“Augmented locative experience, immersive transmedia story, collaborative social games”
Curated by
Gary Hayes
There is hope for the concept of augmented reality on the Vita, I suppose. A trailer for Vita's augmented reality titles shows upcoming games like Pocket War, in which errant missiles appear to bounce off of oranges and coffee mugs sitting on the tabletop, and Pulsar, where you have to actively manipulate the AR cards in the real world to bounce a laser around obstacles. These titles, it seems, are at least treating reality as something tangible, rather than simply using a scene from the real world to try and spice up some otherwise uninspiring games. 
The glasses, which are supposedly under development at Google's not-so-secret Google X lab, would cost about as much as a smartphone, so they likely won't be for the light wallet. That being said, if they work as advertised, they could still sell plenty. The glasses would use the heads-up display to overlay the wearer's world with information, from descriptions of surrounding buildings to showing you where your friends are nearby via Latitude. 
If there’s one thing fighting games need to nail, it’s hit detection. Too many times throughout my quest, I got hurt from a move that didn’t land properly. In particular, aerial assaults are prone to damage when they shouldn’t. Expect to get caught up when the overweight German contender slams his gut into the ground, even if the commotion sails over your head. Zombie types also serve up a fair amount of frustration, randomly grabbing you from underground. A lack of interesting commands ensures Reality Fighters is a shallow and forgettable experience, even with the addition of weapons after 30 minutes of play. 
BUT WHAT ABOUT? ****Games -- the stickiest stuff on Facebook is games-- I can't imagine anything more social then playing a game with your pals. Sure we'll probably see game apps at the conference -- but what about immersive experiences say something like Xbox kinect TV series or reality series where we can compete or assist the AMAZING RACE through some kind of geo-located activity? RFID and GPS make it possible now. ****LOCAL -- 90 percent of advertising is LOCAL and yet most of us still have little if any coverage of our local geographic area (within 5-10 miles) unless a disaster happens right next door. ***GAMBLING -- GTE (remember them before Verizon took over) had great success with gambling -- and almost every geographic area across the USA has a Casino now. I realize Internet gambling is illegal-- but what kind of tie in with Casinos is possible or even a state lottery? Not just apps that connect you to your ESPN virtual team or a Fantasy football league. WHY can't we be IN the casino when we're not there? ***NOOK, KINDLE FIRE and cross platform interfaces that make reading and watching simultaneously come alive -- especially for our kids. Sure Hasbro and Leapfrog and other companies have stand-alone systems but turn that homework into a game. Years ago I worked with a firm that produced an interactive bible with video and more -- how perfect for Sunday morning -- to go beyond Joel Osteen's sermon on the stage. ***FEELINGS -- remembering that people don't watch TV or videos or films just to see moving pix anymore -- we watch to feel something -- horror, excitement, surprise etc SO what about systems that sense my mood (AI or IA) and deliver media to match or even make me happy 
Some of the issues covered in the video include: 
Don’t get me wrong, there are some great applications available but these are exceptions rather than the norm. Next week I am speaking at a conference on how AR can be used. As I search for demos, bar a handful of new apps, I find myself returning to the same apps I have demoed for the last few years. The savour of AR is long thought to be AR glasses. Almost on a weekly basis I see screenshots of futurist contact lenses and all encompassing portable glasses systems rumoured to be ready for release sometime soon. The technology isn’t even here yet and already its been hyped to a level where it will be impossible for it to live up to. If next year you think you’ll be reaching for a pair of AR glasses for your journey to work, you’re in for disappointment. AR glasses are not going to save AR, the killer app is going to save it. Cloud services will make ‘video everywhere’ a reality. EPG and content discovery will move to the second screen. The Second Screen – Social TV, Play-along TV, Companion TV and Transmedia in Europe. The future of TV…the next 5 + years Cloud services will make „video everywhere‟ a reality. “The second screen will act as a universal remote control - in the home and out…” EPG and content discovery will move to the second screen. Longtail metadata creation and curation will become a brand necessity. Linear TV will not die - it will become social, participative and curated… Second screen engagement will drive curated experiences and new monetisation models. 
