ExpandAR: "Expand Your Reality"

Here at Talking Dog we've been having fun making funny faces into our webcams this month. We recently launched our new Augmented Reality visual toy: "expandAR".

You can try it out yourself at expandar.com.



A direct link to the above video is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FToeYWCAoYk

Here's what we say on our site:

"expandAR" is a visual toy that uses face tracking and augmented reality for some hilarious and mind-altering effects. Once you've made note of the keyboard combinations for the effects you like you can call them up whenever you like. You can also play with this toy with more than one person - with practice you can play "ExpandAR Pong" and throw the effect from one face to another and back again.

Share your best expandAR photos with us! Just email your pictures to us and we'll put them in our gallery of crazy pictures made with this site. And once a month, the person who sends in our favorite picture will win a prize!

The subtitle for expandAR says "Expand Your Reality". Some of the effects within expandAR are pretty darn surreal, and some even temporarily alter your perception of the world around you, in ways similar to what's known as the waterfall illusion. Good times to be had by all!

But first and foremost, what we're looking at is an open-ended plaything, something to stimulate your creativity and let you explore the possibilities. So have fun with expandAR and send us your pics!

May all your days be augmented ones.

Talking Dog

p.s. Just as a proof of concept for other uses of this technology, we recently took expandar and created a modified version that lets you become various characters from Disney's new film Alice in Wonderland, directed by Tim Burton. You can check that version out here.