it grows, and the more you are able to further customize it by adding new features. In addition, a dedicated website (http://www.fixelandia.net) is also available so that guests can regularly check up on their pet fish from home to see how it’s doing.

The 2014 FIFA World Cup is just around the corner and Rio de Janeiro’s Maracanã Stadium is set to host the final game.

While work to renovate and upgrade the stadium is in full force, fans can check out YDreams’ Augmented Reality app, developed in collaboration with Sirius for Odebrect Construction, to get a better look at the 3D model of the new & improved stadium.

Positivo Informática’s Educational Alphabet Table, powered by YDreams’ Augmented Reality technology, was distinguished with a Gold award by IDEA/Brasil – the Brazilian edition of the renowned North American International Design Excellence Award (IDEA).

YDreams conceived and developed the Augmented Reality software that powers Positivo Informática’s award-winning Educational Alphabet Table. Positivo Informática, one of Brazil’s largest computer and educational technology manufacturers commissioned Estúdio Flexiv de Design to redesign the table for improved usability. The newly refurbished table was distinguished this past August, in São Paulo, with a Gold award in the Informatics category by IDEA/Brasil, an organization endorsed by the Industrial Designers Society of America.

The table was distinguished by the society for ideally combining design, ergonomics and technological interactivity. The Educational Alphabet Table is a ground-breaking tool for the education and literacy of children, youths, adults and students with special needs. Animations, videos, sound resources and augmented reality technology, allow for interaction with objects in the virtual world, creating an interactive and stimulating atmosphere for students.

The Educational Alphabet Table was also hailed as being environmentally friendly, inclusive, safe and sturdy. Its bright colors and attractive shapes are especially appealing to children. The combination of technology and design have rendered an educational table that serves as a teaching and learning aid that greatly facilitates digital inclusion.

CTT (Correios de Portugal), the Portuguese postal service, commissioned YDreams to develop several interactive solutions to boost customer involvement and autonomy at its new HQ flagship store in Parque das Nações in Lisbon.

The flagship store, inaugurated September 12th, 2011 at its new Lisbon headquarters in Parque das Nações, features YDreams’ interactive solutions, developed and designed to offer appealing interactive platforms that promote and advertise CTT’s products and services, and foster customer involvement and promote autonomy. Guests to the new store are now able to use the latest technologies to purchase products (i.e. stamps, envelops and books) issue money transfers, customize their own postage stamps and browse CTT’s extensive financial products portfolio.

YDreams’ solutions include six large touch screens dispersed throughout the store that double as digital signage informing customers of the various product lines (postal services, telecommunications, etc.) available at the store. A sophisticated back office platform uploads dynamic content onto the tactile touch screens, which display in addition to product information and promo campaigns, recreational yet practical options such as taking one’s picture in loco and using it to create customized postal stamps, or using Augmented Reality technology to visualize envelopes and boxes in their actual size and shape.

Elsewhere in the store customers can interact with a Multi-touch table to explore CTT’s financial products such as international money transfers and certificates of deposit in greater detail. Furthermore, using the potential of multi-touch technology, users can simulate long-term savings investments and view a variety of financial product sheets that they can be forwarded to their email accounts.

Finally to round off the CTT high-tech flagship store experience, YDreams has also created a series of interactive projections featuring randomly generated contents, which are projected onto the store window display, further contributing towards drawing the attention of passersby, promoting the new venue as well as its campaigns and services.

All YDreams’ interactive apps were designed and selected to harmoniously blend into the architectural project for the venue, which was conceived by S3 Arquitectos, a Lisbon based-firm.

Interact 2011, the 13th Conference on Human – Computer Interaction kicks off today, September 5th in Lisbon and will run till September 9th, 2011.

The theme of this year’s INTERACT 2011 conference, Building Bridges, recognizes the interdisciplinary and intercultural spirit of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research. The conference welcomes research that bridges disciplines, cultures and societies. Within the broad umbrella of HCI, Interact is looking for high quality contributions that will open new and emerging HCI disciplines, bridge cultural differences, and tackle important social problems. INTERACT 2011 provides a forum for practitioners and researchers to discuss all aspects of HCI, including these challenges.

YDreams is one of the event sponsors and the company CEO, António Câmara will be delivering a Keynote on Natural User Interfaces on Thursday, September 8th.

For more info on Interact 2011: http://interact2011.org/

Sport Club Recife, a football team in North-eastern Brazil, recently posted the video below showing the club using YVision’s free Beta version of its software development kit (SDK) to create a Boxfall application featuring 3D Augmented Reality cubes customized with the team’s logo!

Yvision, a YDreams’ spinout, is dedicated to the research and production of software development kits. To find out more about them, or download their SDK, visit their website at http://www.yvision.com.

