Italiano 
English Google Translate vs La Bamba: Google celebrates the update of the app with a funny video
Google Translate and augmented reality? A new update of the famous translation app is here and Big G is presenting it in the funniest way possible!
One of the most incredible features of Google Translate is for sure the one that, through the mobile app, makes it possible to target any phrase written in a different language and translate it simultaneously.
Imagine it in action while you are traveling: you are in a foreign country and you need to read the signs, or maybe you need to read the local dishes at the restaurant: it won’t be anymore necessary to put vocabularies in the luggage, because Google’s app will help us in all the situations in which we need translation of a text despite not knowing the language.
Until some days ago, the translation was available for seven languages (English, French, German, Italian, Portoguese, Russian and Spanish), but now they have been raised to 27!
If it wasn’t enough, all this is happening without the need of a wi-fi connection or mobile data traffic and way faster than before.
You don’t believe it? Watch the video that Google Team created to celebrate this news using their app to translate simultanously a song we all know, La Bamba:
If you want to know more about how Google Translate works you can also watch this video:
Together with this, Google improved their translation app even in the voice version: now it will be possible to have a fast and precise conversation in another language even with slow connection.
Both these improvements will be useful for the countries in which fast connection is not yet available: now it will be possible to use these instruments in almost every part of the globe, without problems!
- Pubblicato il Augmented reality @en
Augmented reality and interior design: the Urban Ladder and Experenti examples
One of the most amazing uses for augmented reality is for sure its application to furnishing and interior design: how many of us ever dreamt to be able to see the furnishing directly in the room before buying it? Not everyone has the interior design eye and sometime to understand before buying if the colour match is the right one or if there’s enough space for the comfortable sofa we want is not really easy.
That’s why in this field the use of augmented reality and related apps is always a good extra. For sure no one knows this better than Urban Ladder, that counted on experiential marketing launching some months ago the app “Living Spaces”, dedicated particularly to their sofa line. The Urban Ladder app works in a way we already saw in other occasions (e.g. the design and art e-commerce platform Curioos): we just need to have a mobile device on which download the free “Living Spaces” app, then to focus the space of the room where we would like our sofa and…the magic is done! Thanks to augmented reality, the furniture will appear directly in the spot where we want to put our furniture and we just need to change colours, models and disposition of the pieces. Choosing furniture has never been so easy and fun!
If you want to try yourself augmented reality applied to design and furnishing, and maybe think of a possible application of it for your marketing? With Experenti this is not sci-fi!
You just have to download for free our app on your smartphone or tablet (Android and iOS) and the example tags on the Experenti kit (you can find them here): one of them is dedicated exactly to interior design and you can chose the best lamp for your room! 😉
- Pubblicato il Augmented reality @en, Experenti @en
#BehindTheFace: augmented reality meets creativity and inspirational talks in Camden
The project is called #BehindTheFace and it will be active in London soon.
It will be a series of posters that will be hang around the London Borough of Camden; on every poster there will be the face of a character that has been chosen as possible inspiration source for the people and that, if pointed with a mobile device on which is installed the augmented reality app Blippar, will show a short TED talk styled video.
#BehindTheFace is still mostly Top Secret, but we are pretty curious and we did some search around. The creator is Jimmy Kyriakou and is the founder of UNBOX, the organization at the base of the development of the whole idea. Going on UNBOX’s site we find out that it is a collective of creatives and entrepreneurs based in London that have as aim the creation of projects exploring how pioneering technology, art, fashion and music can play an important role in shaping society.
Kyriakou choose twelve characters that he considered change makers and who are positively influencing our cities and he recorded as many videos in which these people, through augmented reality, will come to life and deliver us inspirational and motivational messages. Below you can watch the video of Kyriakou and Brian Rose presenting the project and giving also a little demonstration of how it will work:
The faces chosen for #BehindTheFace are: Kwali Kumara, meditation teacher; Jimmy Kyriacou, founder of UNBOX; Laurence Kemball-Cook, founder and CEO of Pavegen; Ambarish Mitra, co-founder and CEO of Blippar and augmented reality pioneer; Sigalit Hart, storyteller and children’s artist; Brian Rose, founder of London Real and Silicon Real; Tia Kansara, motivational speaker; Professor Michael Batty, University College London; Priya Prakash, Designer-Founder @ D4SC: Design For Social Change; Mimi Bekhechi, director at PETA UK; Lazzaro Pietragnoli, Mayor of the London Borough of Camden until May 2015; Simon Pitkeathley, CEO of Camden Town Unlimited.
It seems there’s not yet a certain date for the start of the initiative, but if it happens you are in Camden in the near future, don’t forget to look around!
- Pubblicato il Augmented reality @en
Children and augmented reality: Learning Alive and education
Augmented reality is used day after day in always more fields, from the industrial to the recreational ones. Today we talk about the first course for kindergarten and elementary school children that has been created in the world: the name is Learning Alive and it was created by Kaplan Early Learning, a company based in North Carolina that provides products and services that enhance children’s learning, in collaboration with Alive Studios, enterprise that has the mission to create offers helping children being engaged in math and reading learning.
