1. Adornably Launches Augmented Reality App to Help You Shop for Furniture
One of the most difficult aspects of buying a new piece of furniture is trying to envision how the new couch or table will look in your home or office. Adornably, the e-commerce and technology company has recently launched an augmented reality app for iPad. The app allows users to take photos of their rooms and drop 3D photo-realistic models of different pieces of furniture items automatically into the photo.
The app is available in iTunes, and Adornably also is selling the product from its online catalog of items on the app. The Los Angeles-based company said there are hundreds of pieces featured in the app, which has launched with suppliers Stanley, Vanguard and Theodore Alexander, but it is planned to add more suppliers in the future.
Users of the app place a magazine down on the floor while you snap a quick picture of the room with the magazine. After that furniture from the app catalog can be chosen which is already scaled for this room. Users can also move items around, find the perfect fit, then purchase the new piece of furniture straight from the app.
Glenn Prillaman, the CEO of Stanley Furniture, said that this AR app is “a potential game-changer in the digital revolution now sweeping across almost every part of a home furnishings industry that previously offered consumers the same shopping experience for over 50 years.” He further added, “Both suppliers and retailers should love this tool because it enables customers to fully visualize what furniture would look like in the home before the actual purchase.”
If you are interested in furniture visualization apps keep an eye on the news from Augmented Pixels as we are going to release augmented reality furniture catalog soon that will please you with its simplicity and functionality.
URL: http://www.furnituretoday.com/article/570075-Adornably_launches_augmented_reality_app.php
2. Augmented Reality Enhances Tesco Christmas Displays
Tesco has launched interactive Christmas window shops in twelve Metro stores across the UK with augmented reality technology enabling shoppers to scan and shop using their mobile phones.By adding QR codes and augmented reality technology Tesco gives shoppers the ability to use mobile technology to be able to look around the store’s offerings and purchase what they want without ever having to step inside the shop.
The retailer says that in the window of Regent Street Metro store it has produced the first bespoke high street window display to be shown by a supermarket. The front of the store is decorated in a Scandinavian style with a six-foot biscuit house, showcasing food, gifts, toys and decorations. By scanning QR codes available on the same display customers can see information of products available. All items shown there can be bought on its website for collection at the store.
Tesco predicts that more than 30% of its online grocery customers will buy from their mobiles this Christmas, up from 20% last year.
URL: http://www.qrcodepress.com/qr-codes-augmented-reality-enhance-tesco-christmas-display/8524589/
3. Students Augmenting Augmented Reality Tour for Black in Paris
Bryan Carter, an assistant professor at the University of Arizona, took a trip to Paris with a group of students to create an augmented reality tour of sites related to famous black expatriates. This trip was done as a part of an “African Americans in Paris,” a 400-level course taught by Carter.
Carter took a group of eight undergraduates and one graduate student to Paris for a week to explore the city and work with a black tour company in “augmenting” its tours with audio, video, and other types of content along the route. Before coming to Paris students had to create their augmentation sources, while Carter and Julia Browne, the founder of Walking the Spirit Tours: Black Paris & Beyond, chose 10 points of interest along the route for students to augment. These 10 points work as “trigger images” and while viewed through an augmented reality app, additional sources can be seen. For this project Layar AR-platform was used.
One of the examples of what students did was extending an image of Josephine Baker Square with video of the Baker dancing, music of the time, and links to Baker-related Web sites.
Carter expects to repeat the project again in fall 2014 with a plan of encompassing “geo-locative” augmented reality. “I’m going to have students incorporate 3D objects and do green-screening,” he said. “That would allow a student, for example, to portray one of the historic characters coming out of the door of a building and explaining who he or she is and what the historic significance of the location is. Then, when a user of the app positions the device display at the building, based on its geo-location, the recording of the character will appear.”
4. The Drum Released With AR-Cover
The last issue of 2013 of the British magazine “The Drum” was released with interactive cover, emphasizing growing popularity of augmented reality nowadays and the convergence of print and digital worlds.
To make the December issue of the magazine look special and eye-catching, “The Drum” worked with AR-platform Blippar and production agency Jelly London. As a result they got pretty funny AR experience showing journalists celebrating Christmas. To see the animation and to access exclusive online content everyone who bought the latest issue of The Drum should download the Blippar app and point if at the cover. For those, who don’t have the opportunity to buy this magazine it’s possible to print the cover from the website.
It is also worth mentioning that The Drum has been named best business magazine of the year at the UK.
5. AR Christmas Greeting Cards from Pear
PEAR, a company that specializes in consulting on and the development of interactive 3D applications, has recently created Christmas greeting cards enhanced with augmented reality. These cards come as a part of AR4ED project aimed to bring augmented reality technology into a learning environment to help children with learning disabilities and with Autism Spectrum Disorder. As a part of their project Pear is working on building an AR library for Education that will be a resource for educators to use in the classroom.
Everyone can support this great initiative by buying beautifully made AR Christmas Card. The price for the card is $3.50, from which 50 cents Pear donates to the National Autism Association. This Christmas season Christmas miracle comes with augmented reality.
URL: http://www.pearenterprisesinc.com/#!ar4ed
AR applications:
- DDAR
- AR Hunting
- Areca AR+
- InvisibleEar
- shangoo
- Market City
- ARMagicCube
- Zoobabu Augmented Reality
- SOT Housing AR
- Borsen3D
- KMS Yatra AR
- Snow Through Adventure
- Zwipenet
- AirCacher
Prepared by: