Virtual Reality becomes, er, reality
The last few dumps have been pretty focussed largely on the day to day world of digital media, so this week, I thought I’d have a look at what’s happening at the outer frontiers.
Back in the mid-90′s, when the internet was first entering households on a mass scale and newspaper feature sections were still publishing lead articles about “cyberspace”, Virtual Reality was as hot a topic as Twitter is now. While the talk of changing the way we live was very exciting, the reality in those days was largely dodgy flight simulators and dodgier science fiction plots.
But now, we have acrossair. Basically it’s a 3d augmented map of the New York and London Undergrounds, using the iphone’s video function. As they explain it:
“When you load the app, holding it flat, all 33 lines of the New York Subway are displayed in coloured arrows. By tilting the phone upwards, you will see the nearest stations: what direction they are in relation to your location, how many miles away they are and what lines they are on. If you continue to tilt the phone upwards, you will see stations further away, as stacked icons.”
While it’s really cool in and of itself, the remarkable thing is where it can lead. For business like restaurants and shops, the potential benefits are both obvious and enormous – imagine being able to view the menu, reviews and visitor’s comment on every restaurant on Brunswick street as you walked along it, for instance. But it can go even further. This video from Japan is the best example I’ve seen of what the next level will look like. Called the Sekai Camera, it was developed by Japanese firm Tonchidot(their full YouTube channel is worth checking out, too). It’s basically a 3D, augmented reality social media device. It will allow users to leave comments in real spaces, making real environments live 3D social networks.
Dreaming Buildings
Urbanscreen, a collective of media artists and architects from Bremen in Germany, are behind this Bladerunner-esque ‘ buildings that dream’ concept. Basically, they project onto the facade of buildings, which gives the 2d surface depth, time and sound. The implications of technology like this for outdoor advertising are obviously huge, and Urbanscreen function as both an art collective and a media agency, so it can’t be far away from reaching the public sphere. How it’s used will be interesting- it has the potential to be fantastic if used correctly, horribly oppressive if not.
Fine Fin Fun
Finally, Finland. Nissan Finland have produced a comp which stood out to me for a few reasons. The concept is quite simple -upload a video or photo of your favourite bike route in Finland, for your chance to win. But the way the content is presented, embedded into a map, is quite cool. The map also features Nissan dealer sites, and locations of Nissan Sport adventure event locations.
The best thing about the com, though, is that it engages at a passion point. Fins love getting into the outdoors (on the four days a year there isn’t 50 feet of snow on the ground and 22 hours of dark, dark night) and cycling is huge over there. This means the content that is being generated for this comp has the potential to be interesting even to people who aren’t there for the prizes, or who aren’t ordinarily Nissan fans. Very well done.
