The company Zugara which is an interactive marketing and advertising agency specializing in augmented reality applications, has introduced a new concept of their Fashionista technology using Augmented reality to create an immersive and interactive experience. This time extending it to the possibility of augmented reality conferencing. Zugara calls their new product: ZugSTAR which is short for “Zugara Streaming Augmented Reality”.

Source: http://www.zugara.com

AugmentPro interviewed Matt Szymczyk, CEO, Zugara about their Fashionista Augmented Reality application. Now it appears they are using the foundational technology from the Fashionista application to a much broader marketing opportunity than just “social shopping”. According to the blog post from Zugara’s website:

“While integrating ZugSTAR into the Webcam Social Shopper is a natural extension of the tech, it’s certainly not the full extent of our vision.” said Matt Szymczyk, CEO, Zugara. “Gartner predicts that by 2015 200 million people will be paying for desktop video conferencing. Now, I don’t want to sound hyperbolic, but this tech has the potential to impact virtually every single industry. Anywhere distance is a barrier to real-time collaboration, ZugSTAR has the potential to provide a tremendous amount of value.”

Their are a few examples that the ZugSTAR application can be applied to:

• EDUCATION (DISTANCE LEARNING): A science teacher can field questions and twist and turn a DNA helix as he/she explains their answers.
• MEDICINE: 3D models of an fMRI will allow a Dr. to either consult with other Dr.’s, or explain the test’s results directly to a patient.
• PUBLISHING: Augmented Reality Pop-Up Books can enable a parent that’s on the road to help their child to learn how to read.
• PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT: A 3D model (e.g. of a shoe or a building being developed) can be shared, and discussed, with colleagues, clients, vendors, and partners.
• CASUAL GAMING: Augmented Reality based casual games can now be multiplayer.

To illustrate the technology view the demo video below:

Demo Video

whiteapp.com

Recently in my search for new and relevant augmented reality use cases, I began to search for white label uses of augmented reality. Like many web application services it is only a matter of time before companies begin to create white label versions of respective applications. This is where whiteapp comes along.

whiteapp has a directory suite of white label mobile applications that they provide for the iPhone, Android OS and Symbian OS. Among them there is the ‘Augmented Reality’ application for the iPhone. The company behind whiteapps is putITout a London based applications development company.

I was extremely intrigued to find out more about this solution so I contacted Charles Cadbury the Founder of whiteapps and Managing Director from putItout to begin to ask some questions to discover what is the strategy and direction of their current white label AR application.

Charles Cadbury – Founder whiteapps.com Interview

AugmentPro – I see that your company Pit It Out is a London based digital development company. Can you tell me a bit more about your company and client base?

Charles Cadbury - Founder whiteapp.com

Charles C - Its putITout.  We set up 3 years ago to fill a skills gap in the London market.  Freelance web developers were charging a great premium for their services and often took a lot of management time in order to get jobs produced to spec.  Our offering centers around project managed development resource (we have grown our own team in Lahore, Pakistan) and manage all projects through a team of project managers and account managers in Russell Square in London.

Our clients tend to be mid sized creative and marketing agencies.  We typically build large, dynamic, websites, Facebook applications and bespoke CMS solutions.  From March this year we started to offer mobile application build to our client base, using a strong network of developers and mobile usability experts.

AugmentPro – What made you decide to launch whiteapp.com?

Charles C – Advertising agencies were coming to us time and time again as they were either being asked for, or wanted to offer applications to their clients.  The cost of designing and building these applications from scratch was proving too expensive for a majority of clients.  The global economic meltdown didn’t help at all…

At the same time I was meeting more and more developers who had built applications, pouring vast amount of sweat and coffee over learning the Apple SDK and not receiving adequate commercial recompense by monetizing through the app store.

whiteapp was a way to offer agencies a “shopping list” of applications they could browse and purchase, we could simply re-skin or make small alterations to these apps in a short period at a far lower cost than bespoke development.  At the same time we shared any money we generated with the developer who created the application which in the most part far exceeded the money they had made through selling the app through the app store.

