47 Countries Playing Our New Game Within a Week!

SMPIA Announces Augmented Reality Game Results

SMPIA, in partnership with Saskatchewan's Talking Dog Studios is happy to announce that Trilight Entertainment is the winner of Multi-PlatFORUM - The Game, an augmented reality mobile experience launched at the Multi-PlatFORUM conference on April 14th in Regina. Playable on either Android phones or the iPhone, the game superimposed a constantly changing random selection of the logos of all the companies and associations participating in the Multi-PlatFORUM event onto the phone's camera view so that it appeared as if the logos are really floating in space around the player. Within 6 hours of launch the game was being played in 26 countries. To date, over 10,000 logos have been displayed in 47 countries around the world.

The contest finished at 8 am (CST) this morning. While players will continue to be able to play for fun, Trilight Entertainment of Regina, SK had collected 615 logos by contest close to claim the first prize Augmented Reality package worth $500 from Talking Dog Studios.

Talking Dog Studios president Rob Bryanton had this to say about the game: "When we saw that people all over the world were playing, it really opened up the possibility that the winner was going to be from the other side of the planet! But Trilight took the bull by the horns, they grabbed the lead early and managed to outwit their competition all week. Way to go Trilight, we're looking forward to seeing how you want to use your prize."

"We are excited to explore the potential of using Augmented Reality and Digital Media to compliment the Film projects we have in development, "said Trilight Entertainment's Shayne Putzlocher upon learning of his win, "and we had a lot of fun participating in the game".

SMPIA Digital Media Initiative Manager Nova Alberts was thrilled with the response to the game. "This was a wonderful way to demonstrate the speed and reach of digital media when you engage your audience. And I love that we were able to put Saskatchewan and Canadian logos in front of so many international players."

Just a reminder, the game can still be played by using the browser on your iPhone or Android phone to go to this link: http://www.bit.ly/multiplatforum. An added feature is that all companies and sponsors participating in the event will now have a fixed logo floating at their business location.

Alice in AR land

Last time we looked at our new website mixing face tracking and augmented reality: expandAR.com. This time we'd like to talk more about a proof-of-concept experiment we've just posted at expandAR.com/w using the same technology: with this version, instead of the software messing with their own face, the user sees themselves transformed into four of the characters from Disney's new hit film, Alice in Wonderland. The images used to create this demo are, of course, © 2010 by Walt Disney Pictures.

Can you imagine watching a program or a commercial where you see yourself inserted into the action using the approach we're showing here, with your face changing to different characters, or being modified in interesting ways as different things happen to you? So can we!

We see this as a starting point for something that any film, television, or commercial producer could use to allow people to see themselves as part of the action, to become part of the show. It's important to remember as you look at these stills from the site that this is really full-motion video of the user being inserted into these faces, which makes the experience just that much more engaging. What about a website that shows clips from famous movies and lets people see themselves as an interesting/amusing part of the clip? Talk about your remix culture.

Also, there are other interactive story-telling options here: users could be presented with choices, and depending upon their response they would see themselves transformed in various ways. Likewise, this could make for an immersive and entertaining educational or gaming experience.

Several things are happening to make this magic happen. First of all, facial recognition software is locating the user's face, and continually adjusting for their position within the image and how near/far they are from their webcam. Then, real-time video is being grabbed of the person's face. The image of this face is adjusted in real time to match the color and brightness of Tim Burton's imaginative images. In some cases the face is also being warped or tilted to have it match the look of the film's characters even more.

The fact that all this is able to be done in flash, so it doesn't require the user to download any additional software makes this a great promotional tool. The fact that it is a form of augmented reality that doesn't require the user to print out a marker also ensures that more people will be likely to try the site out.

In case you missed it from last time, we're going to close here with our movie demonstrating the original version of expandAR. Thank you to the people who have sent us pictures of themselves having their reality expanded in various crazy ways by the expandAR website, please keep 'em coming!

And if you are a film or television producer looking for an innovative way to engage your audience, let us know, we'd love to discuss how Augmented Reality might be just the solution you've been looking for.


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

May all your days be augmented ones,

The Talking Dog AR team.

PS - Talking Dog president Rob Bryanton has also posted an entry about this over at his Imagining the Tenth Dimension blog, check it out.

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.