Learning Alive is a suite made of three programs/courses, Letters alive®, Storybooks alive® and Math alive®, to learn math and reading in an interactive and fun way thanks to augmented reality.
“Augmented reality is similar to your typical 3-D experience, but it doesn’t require the use of special glasses or tools,” says Travis Williams, Elementary Merchandiser at Kaplan Early Learning Company. “While augmented reality is becoming more and more popular across several industries, this is the first product we’ve seen that utilizes this technology in early learning.”
The three courses have duration one year and help the children learning the different disciplines following the Common Core State Standards, the American learning standards; on the actual success of this method seems to be no doubts: a research made by Dr. Tamara Ogeltree, Associate Professor of Reading at the University of West Georgia, proved how the use of the Letters alive® program meant a substantial enhancement of learning in the children. “[…] Students in the full implementation of Letters alive® experienced greater gains in emergent literacy skill development than the students in the classroom using no parts of the Letters alive® curriculum,” concluded Ogletree.
As we are noticing in last times, the application of augmented reality to learning is always more popular and widespread: there’s no doubt that the school environment will be one of the ones taking more advantage from the development of this technology.
- Pubblicato il Augmented reality @en, Training in Realtà Virtuale
BMW counts again on augmented reality for their Head-Up Display
Do you remember our post about BMW and augmented reality? It dates back to February and talks of the headset on which the famous automotive company was working to give the drivers a unique experience thanks to augmented reality.
Since the success of the initiative, the German company continued its research in that direction, until being the first creating a Head-Up Display, a screen that can be inserted in the front part of the car so it can be always in the front of the driver’s eyes, who will not be forced to look down to read the useful information, limiting the risk of distractions and accidents.
As we could easily imagine from these first step towards augmented reality, now the moment of the direct integration of this technology with the car and its accessories has come: just few days ago, the automotive company announced BMW5 Series, expected in 2017, that will have an operative system that will join the advantages of Head-Up Display with the marvels of augmented reality. In fact, through the “Business Professional” browser, the screen will not be anymore just a way to make the driving more comfortable, but also to project in front of the driver useful information.
With the new augmented reality system, the data will be displayed directly on the windshield of the car: it will be possible to have information on speed, distance, obstacles and people on the road, directions and all the useful data you can think of.
This is not the only news that BMW is preparing for us: the company seems determined to surprise us with another incredible innovation, the autonomous driving system, that will reach a maximum of 80 km/h and will help drivers during parking and changing lanes too.
We will talk you about this again when BMW will show officially to the public these news: BMW 5 Series’ launch is expected for the second half of 2016.
- Pubblicato il Augmented reality @en
Train to be a Jedi through augmented reality with Star Wars’ new official app!
It’s “your official mobile connection to a galaxy far, far away”: these are Disney’s words for presenting the new official Star Wars app, released just few days ago.
Freely available for Android and iOS, the new application will fill all the famous sci-fi saga’s fans wih marvel: did you always dream of inserting Darth Vader’s quotes in the middle of your conversations, or perhaps to learn how to fight with lightsabers, or, even more, to take a space-themed selfie? You will find all these in the new Disney app, and also a countdown to the release of the movie and all the news and videos about it.
But why this is interesting also for this blog? Easy: to give the users an unforgettable experience, part of the app uses augmented reality!
In fact the most exciting and engaging feature, the minigame “Force trainer”, provides the possibility of training with the typical Star Wars lightsabers: you will be able to train as a Jedi simply using your smartphone as a sword until you are a true pro!
Still talking about augmented reality, another feature of the app makes possible to unblock 3D characters from the movie: their figures could be projected in the real world, helping the users to immerse completely in the saga atmosphere.
All this, of course, doesn’t miss a social part: through the app it’s possible to create a personal profile and to become part of the growing community.
It seems the news is not stopping there: Disney ends its presentation with the sentence “Always in motion is the future. This app will continue to grow, evolve, and become more powerful than you can possibly imagine”.
This makes us hope that in the future there will be expansions of the app: let’s wait and…may the Force be with you! 😉
- Pubblicato il Advertising @en, Augmented reality @en
Microsoft HoloLens: this is what you actually see
When we saw Microsoft HoloLens in action with Minecraft at E3 last June, we were surprised and amazed from what they showed us on the stage: that was exactly what we were expecting from the best augmented reality headset we could imagine, and it was just breathtaking.
But those who tested live the device noticed that the experience isn’t exactly what we thought watching it from our screens: now Microsoft released a video showcasing the headset’s uses at Case Western Reserve University and finally the actual field of view is revealed…and, unluckily, it seems we have to reshape our expectations.
In the video, created to show the possibilities of using HoloLens and augmented reality for studying medicine, we can see how the students can see through the headset the human body parts and study the problems virtually, without putting at any risk the patients lives.
