Tag: France

The Sound of Amnesty

This year charity and human rights organization Amnesty International France has turned its signatures petition drive at www.marathondessignatures.com into a musical ‘hymn to freedom’ with Paris based agency La Chose.

The campaign was like any other petition drive, but with a slight difference. Every digital signature received released the next note of an exclusively written song called the Sound Of Amnesty. To push the boundaries, they even got music recognition service Shazam to promote their petition in their smartphone app.

When the Shazam app did not recognize a song, the usual error message along with a special message “Valentina Rosendo Cantu could not make herself heard either. Assaulted by soldiers, she asked for justice but the authorities refused to investigate” was displayed. As a result 150,000 signatures were collected, a 500% increase from the previous year! The song was also made into a CD and sent to Amnesty’s targeted authorities.

Augmented Reality. Hyperlinking the real world

A French company called Capturio turns a t-shirt into a business card. You point your phone at what someone is wearing, and the “link” is the fabric itself. No QR code required.

Right after that, Blippar in the UK takes the same idea to printed images. A newspaper page, poster, or pack becomes the trigger. The result is a 3D augmented reality overlay that appears on-screen the moment the image is recognised. Again, no QR code.

Is the end near for the QR code?

QR codes get put to good use in countless innovative projects. But the drift is clearly towards technology that produces similar results without visible codes.

Capturio. A business card you wear

Capturio’s concept is simple. The physical object becomes the identifier. A t-shirt behaves like a clickable surface in the real world.

Blippar. Turning print into a trigger

Blippar creates augmented reality effects from printed images without “activating” anything via a QR code. The interaction is straightforward:

  1. Download a custom app, in this case the Blippar app.
  2. Scan a Blippar-enabled printed image, identifiable by a small Blippar logo, using an iPhone, iPad, or Android device.
  3. Start interacting with the augmented reality 3D overlay on the screen.

Telibrahma. The same pattern shows up in India

In India, Telibrahma uses the same approach to increase experiential engagement for brands via traditional media like newspapers and posters.

Why this matters. Hyperlinking the physical world

The bigger idea is not the novelty of 3D overlays. It is that physical surfaces become links. Clothing, posters, newspaper pages, packaging, storefronts. Anything that can be recognised can behave like a gateway to content, commerce, or interaction.

A few fast answers before you act

What is “hyperlinking the real world” in this post?
Using image recognition and AR so physical objects like shirts, posters, and print behave like clickable links without QR codes.

Which companies are the concrete examples?
Capturio (France), Blippar (UK), and Telibrahma (India).

How does Blippar work at a high level?
Download the app, scan a Blippar-enabled image (marked with a small Blippar logo), then interact with a 3D AR overlay.

What traditional media does this apply to?
Newspapers, posters, and other printed images.

Volkswagen virtual Golf Cabriolet app

The Golf Cabriolet is back after 9 years of absence, since production was stopped in 2002. Volkswagen together with Paris based agency ‘Agency.V.’ have come up with the worlds first augmented reality car showroom app for the iPad2, iPhone and Android.

The app lets you explore the vehicle and play with it’s features like opening the soft-top roof, rotating the car, checking the vehicle’s details, changing the body colour or the style of the rims. You can even take a picture of yourself with the virtual car and share each step of this experience through your social networks.

Why this is a useful AR showroom idea

This is a clean, practical use of augmented reality. It gives people a way to “handle” the car without needing a dealership visit. The experience stays focused on the things people actually want to try first. The roof open and close. The rotation. The color and rim changes. And it makes the moment shareable by design, so the showroom can travel through social networks.

A few fast answers before you act

What is the Volkswagen virtual Golf Cabriolet app?
An augmented reality car showroom app for iPad2, iPhone and Android that lets people explore and customize the Golf Cabriolet.

What can you do inside the app?
Open the soft-top roof, rotate the car, check details, change body colour, change rim styles, and take a photo with the virtual car to share socially.

Who created it with Volkswagen?
Paris based agency ‘Agency.V.’.

Where could people download it?
From the French iTunes Store for iPhone and iPad 2, and from the Android market for Android devices.