Positivo Informática, the largest computer and educational technology manufacturer in Brazil commissioned YDreams to develop an Augmented Reality (AR) – educational table they named Alphabet. The educational solution debuted at the 55th Congess for São Paulo Municipalities, this past April, at the Centro de Convenções Costa da Mata Atlântica in São Paulo state.

The table, which has been endorsed by the Brazilian Ministry of Education, combines colorful animations, video and sound to create an interactive environment. The table features a webcam, 32 inch LCD screen and AR markers that represent the characters in the story. The 2D markers are captured by the camera and transformed into real-time 3D images, which can be treated as “virtual marionettes” on the LCD screen.

Carla Flores, Positiva Informatica’s Product Manager explained that the company chose to go with a ‘virtual theater’ theme so that the product could progress and grow from there. Basically the ‘made for the classroom’ Alphabet Table starts by telling the students a story. The students, aided by teachers, then select a character and re-enact what they’ve heard. The camera transforms the markers into on-screen 3D characters, which the students interact with by playing out what they’ve listened to or read. At a more advanced stage, the students may also use Alphabet to create a story of their own, which they can record and edit resulting in a short animated film.

The educational game, which can be played by six students at a time, is ideal for promoting collaboration, exchanging knowledge, and teaching children and students with special needs their “ABC’s”.

Starting at minute 1:00, the video below shows the Alphabet Table in action:

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!

The WIRED UK August 2011 issues profiles ‘Sigas’: Santander’s friendly bank bots”, YDreams’ avant-garde project implemented in 2010 for the Visitors’ Center at Ciudad Group Santander, a gargantuan financial complex in Madrid, Spain.

Click HERE to view the article online; this edition is also available on WIRED UK for iPad.

For a complete overview of the project, click HERE to watch the video.

Parent-company YDreams now counts three spinouts and one joint venture

The YDreams Group is proud to announce that its members are growing in number. A joint-venture with a North American partner brought us Audience Entertainment in December 2008; Ynvisible, dedicated to developing and producing electrochromic displays was officially launched in early 2010, and listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in February 2011.

2011 ushered in two more spinout companies – Yvision, developer and producer of software development kits, and more recently YDRobotics, which will specialize in robotics and mechatronics fields.

More information about each one HERE!

Today, YDreams’ Natural User Interfaces (NUI) division is officially releasing the free Beta version of its YVision software development kit (SDK), via its dedicated website at http://www.yvision.com.

YVision is the result of ten years of research and development in human-computer interaction. Created by the company division that focuses solely on NUI design and software architecture, this framework is behind many of YDreams’ interactive solutions and has been deployed in thousands of engaging and robust NUI applications.

According to Ivan Franco, YDreams’ Director of R&D, “Our framework is the missing link between traditional Game Engines and Natural User Interfaces. It promotes creativity and expressivity, by offloading the complex interoperability of the multiple technologies, which are indispensable to deliver state-of-the-art interactive products.”

YVision is a component-based framework that allows programmers to develop complex systems based on pre-built modules, which are operated by behavior trees. The .NET – based framework assures faster development, removes the need for complex resource handling and offers users multi-platform deployment for desktops, mobiles and consoles.

The SDK features a full abstraction layer for real-time 3D rendering and was also designed to support the upcoming Microsoft Silverlight 5, enabling users to build the next full 3D experience for the web browser. In addition, YVision offers state-of-the-art physics and computer vision. The creation of NUI applications also depends heavily on sensor acquisition and processing, so YVision is ready to process complex sensor data and manage several kinds of input devices.

“The current beta release is for PCs only. Because we want to offer the best possible experience, extensive testing is being carried out for the Mac and Silverlight platforms, and mobile platforms will soon follow”, explains Mr. Franco,“Stay tuned, because we intend to follow the ‘release often’ motto”.

The SDK, along with detailed information and instructions, is available for download via the following URL: http://www.yvision.com. We hope you will enjoy it and look forward to hearing your feedback!

In the video below, Audience Entertainment, co-owned and fueled by YDreams’ technology, brings interactive fun to a nightclub event in China. Simple hand gestures enable the crowd to control and maneuver the car in a Redbull-themed virtual race:

YVision was created by the company division that focuses solely on Natural User Interfaces (NUI) application design and software architecture. The innovative development framework has been efficiently deployed in engaging and robust NUI applications that have been, and are, the motors behind many of YDreams interactive solutions.

Click HERE to experience YVision firsthand on your browser. (Note: webcam needed!)