Of course, the use is awesome, but for the first time we also realize what exactly is the vision of the wearer: it is clear that there’s a bit limitation to the field of view that the user can have while using HoloLens; it seems to be an augmented reality “window”, that appears to take up about half of the screen, occupying a rectangle in the middle of the glasses’ field of view, and in the remaining part there’s just the real vision. This isn’t so much noticeable when the augmented reality objects are seen from afar, but it is very clear when they are near and right in front of the user.
Even for an incredible project as Microsoft HoloLens, at this time used also in space, there’s still a lot of work to do: we are sure that soon it will be as good as we imagined.
- Pubblicato il Augmented reality @en, Training in Realtà Virtuale
Mars outstands with augmented reality in-store marketing at Asda
“It’s no longer just enough to put your brand on a shelf in the hope that your packaging stands out more than competitors.”
These are the words by Bep Dhaliwal, trade communications manager at Mars Chocolate UK, and in these times is a well-known truth. That’s where some new marketing solution comes up, in particular augmented reality: in fact Mars, the famous confectionary brand, decided to give a turn to their communication engaging the customers visiting Asda supermarket in the UK with a new app created in collaboration with the tech company Zappar. The 27th June between 10am and 4pm, Asda’s customers could be involved in a gamification marketing action to enter into the draw for a chance to win a signed shirt: they had just to use their smartphones or tablets and play the in-store augmented reality game “Be A Penalty Shoot Out Hero”, in which they had to beat the goalie from the penalty spot to enter the competition. After playing, the customers were able to see a in-store board with the best scores and also to share on social media their picture with the winner’s trophy.
This is not the first time that Asda and Zappar are together for an augmented reality campaign: the previous, successful gamification campaign was created during Halloween festivities to keep the children entertained; using smartphones and tablets they were able to go around the shops and find clues related to a seasonal monster hunt.
Max Dawes, partnerships director at Zappar, said: “It’s great for us to be able to work with Asda again and to show how AR can be used to create stand out activity for brands in a busy retail environment.” And “stand out activity” is the right definition, since the Halloween action seen 151,780 “zaps” from 67,073 shoppers: a pretty good result!
Experenti helped to deliver an incredible experience in the supermarkets too: read how we augmented the packaging of San Benedetto Aqua Vitamin!
- Pubblicato il Augmented reality @en
UK researchers create new awesome augmented reality headset prototype
It seems that finally we have the device that every Google Glass fan wanted, but it wasn’t Google creating it: some research scientists at the National Physical Laboratory in the U.K. in collaboration with manufacturer Colour Holographic did, and the concept looks awesome.
Like it is for Google Glass, this device clips on a side of the wearer’s glasses and the creators claim that it suits to be used by everyone, from surgeons to firefighters, helping men to become enhanced in any profession they do through augmented reality.
There are anyway some big differences between this wearable and the Big G product, the most important of which is the fact that with this prototype you don’t have to look up to see the screen:
“Normally when we want to see things from our phones or our computers, we need a screen to look at. But this way, we could do away with a screen and just have the image projected directly into our glasses and into our eye,” said John Nunn, one of the research scientists that are working on this project in an interview with Motherboard.
In fact, the device overlays transparent images over what the wearer is already seeing, with a technology based on holograms. Think about how much this could be useful for enhancing many aspects of our lives, from the most common to the special ones; Manuel Ulibarrena, R&D Manager at Colour Holographic, said, “If you’re walking down the street, instead of looking at your mobile you can see a transparent map of where you are going with arrows and directions showing where you want to go.”
The NPL’s prototype comprises a micro-display, a lens, a glass plate and holographic glass slitters inside each end of the glass plate. As the user wears the device, a hologram bends the red, green and blue parts of light by 90 degrees which causes the light to reflect inside the glass and to travel over the wearer’s eye. Another hologram then bends the light again so that it is visible to the human eye.
For now, as we said, it is just a prototype, but soon it could become the headset we were all waiting for.
- Pubblicato il Augmented reality @en
Meet Experenti the 14th July at SMAU 2015 in Florence
Here we go again!
Experenti continues its road show at SMAU, the biggest italian Information & Communications Technology Fair, this time arriving in Florence for the last stage of the event before the summer.
Tuesday 24th July we will be at Firenze Fiera, Congress and Exhibition Center, to answer to all your questions and doubts about:
– Augmented Reality
– Innovative marketing
– How to create a startup and make it work
We will present two free workshops to talk about the incredible world of startups and the new ways of contemporary Marketing with Barbara Bonaventura, while Amir Baldissera, CEO at Experenti, will talk to you about the advantages of augmented reality in the fields of communication, sales and education.
You will find our Team at these times and places:
2.00 PM, Room 1: Amir Baldissera will explain how Augmented Reality can help a traditional business
4.00 PM, Room 1: Barbara Bonaventura, Experenti Marketing Manager, will talk about the Marketing that works
You can register for free to Barbara’s workshop here and to Amir’s workshop here.
We’ll look forward to see you at SMAU 2015 in Florence!
- Pubblicato il Augmented reality @en, Experenti @en