AugmentPro – whiteapp seems to have a suite of mobile white label applications. Which ones appear to be the popular ones so far with agencies and clients?

Charles C – Due to an October launch the Advent calendar has been the most popular application and used as a simple brand asset for branding campaigns.  The Augmented reality application has come a close second as its an exceedingly hot topic right now and at the right price is a great PR tool to gain column inches and deliver a great experience to the user.

AugmentPro – You appear to currently have one Augmented Reality white label application. Can you please briefly describe its core features?

Charles C – It’s a “finder” application.  It takes geographic locations from a database (held locally or in the cloud) and overlays these data points on the real time video feed from the iPhone’s camera.  If the user does not have an iPhone 3Gs or holds a 3Gs flat the data points are shown as a google maps mashup, giving route finding functionality. Different tabs can be added and managed through a web based CMS that can overlay different datasets on the video feed.  Any level of additional functionality can be added to this application depending on the client’s requirements but starting from an existing product saves production time and subsequently cost.

Why re-invent the wheel – people love it!.

Download complete Augmented Reality white label application Fact Sheet here

AugmentPro – Currently it appears to only support the iPhone 3Gs. Do you have in plan to support the Android and/or other mobile OS’s?

Charles C – We are currently working with an Android developer and hope to list an Android Augmented Reality whiteapp in January 2010.  We are also working on a pitch for a bespoke build of a symbian Augmented reality product that we would like to offer as a whiteapp.  Hopefully this will come off and we will be able to offer that from May 2010.

AugmentPro – From a white label AR standpoint, what are your timeline estimates in order to deliver an AR white label app from initial conversation to final launch?

Charles C – If you hold the dataset, do not mind it being hosted within the application and have all the creative assets to hand we could turn this around within a week.  Usually there are a few iterations of design and bespoke functionality that need to be ironed out and the process can take 2-3 weeks before we submit to the app store.

AugmentPro – Do you have in plan to launch other Augmented Reality white label applications? I would love to see one that allows you to instantly generate a Marker, select from a gallery of predefined elements, then to generate an AR browser app. Is this wishful thinking?

As and when developers create Augmented Reality applications we are more than happy to list and market them  on whiteapp.  So hopefully your readership has this in development and we can all live happily ever after.

Home Depot AR Gift Card

A couple of weeks ago Home Depot introduced their Holiday Gift Card that includes an augmented reality experience. From a marketing perspective they’ve used a person to demonstrate the “3D” gift card for the consumer directly on the Home Depot channel on Youtube.

Here is yet again a great marketing use case of incorporating an AR marker on a physical card and then allowing the consumer to interact with the gift card directly online at http://3d.homedepot.com/. Users select the amount which is on the gift card and then a product recommendation is given within the AR experience of what products can be purchased with the gift card. I love how the call it the “3D Project Starter”. Home Depot needs to give the actor a microphone. The audio is terrible in the video review. Then again, they may be going for the whole “user generated video” aesthetic.

I like the idea of saving the products in a cart next to the experience for the user to be able to quickly and easily then purchase the product directly online or in the store. Bravo Home Depot.

Matt Szymczyk Zugara CEO

One of the many augmented reality applications that have created a lot of buzz this past week has been the Fashionista Augmented Reality App by Tobi.com. AugmentPro covered this exciting use case a couple of days ago in our Fashionista Review.

To better understand this application I went directly to the source company behind the development and integration of this application. Zugara is an interactive marketing agency focused on emerging technologies. Matthew Szymczyk is the CEO of Zugara and I asked him to help us all understand this fantastic real world case study on how they effectively used augmented reality to apply to a consumer retail website.

Zugara CEO Matt Symczyk – Interview

Zugara.com

AugmentPro – As the CEO of Zugara, can you please give a short summary of Zugara as an interactive marketing agency?