Every day, two new videos report on the daily life of people living in Gaza (Palestine) and Sderot (Israel)...Gaza Sderot- one of the first cross-media documentaries produced by Arte France in 2008, with a really neat website. Gaza Sderot interactive web project shows pieces of lives on both sides of the wall separating Palestinians from Israelis. 
One time, it was challenging working on a game project where we were adapting a movie I thought wasn’t very good. It was hard to take the game and its story seriously, passionately, when the film story isn’t all that brilliant. Another challenge is - when several external producers all want to pull the project in a different direction. That can sometimes drive you a little nuts, but when collaboration really works (with a great blend of creatives all working in sync), it’s the greatest rush. My most memorable Transmedia moment was when I was working on a project with Robert Watts, the producer of the first three Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies. I wrote a screenplay that Robert had optioned and, while we were working on the film, the game and a comic all at once, in the middle of it all we met with George Lucas, who was one of the reasons I wanted to be a writer-director-producer in the first place. Robert put on 2001: A Space Odyssey and was telling us about working with Kubrick (one of my other film heroes). 
Although it’s intuitive enough on the surface, the slick user interface belies some serious analytics underneath. Huddleston said the Social Business Index was built atop a research project that involved analyzing how top brands were engaging on social media and then correlating that engagement to desired business outcomes such as brand awareness, love, loyalty and customer satisfaction. It then went a step further by drilling down to determine what tactics worked best in different geographies and how subsidiaries performed. Further, Dachis Group isolated and analyzed external events to determine how layoffs, mergers, product launches and other things might affect a company’s social buzz. 
The personalisations made could be just about anything – from inserting photos of you into a picture frame on a wall, to changing the music that plays in a scene to suit your tastes, to inserting additional plot explanation if you’ve missed an episode. It has the potential to transform the way television is made and consumed. Information about you could be collected via sensors in, or connected to, your TV (Forrester gave Microsoft’s Kinect as an example), and it’s no great leap to assume that existing data from social accounts like Facebook could be used to further personalise the experience. It’s important to note that the vision being experimented with would emphasise subtle changes that you wouldn’t particularly notice, rather than pasting your face into every scene, or anything so garish. Additionally, content creators would have full control over personalisations that would be made, meaning that they would hopefully slot in seamlessly, simply offering more scope for creativity. New powerful smartphones enabling next-gen augmented reality - but watch those batteries! ht @earbox
The other example in the video, from Olaworks, is admittedly bare bones and looks much like those cheap and cheerful face-altering AR titles that you'd find in any local app store. However, it highlights one of the more exciting aspects of 3D markerless tracking: the ability to augment people who are moving around naturally, even when they're not staring right into the camera. Look past the Donald Duck face transplant and you'll catch a glimpse of a crazy future in which we can pick people out of a crowd and see their social networking statuses and other information visually transplanted onto their beings -- at least when we look at them through whatever smartphones or goggles happen to become popular over the next few years. 
Our tipster has now seen a prototype and said it looks something like Oakley Thumps (below). These glasses, we heard, have a front-facing camera used to gather information and could aid in augmented reality apps. It will also take pictures. The spied prototype has a flash —perhaps for help at night, or maybe it is just a way to take better photos. The camera is extremely small and likely only a few megapixels. |
It’s an exciting time for filmmakers and storytellers who are exploring ways to enhance their stories via the web. One of the new genres to emerge is the “web” or “connected” documentary. In essence, these are documentary projects that try to engage viewers via interactive tools — from customizing the experience depending on when and where it is accessed, to providing a “choose your own adventure” structure. This isn’t your typical documentary, and if you’re not wary as you undertake one of these projects it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Ben Moskowitz provides important tips to keep in mind as you explore interactive tools; and if you haven’t experienced a connected documentary, we’ve got a couple for you to check out: 
Transmedia is shifting focus from elaborate multi-platform campaigns and ARGs that only the 2% superfans would use, to easy-access simple campaigns for mainstream viewers. Your transmedia campaign should be tailored to your audience and which platforms they are most likely to use, said Nathan Mayfield, Hoodlum. For example, mobile for teens, etc. Also, transmedia campaigns reward users for following along with more than just a good story; they are starting to add online rewards points, frequent flier miles, discounts, and virtual currency & goods.
Digital LA is the largest networking organization of professionals and friends who do digital entertainment for movies, TV, web series, music & games... 