For more detailed info about YVision, go to: http://www.ydreams.com/yvision/

We also recently demoed the YVision app at are2011. You can check it out at the following video link. Demo starts at 05:06 – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FsN0tCkAR-Y

The pioneering interactive solution, which lets customers interact with a gesture-based interface to answer a series of key questions developed to determine which L’Oreal fragrance is best suited to their personalities, tastes, and lifestyles, just made its debut in the fragrances sections of the Peek & Cloppenburg department store in Geneva, Switzerland.

Future plans to implement an additional 15 units at numerous venues around the world are being discussed by executives at L’Oreal headquarters. Sensorium, developed in conjunction with L’Oreal Portugal’s Luxury Division, was first launched at Perfumes & Companhia shops in Portugal in November 2010.

Click HERE to watch the ‘making of’ Sensorium video.

May 17th & 18th the Augmented Reality Event (ARE) is back for a second consecutive year to show off a new round of innovation to the technology, media, and marketing communities, and YDreams will be there with its very own booth, so make sure to stop on by!

About a year ago (in June 2010) YDreams headed out to Santa Clara, California, to compete for the coolest Augmented Reality (AR) demo at ARE 2010, the first Augmented Reality Event. After braving a legendary, American Idol-style judging panel comprised of Bruce Sterling, Jesse Schell, and Mark Billinghurst, plus a live audience – who by the way, actually determined the winning demo – YDreams picked up the first ever Auggies Award for their 3D AR tech demo!

Below, raw footage of the first annual Augmented Reality Event (2-3 June, 2010 in Santa Clara, California). YDreams presents their demo at minute 01:00:01

“The Auggies Unplugged” – Best Augmented Reality Demo Competition at ARE 2010 from Ori Inbar on Vimeo.

Barcelona’s recently inaugurated Museu Blau (formerly known as the Natural Science Museum) uses YDreams hands-on, interactive technologies to bring greater relevance to museum-goers, by actively involving them in a story about the planet and its incredible diversity.

The Forum Building, located in Barcelona’s Diagonal Mar district, has been put to excellent use as home to the city’s new Museu Blau (Blau meaning blue in Catalan) because of the building’s indigo-blue structure, the building was designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron, who were also responsible for Museu Blau’s museography.

The museum, covering 9.000 m2, is divided into two floors with an incredible exhibition about the planet and its biological and geological diversity. Herzog & de Meuron and Museu Blau commissioned YMed, YDreams affiliate in Spain to conceive and implement interactive tools that would afford visitors an exciting way to explore the exhibition content; YDreams responded by creating 16 enhanced-reality mobile screens and two other interactive solutions for the museum.

Museu Blau is yet another successful foray into the Spanish market for YDreams; in early 2010, the Lisbon-based interactive technologies provider was responsible for conceiving and implementing all the interactive components, including robotics, at the cutting edge Ciudad Grupo Santader Visitors Center on the outskirts of Madrid. Later that year, YDreams technological creativity gave way to an impactful and exploratory experience for visitors to the BTEK Interpretation Center in Zamudio, Bilbao in northern Spain.

The interactive technologies-based theme park, ‘Parque Família Blue’ is back for a second year, but this time in Porto, northern Portugal’s largest city. The theme park, conceived by YDreams for Gas Natural Fenosa, one of Europe’s principal energy companies, was implemented for the first time in April 2010 at the Dolce Vita Tejo Shopping Center on the outskirts of Lisbon.

‘Parque Familia Blue’ is made up of a numerous interactive technologies that engage children through a series of games and activities designed to foster environmental awareness and teach energy efficiency.

Gas Natural Fenosa was extremely pleased with the results from last year’s event and decided to bring the theme park to Porto in 2011. In addition, after Porto ‘Parque Família Blue’ heads for Coruña in Northern Spain until May 1st, and then to Barcelona in October.

‘Parque Família Blue’ is up and running at Dolce Vita Porto’s Urban Plaza and is open to the public daily from March 17th to April 5th from 10h00 to 19h00. The park also welcomes and schedules daily school trips from all over Portugal.

For more information click HERE!

To watch the YouTube video from last year’s event click HERE.

The winners of the INVENTA – Caixa/INPI Award were announced February 24th at the awards ceremony that took place at Caixa Geral de Depósitos headquarters in Lisbon.

YDreams was shortlisted for the INVENTA.COM – Future and Communications award for their Virtual Sightseeing patent. The overall grand winner for the evening was Coimbra University for their “Nouveaux derives de porphyrine, notamment chlorines et/ou leurs applications en therapie photodynamique” patent.

For a complete list of winners click HERE.

About INPI
INPI, the National Institute for Industrial Property, was constituted in 1976; their mission is to protect and promote Industrial Property on both a national and international level and to serve as a mediator between Portugal and international organizations, where Portugal is a member state.