Matt S – Zugara is an interactive marketing agency focused on emerging media and technology.  The core areas we focus on are Interactive Video, Social Media, Mobile Marketing and Website/Application Development.  We are also working quite a bit with Augmented Reality through creation of Flash-based proprietary technologies that are the foundation for our AR applications.  These technologies are licensable and have SDK’s that will allow developers to create advanced Flash-based AR executions.

AugmentPro -  What made Zugara choose to use Augmented Reality as a base technology for an application?

Matt S – Augmented Reality allows you to integrate information into a live video stream.  When we were initially looking at creating a unique online shopping experience, Augmented Reality first came to mind.  But, we also knew that usability would be important given the barriers already present with Augmented Reality (i.e. needing a webcam, printing a marker).  So, we felt by creating Flash-based Augmented Reality technologies that we were at least cutting out one barrier for the user – having to download software or install a plug-in to view.  Flash-based Augmented Reality is the reason why you’ve seen AR exploding on to the scene as of late.

AugmentPro - Does Zugara have any statistics behind the demographic of who will use augmented reality technology to its fullest?

Matt S – We are still compiling data on the best demographic target for use of AR, but we do know that currently 40% of Facebook Video uploads are via webcam.  Since we deal quite a bit (on the marketing side) with Gen X and Gen Y, we are used to creating emerging media and technologies for these demographics.  With the continued market saturation of webcams and Gen Y’s continued adoption of livestreaming and webcam based video, it seems only natural that Augmented Reality would also be a technology that is quickly adopted by this generation.

AugmentPro – Back in June 2009 Zugara introduced the Augmented Reality Dressing Room.How did brands react? Did Zugara get a lot of interest for the application?

Matt S – We had quite a bit of positive feedback and interest on the Webcam Social Shopper (Augmented Reality Dressing Room) when it was released back in June.  I think most people were surprised to see a utility based AR application as those seem to be very few and far between right now.  Social Media Integration and Utility were 2 key components of the Webcam Social Shopper and this allowed people to see how these emerging technologies could be integrated together and used effectively in an online retail experience.  Even though this application has been called a virtual dressing room or fitting room, it’s more about replicating the offline shopping experience when you’re at the rack, holding apparel up to yourself, and soliciting feedback from friends or family.

AugmentPro - Tobi.com seems to be the first company/brand that has adopted your application, are there other companies or case studies that you are allowed to share that will be leveraging your application?

Matt S – Tobi.com is the first brand to use the Webcam Social Shopper and I think over the next 3-4 months you’ll also see a few other brands using it as well.  Unfortunately, I cannot get into details about that at the moment.

AugmentPro - What are some of the best features of the Fashionista application?

Tobi.com - Fashionista Augmented Reality App

Matt S – I think we’re most proud of the ZugMO motion capture technology and Social Media integration.  When you see the person step back to control their “Augmented Shopping Experience”, that was a technology we created internally after going through initial usability tests.  We felt it was more natural to step away from the computer to try things on, so spent time creating the tech to do it.  We’re also happy with how the Facebook integration turned out which allows the shopper to post images of their shopping experience directly into their stream.

AugmentPro - What future features are in development for this application?

Matt S – We have a new technology that we actually just debuted in Europe called ZugSTAR.  This is short for Zugara Streaming Augmented Reality.  What this allows is for multiple people to use Flash-based Augmented Reality in real-time.  For instance, with ZugSTAR integrated into an application like Fashionista, this would allow a mother in New York to shop online with her daughter in Los Angeles.  They would both be able to see the other’s augmented experience to provide instantaneous feedback.  We’re pretty excited about this tech and it’s other applications (for other industries).  We even did a quick blog post to show how it would look – http://weareorganizedchaos.com/index.php/2009/11/04/zugaras-zugstar-video-conferencing-augmented-reality-a-shared-ar-experience/.

AugmentPro - Are there any other applications that Zugara will launch in the future that will leverage augmented reality?

Matt S – Please see above and keep an eye out for an official announcement in December.  We know initially people are like “Streaming Augmented Reality? So What…” But once we release some prototype examples of how ZugSTAR can be used, I think you’ll see quite a few people get excited about it.

