augmented-reality

Hate trolling through property listings? You can now whip out your smartphone and use an augmented-reality app to see what's on the market.

Junaio is a free AR app for iPhone 3GS and Android devices that overlays real-estate information on camera views. Users point their phones at a building, street, or neighborhood and relevant data such as monthly rent, photos, and contact details pop up.

Junaio can highlight properties within a radius of several miles. Map views and list views are also available.

Junaio is linked to real-estate search engines HotPads, which lists housing for sale and for rent, … Read more

Wonder how that bright yellow watchband will look on your pasty wrist? Swiss watchmaker Tissot has launched an application that lets consumers try on various styles at home--digitally, in 3D.

Users just download the app, put on a cardboard cut-out watch template, and hold their wrist in front of a Webcam to try on watches and change models, colors, and styles from Tissot's Touch collection.

The app, which is compatible with PCs and Intel-based Macs, also lets consumers experiment with the touch-screen features on Tissot watches, including the diver functionality of the Sea-Touch model. As shoppers try on a … Read more

Having trouble picturing what that Lego monster castle/spaceship/robot will look like when assembled? Lego is rolling out augmented-reality store displays that show shoppers, in 3D animation, what a completed kit will look like. The move follows other toy makers bringing AR to action figures and baseball cards. I'm waiting for cereal boxes in my supermarket to start spewing 3D cornflakes.

The Danish toy giant, known for cool stuff like Mindstorms robot kits and wacky apps like the Lego-illustrated Bible, is currently installing the Digital Box (PDF) displays in its stores worldwide.

When customers hold a box up … Read more

Sure, it's great when that hot avatar gives you a hug in Second Life, but wouldn't it be even better if you could actually feel the embrace? Researchers from Japan are demonstrating a motorized haptic device that lets you experience real-time virtual hugs by physically reproducing the pressure felt on the chest and back when someone gives you a squeeze.

Getting a hug that moves beyond the basic emoticon requires donning a kind of harness adorned with soft fabric hands that envelop the wearer in a warm faux embrace. But the HaptiHug is only one of the affective garments included in the I_FeelIM ("I feel therefore I am") system, which uses software to extract emotional meaning from written text and pass it on to one of a number of haptic devices that react accordingly.

The speaker-enabled HaptiHeart, for example, emits palpable heartbeat-like patterns to evoke sadness, anger, and fear. The vibrating HaptiButterfly and HaptiTickler, worn around the abdomen, are supposed to create feelings akin to nervous, joyous belly flutters. And the HaptiShiver and HaptiTemper are aimed at boosting fear emotions by, respectively, sending shivers up and down the wearer's spine by way of vibrating motors and producing spine chills via a fan blowing cool air. … Read more

For certain brands, a "social media strategy" consisting of a Facebook fan page and a Twitter account is last year's model.

One of the trends you tend to see at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival (SXSWi) in Austin, Texas, is that it's where big, nontech brands show up to test edgy social-media marketing initiatives in the ultimate geek test bed. A brand we'll be seeing a lot of at this year's SXSWi, which starts Thursday, is the General Motors-owned Chevy.

A sponsor of the festival, Chevy is going all-out with just about every … Read more

You know a new technology has reached the big time--or jumped the shark, depending on your perspective--when someone builds a conference around it.

So the Tuesday announcement of the Augmented Reality Event, billed as the world's first commercial event about that technology, is the official sign that the times are a-changin' for AR.

Of course, anyone can cobble together a conference, and just because it exists there are no guarantees that it will be any good, or feature anyone worth listening to. But the folks behind the Augmented Reality Event have at the very least scored a coup with … Read more

I attended the Trendforum in Munich last week, a two-day conference that gathered European innovation, marketing, and R&D executives to explore emerging technologies, social trends, and innovative business models. The program was eclectic and the content mostly of high quality. I was particularly intrigued by the opening session that intersected macro-economic forecasting with geeky trend evangelism as well as a humanistic pledge for meaning-driven business (in fact, the other sessions didn’t even come close, including special guest Ray Kurzweil, whose remote keynote, given by way of 3D-holographic projection, remained utterly flat).

As the first speaker, Markku Wilenius, … Read more