The next of our (ir)regular looks at new (and not so new) interesting technology. Anything that uses technology in a cool way, either from a technical perspective, design angle or to solve a problem in a interesting way will get posted here.
This is magical, almost literally. The user can scan a real world item and take a digital likeness into a document on their machine all using AR.
More details on Twitter and seems to have now been turned into a early access app.
Similar to the Litho we mentioned before, Kai is another cool handheld device that can connect to your other devices to enhance them. We like the potential for enhancing VR expereinces, but also the possibility of embedding it into something else for an exhition or event too. Started as a Kickstarter campaign, now a product in its own right.
We're big fans of Estimote's bluetooth beacons and have used them in a few installations. This version of their tech is a wearble beacon, which interacts with other beacons placed in the environment, meaning the wearable can tell where it is in space and then in relation to other wearables.
More details on their website.
Not tech per sé, but can easily be applied to a technical project. The Design Squiggle helps visualise the design journey, showing the relative chaos that exists before insights arrived at or prototypes created, later leading to the calm and clarity of an agreed solution.
The Design Squiggle is a simple illustration of the design process. The journey of researching, uncovering insights, generating creative concepts, iteration of prototypes and eventually concluding in one single designed solution. It is intended to convey the feeling of the journey. Beginning on the left with mess and uncertainty and ending on the right in a single point of focus: the design.
More details on The design Squiggle website.
We really like this example of enhacning an event experience with AR content, in this case simple shapes and animated elements that float aorund the stage and artist.
People use their mobile phones at concerts anyway, so let’s give them a reason to!
An interesting look into how Keyframe Studios integrated one of our game engines of choice, Unity, into their real-time animation pipeline for the hit TV show Dead Pixels. The show follows live-action characters living their fantasy lives in a video game, so Unity is the perfect choice. Check out the Unity blog for a full write-up.
Well maybe not, but this video from the legendary Industrial Light and Magic shows how the long-held staple of movie and TV special effects might be coming to an end. Instead of using green screen to key out the green and replace with the scene you want in post-production, actors and crew all sit on a massive set comprising high definition LED screens. On these screens they can put any environment or background, making the whole experience real-time, more collaborative and hopefully more effective.
Sort of like graffiti vandalism but in the safe confines of the digital world. Part of Snapchat's Local Lenses feature, which allows persistent digital content to be placed into the world, they chose London's Carnaby Street to one of the pilots dubbing it "City Painters" and works as you would expect. You can paint something in AR space, but only until someone else comes along and paints over you work if they choose. It's a really exciting feature where the digital world can co-exist invisibly with the physical world. The video is a good explanation of the experience and background technology, despite being laden with tech buzzwords.
Until next time. Yipikiyay!
by Rob Mason.