At AugmentPro.com we want to highlight the latest and greatest news and applications of augmented reality for the marketing professional. Lately, I have been speaking to a few of my colleagues in this space and they have all requested to know more about how building augmented reality applications is actually possible so they can begin to educate their development folks with some starting points.

I think it is a great idea to share a few basic “how to” videos on how to create an augmented reality sandbox application for your internal or external development teams. A few great tutorials are being made available by some talented folks.

The folks from GoToandLearn.com and Tinkernet.com have created a fantastic video demonstration on how to build an augmented reality application with Adobe Flash. The current requirements to create a basic augmented reality application are the following:

The Basics

1. PaperVision 3D – http://code.google.com/p/papervision3d
2. FLARToolkit – http://www.libspark.org/svn/as3/FLARToolKit/
3. Marker Generator - http://www.mikkoh.com/blog/?p=182

Additional Tools

1. Adobe Flex – http://adobe.com/products/flex (Free Developer License -  http://freeriatools.adobe.com )
2. Tortoise SVN – http://tortoisesvn.tigris.org

Video Tutorial 1 (Advanced Developers)

gotoandlearn.com video demonstration

Video Tutorial 2 (Experienced Developers)

Tobi.com a fashion apparel website has launched an augmented reality dressing room for their customers to “try on” the clothing directly from the website and then save and share their flare on their social networks via the “Fashionista Augmented Reality Application“. This is all done via augmented reality, motion capture, and real-time personalization.

Fashionista Augmented Reality Application photo shared on Facebook profile

The companies behind this application are none other than RichRelevance which is a leading provider of next-generation personalization and product recommendation tools for enterprise-class eCommerce sites, including Sears.com, BassPro.com and Walmart.com along with Zugara which is an interactive marketing company focused on emerging media and technology. Zugara is also a member of the Augmented Reality industry guiding “AR Consortium”.

Zugara first introduced this application back in June 2009 on their Youtube video example. Now Tobi appears to be taking on this application for their customers. What is interesting to note is that not only does this application open up the doors to allow users to interact directly with the merchandise, but it allow the user to then take a snapshot photo and share it with friends within their social networks.

“… friends still play an important role in influencing consumers. Eighty-three percent of online shoppers said they are interested in sharing information about their purchases with people they know, while 74 percent are influenced by the opinions of others in their decision to buy the product in the first place. Zugara and RichRelevance are excited to give retailers a new way to connect shoppers with their peers, and make the online shopping experience more like the offline: social, personal and engaging.” said Zugara CEO Matthew Szymczyk

How It Works

According to the press release, Fashionista creates a totally individualized and engaging customer experience from three core components of emerging media, technology, and eCommerce:

• Augmented Reality combines real-world and computer-generated data where computer graphics or objects are blended into real-time footage. With Fashionista, images of clothing are merged with live video of the shopper.
• Motion Capture recognizes and records an individual’s movements and integrates them into an on-screen model. With Fashionista, hand motions enable the user to virtually navigate backward or forward on screen to select clothing, indicate preference, and take a photo.
• Personalized Clothing Recommendations deliver a highly engaging and individualized shopping experience based on the current shopper’s session as well as “wisdom of the crowds.” With Fashionista, a stream of recommendations that leverages multiple recommendation types is displayed and updated based on immediate user feedback on preference.

Below are two current demonstration videos from Tobi.com and RichRelevance.

Tobi Virtual Dressing Room

Fashionista Demo

Junaio launches an iPhone application that aims to bridge the gap between social networking and augmented reality.

Junaio is developed by Munich based metaio which is a pioneer in the area of augmented reality technology. According to their website metaio develops software products for systems driven by visual interaction in both real and virtual worlds.

According to a press release from metaio that was covered on September 18, 2009 by blogs such as Vizworld, Arvertising.com, and The Future Digital Life, the release of the iPhone application was scheduled for November 2. Today is the official release on the iPhone application directory. Download iPhone Application here.

