Augmented Reality

First it was Facebook applications, then it was i-phone apps and now the latest fad to catch on is augmented reality. Essentially, it's a way for people to literally interact with brands and break the "fourth wall" of the computer screen; a combination of the real world with a virtual one. We've been playing around with this at Firstborn and a few possible projects have come in the door. In one form, you print out a sheet of paper with pre-determined coordinates that are tracked by a web cam. What you see on your computer is a virtual object or character that reacts to your hand movements, for example. There's an example of this in a recent GE site that was created by Goodby Silverstein and North Kingdom.