We’ve seen augmented reality make its way into the worlds of games, media and marketing, and beyond, and we're bound to see yet more innovation in this field in the future. 
The news sensibilities of Good Game executive producer Janet “Syd” Carr from years of producing news and current affairs for the ABC are paying off with the team – not only are Bajo & Hex becoming great story tellers in their own right, but Janet has drawn to the show a wider crew who are all gamers and skilled producers, editors, and special-effects wizards in their own right. All this for a ‘little gaming show’. I have to tell you, though – the set is tiny. Ahh, the magic of television. 
Social TV is going to change the way we interact with everything. If you don’t think it’s coming, you're going to be in for a bumpy ride. Social TV is going to change the way we interact with everything. If you don’t think it’s coming, you're going to be in for a bumpy ride. Contrary to popular opinion, NBC's Senior VP of Digital Jesse Redniss stated "GoogleTV is not social TV." He put YouTube in the same category as in his opinion they are mostly ways to highlight videos and consume content. So what is social TV? A heavy-hitting panel was put together to discuss the future of social TV and the second screen at Social Media Week in New York. 
Video plays on tablets, mobile devices, and connected TVs and game consoles (CTV & GC) almost doubled in Q4 2011, leading to a more than doubling of the share of video plays represented by these non-desktop devices, according to [pdf] a report released in February 2012 by Ooyala. During Q4, the tablet share of non-desktop video plays grew the most, by 132%. The growth in mobile share was 94%, while the growth in CTV & GC share was 96%. 
There’s no denying it. The audience has moved on. It’s no longer a question of whether a show should be developed for second screen action, for interactivity and for a socially connected, proactive audience. It doesn’t matter whether anything in television is developed with this in mind or not, it’s happening anyway. - help creators and find logical, engaging ways to give the audience tools and reasons to create and interact 
I know of two exceptions. In Boston, there is a company called 5 Wits. The experience is something like this: you enter an unassuming rug shop and when the salesman asks if he can help you, you tell him the secret pass code. He gets a funny look on his face, locks the door and pulls down the blinds. He pulls back the rug to reveal a television screen that briefs you on your secret mission. 
TV has come a long way in the past 80 years: and the rate of evolution has accelerated so quickly since the 1990s, that even the term “watching TV” has become almost irrelevant: 284 million people, or nearly 50% of US viewers, don’t watch TV on the television, but on the internet, via timeshifting, or on their mobile phones. 
On February 10th, the @MarkofSpiderman Twitter account started posting lost and found notices, broadcasting GPS coordinates to eleven different locations in six cities: Atlanta, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix, and Seattle. Fleet-footed fans found Peter Parker’s backpack, containing everything you’d expect the film’s nerdy protagonist to have: Physics and Chemistry textbooks, safety goggles, keys and a MetroCard, and a notebook loaded with class notes. Parker’s photography gear also found its way into the backpack, with the occasional film canister, photograph, or film negative scattered throughout. Parker even left his running shoes in the bag, leaving the recipients of each backpack with the singular opportunity to step inside Parker’s size 11 shoes. 
"Each year the Interactive Achievement Awards sees the top minds and personas of our industry coming together to not only celebrate, but recognize one another for the achievements of the year," said academy president Martin Rae in the announcement. "2011 produced an outstanding number of fantastic games in all areas of the industry - console, PC, social and mobile - we are truly witnessing a new golden age of gaming." This year's Superbowl was a new high-water mark for social activity around television - “Where people really get hung up, if you come from the television side, you sort of look at technology as just something that you can slap on after the fact… You have to build something social by design. On the other side, you’ve got the tech folks that look at television as just strict content, and they don’t really understand what goes into making that content and making it social. Clearly then, there’s a lot of crossover between social TV and the broader category of “transmedia” – ideally it’s something that you want to be spearheaded by the core creative team, and understood by everyone across the production (and broader organization). I believe that we will soon see – if we don’t already – showrunners on both non-fiction/reality and traditional fiction thinking about social activity around their shows from their inception. This can only work correctly, of course, if it goes hand-in-hand with robust technology (better UX and curation of quality social “commentary” is essential). That should be no surprise to anyone – most opportunities today lie at the intersection of tech and creative, of art and science. |
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