In a quote from the press release Thomas Alt, CEO of metaio says;

“By combining innovative online and mobile technologies, junaio will allow users to see location-based content through the display of a mobile device. Users can leave traces, messages or objects and visually interact with their friends or anyone else in the world. Already existing web services can be enhanced and completely new ways of interaction can be created. Whether it is social networks, multimedia content or game concepts – virtually anything can be embedded in the real world and connected to a certain place. “The possibilities are endless, we are taking the Internet outside to the real world.”

Though Junaio seems to be an alternative to other augmented reality browser-like experience from Layar and Wikitude. Junaio highlights the social networking aspect to the application which allows users to instantly share images and experiences to their friends. A complete video demo is available below.

Did you ever believe your father when he said he caught a big one but it got away? Well, now if he has the MagiCam iPhone app, he can prove it. Well, use augmented reality to prove it with this iPhone application.

Quapps Interactive from London just launched an iPhone application that allows users to super impose “props” or images, everything from aliens, fish, ghosts and more and then publish and share them with their loved ones (if they are that gullible).

You can go ahead and search for this app in your iPhone application directory or go directly here to download the application for $0.99

Photo Credit: http://www.quapps.co.uk

Here is a complete list of features:

• Add Prop
• Rotate Prop
• Scale Prop
• Move Prop
• Blend Prop

Props available in version 1

• Alien
• Bearded Man
• Bunny Ears
• Croc
• Devil Horns
• Vampire Fangs
• The fish that got away
• Ghost (Glow/Light)
• Ghost (Scary)
• Garden gnome
• Grim Reaper
• Halo
• Lion
• Pumpkin Head
• U.F.O
• U.F.O 2
• Witch
• Zombie

Thoughts

Just recently I saw the mosquito augmented reality iPhone game which seems like a simple idea but this MagiCam seems a bit silly as to the inherent long term use. I can see someone installing this and using it once to get the silly factor, but afterwards, why not just use a photo editing software to easily do alot of what this application does.

I guess that would be complicated for some and MagiCam makes it easy to create an alien hoax. your thoughts?

Do you know where your tax money is going to as part of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act? Well, this new application that is available to iPhone 3GS and Android users you can see exactly where its going.

Sunlight Labs, a think tank from Washington DC has launched an application called the “Recovery.gov Augmented Reality Mashup“.  They were able to create this mashup by leveraging the Layar AR browser together with the data that was provided by the government. That data being in the KML format , it allows a perfect synergy for such an application.

The government actually published this data as well on their “Where is the money going?” web application. Sunlight Labs took this data and is now making it available on the mobile platform for iPhone 3Gs and Android. Sunlight Labs has a great demo of how the created the application is you read their blog post.

See some screenshots from the application. Images taken from the Sunlight Labs blog post.

In order to use this application you must install the “Layar” browser from the application store of your mobile device, then search for the words “recovery” and “sunlight” within the Layar browser to bring up the application.

Curious to hear from readers where the money is going in your neighborhood?

I want to highlight a recent application available on the iPhone and iTouch (with WiFi) connection. It is called of all things “New York Subway”. The functionality is clear. It identifies subway stations and some POI locations such as fast food restaurants. Beyond the typical it also has a feature that shoes these features in an AR fashion with a feature called “Your New Eye”.

Xavier Lanier from the blog GotteBeMobile.com has a nice application review complete with some images of the application and commentary. He has some negative reviews of the application such as:

The idea behind this application is cool, but using it in the real world isn’t that thrilling of an experience. The virtual signs didn’t appear smoothly and jumped about the screen when I moved the iPhone ever so slightly. When I was outdoors I had to point my iPhone slightly upwards to get stations to appear.

I do not live in New York City, but it would be great to hear some feedback on those that live in NYC and are able to test drive this application. As many current applications, the data and information is in its infancy and as it matures as like all emerging technologies all of these negatives bugs will be ubiquitous. Your thoughts?