Augmented Reality: Avatar iTag Toys

James Cameron's new film, Avatar, is without doubt one of the most anticipated movies of the year. Between Cameron's own goliath status and ability to make record-breaking movies, Twentieth Century Fox Film's global marketing activities, and the overall promise of new, never before seen, ground breaking fully immersive next generation special effects, this movie is going to be BIG. There has been more talk and speculation about this film then probably any other in the last 24 months. Special extended trailers were shown to select audiences around the world. Strategic partnerships were developed with leading technology providers. Basically if there was something that could be done to promote this, it was.

So with the film now in the cinema, what's next?

In my opinion the coolest thing coming next is the Avatar toy line. Mattel’s Avatar toy line is set to revolutionise toy play. The Avatar range of toys marks the industry’s first range of toys to incorporate i-TAG technology. This is essentially Augmented Reality enhanced toys. When held up to a webcam, each toy's unique i-TAGT creates a three dimensional, Augmented Reality image on your computer screen.

Here is a video of exactly how the system works...

Panic Attack!

Panic Attack! is a shortfilm Animated, Directed and Produced by Fede Alvarez. Basically it's stunning and is a must see video...

Oh, did I mention he did this on a total budget of $300!

Unsurprisingly, the amazing shortfilm and catapulted Fede to the attention of Hollywood, and he has reportedly now signed a deal with Sam Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures to develop and direct a full lenght feature project. The deal with Ghost House has been speculated to be worth a six to seven figures.

Ballantine's Rock Bottle

When it comes to the spirits market, getting your brand, your bottle, placed in a position of prominence behind a bar is essential. This is especially true for whiskey's as the vast majority of drinkers will order by name, and it can be next to impossible for a brand to break a seasoned whiskey drinkers brand preference. So what do you do?

A simple solution is to grab the drinkers attention. Do something to make them want to give your brand a try. Ballantine's Scotch Whiskey have developed the "Listen to Your Beat" campaign, which, unlike other drinks campaigns, isn't based on point of sale creatives or engagements, it's based on a cutting edge new bottle design.

The new Ballantine's Scotch Whiskey bottle features a graphic equalizer that reacts to the ambient sound of its surrounding. Seriously.

Yeah, the Ballantine's seems to want to kill the competition by at least viral and word of mouth, as compared to consumers not think so.

Ballantine's decided that they don't want their customers to just dance with their drink when they drink their whiskey, they want their customers to dance to their drink. The gorgeous new black bottle with luminous blue bars that jump in time to the music is eye-catching and mesmerising. Designed by London-based design company, The Core, the bottle is being launched in bars across the UK as well as 35 other markets. In total there are 20,000 bottles in production.


This is the bottle in question...

Augmented Reality: Shopping (Part 2)

A while back I wrote about Zugara's Augmented Reality Shopping experience. Pretty nifty. As suspected the technology has now been adapted and put into full use. This is the Fashionista Augmented Reality dressing room service developed by Tobi.com...

Fashionista describes itself as a new social shopping tool combining the benefits of the fitting room with the convenience of online shopping and the power of the social web. Fashionista shoppers virtually model clothing via their own webcam, being able to instantly switch into recommended clothes and immediately share favourites via Facebook.

-----UPDATE-----

While this isn't an Augmented Reality application persay, this is a great example of online shopping striving to deliver a richer experience, and to offer shoppers a better way to see exactly what they are buying. KnickerPicker.com have created a flash interactive that allows the shopper to choose between a range of different virtual models so that they can view their product range on someone of the same figure as themselves. This is a great idea and something I really think adds to the online shopping experience. Admittedly the service is limited at present but with the right retailer this could easily be done for a large range of clothing, for both men and women.

Make It Snow In Oxfordshire

It's that time of the year when agencies and businesses decide it'll be a great idea to do a Christmas viral. As someone who's seen most of them, I can safely say that it's usually not a good idea. In fact, far from it.

However, every now and again someone does something that just works. Something smart. Something funny. Something genuinely entertaining. Torchbox have done just that.

Torchbox, an Oxfordshire based digital agency, have just launched a Christmas website called 'Snowtime'. Basically it gives visitors the power to make it snow over the company's employees right there in their offices. The guys initially developed the idea as an interactive Christmas Card for their clients. Following brilliant feedback they decided it deserved a larger audience, and I for one am very glad.

So what do you have to do? To make it snow, just pop over to 'Snowtime' and hit the 'Make It Snow' button. Simple. The button is rigged to a snow machine that will blast a member of staff with a flurry of fake snow.

Managing Director, Olly Willans said, "We always try and do something fun with technology for Christmas and we're really pleased with snowtime. Some of our team have been covered on a number of occasions and it is a bit like a blizzard in the office but we're happy with that as we know that the snow must go on."

'Snowtime' is available from 9am-5pm GMT on Thursday 17 December, Friday 18 December, Monday 21 December and Tuesday 22nd December.


About Torchbox
Established in 2000, Torchbox is an independently owned agency that offers digital design, development and marketing services. The agency's clients come primarily, but not exclusively from the charity, NGO and public sectors and include WWF UK, Breakthrough Breast Cancer, Greenpeace UK, Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, the University of Oxford, The King's Fund and The Football Foundation.

Also check out Torchbox's Director of Digital Marketing, Rob Salmon, on Twitter