As children we all dreamt that our toys would come to life and play with us. Well thanks to Qualcomm and some augmented reality technology our children won’t have to dream.

At CES2012 this week, Qualcomm showed off a product demo of the Sesame Street Playset. The playset was developed in partnership with Sesame Street Workshop for the education of pre-school aged children. The toys are fun to play with on their own but come to life when a tablet joins in. In this case Qualcomm used a HTC Jetstream tablet.

“In the past, the only place toys came to life was on TV and in movies. Today, we are bringing that magic one step closer to reality,” said Jay Wright, senior director of business development at Qualcomm.

The experience is built using Qualcomm’s Vuforia™ platform and an application to recognize 3D figures. Qualcomm has always been active in the augmented reality space working with and supporting developers to create the hardware needed for truly immersive executions.

Although a prototype this Playset has been created with learning and interaction at it’s core. Qualcomm has worked closely with the Sesame Street Workshop to ensure the toys are educational and maximize developmental growth. The toys from our dreams and sci-fi movies are now in our living rooms. What will be next?

Check out this video to see the Playset in action:

One of the benefits of living in Denver is that some really cool stuff happens here. One such event is happening this Friday, September 30th that you won’t want to miss.

Bordo Bello 2011 is the fourth annual gathering of artist’s work on skateboard decks. This year they are also adding Munnys. The event is put on by AIGA and showcases the massive creative talent from Denver and nationwide. Want to learn more visit BordoBello.com.

Over the last couple years Bordo Bello has become a highlight of the creative community in Denver. With memories of friendly bidding wars and beer bartered I owe yous, you won’t be disappointed.

Check it out for yourself at Redline Gallery, be there at 6:30 pm. Get ready to be inspired, with decks, Djs, and raffles it’s sure to be a good time. And make sure to keep tabs on your deck of choice as bidding closes at different times per deck.

If you want a sneak peek or can’t make it in person on Friday you can bid on a selection of the decks/Munnys on ebay at Bordo Bello 2011 Listings. Down load the iPhone or Android app and you can bid during the event to ensure you bring home that lusty deck and be the envy of every creative.

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With the last update of the iOS (4.3), Apple included an addition to text message notifications. When you receive a text message your phone will continue alerting you if you don’t clear a message. By default this new repeat feature is set to twice. If you’re anything like me this was actually more annoying than helpful. I heard the notification the first time. I’m ignoring it on purpose. Luckily Apple allows you to customize this feature.

Simply tap your phone’s settings icon and scroll down to “Messaging.” Now you can set the feature ranging from “Once” to “10 times.” Included is a note that these alerts are set to occur 2 minutes apparent. Meaning if you have selected “10 times,” your phone will alert you for a maximum of 20 minutes of an unseen text message.

This can come in handy. If you want to make sure you don’t miss a message and have your phone buried in your pocket or purse this may be your preferred setting. However, I am pretty aware of my phone and don’t want it buzzing in my pocket in the middle of a conversation. I think I will stick to the original one alert per message. To each their own.

Want to try on watches but can’t make it to the store? Tissot, maker of Swiss watches has a solution for you. Using augmented reality technology you are able to try any of a select collection of watches.

This magical experience lets you shop online for just the right watch. You can see a 3D model of each watch on your own wrist. Compare styles, seek the right color to match your outfit or decide which face size is appropriate for you. By activating the touch functions you can learn about the features of each watch.

Congratulations go to Tissot for a perfect matching of e-commerce and augmented reality. With this unique offering Tissot ensures that their consumer is engaged with their product and spends more time on their site. The AR application is both refined and informative. The experience is compatible with both Windows and Mac systems. The only draw back is the hefty download. For Mac it weighs in at a whopping 85 MB.

Download the marker:

Tissot Touch Collection

Download the AR Experience:

Windows or Mac

Video of Experience:

During my time at the first annual Augmented Reality Event 2010 in Santa Clara last month, I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Camilla Grey from Moving Brands. Moving Brands is a London based branding company. Their goal is to “redefine branding by setting new standards of creativity for a moving world.” They have done some amazing identity work.

During the conference Camilla gave a wonderful presentation on Living Identity. Instead of the usual PowerPoint or Keynote slides Camilla used a custom AR format. What a great way to present at an AR conference. If you would like to experience the script for yourself you can download the marker and follow the link below. Through the use of their logo Moving Brands is able to display blog, twitter, video and image feeds from their site. To cycle through the content you simply move the marker to arrows at the left or right of the content. The code is flash based so there is no download required.

Tips for use:

1) On Mac computer make sure you have USB camera selected. To do so, right-click select settings and click the webcam icon.

2) For easy recognition, you may want to print the marker at 100% and fold the edges of the paper under to make it more stable.


Download the marker:
Moving Brands: Living Identity

Launch AR Experience


Video of Experience:

Everyone needs to backup their data. With the millions of options out there, what is your preferred method? Personally I use a couple different solutions.

Overall my backup solutions are based on using Carbon Copy Cloner or CCC for short. There is always the default Time Machine app which started coming with Mac OS X with Leopard (10.5). However, from some personal experience and reading of various reviews I am not fully confident in its abilities. Reading about non-bootable backups or backups not working at all scared me. After all that is the point of backing up; knowing for certain your data is safe. The other major drawback in my mind was not being able to constrain the space your backups require. I know there are some partitioning tricks and I had used them for a while. But overall I don’t appreciate Time Machine filling my 2TB drive with 200+ backups.

So with all that said, Carbon Copy Cloner became my choice. CCC is a free Mac OS program that works on both PowerPC and Intel Macs. Having an older Powerbook G4 laptop I needed to back up this was a huge plus. Also Carbon Copy Cloner will allow you to make a bootable backup or simply backup a selected portion of your drive. I like to format my hard-drive and start from scratch every 6 to 9 months to keep my computer fresh and clean so I choose only to backup selected files. Now I’m not going to go into the details of selecting exactly what you want to backup and where you can find all your preferences. However it is important to know your way around library files if you want to backup preferences. Personally I backup files from my desktop, documents, downloads, bookmarks, and music folders. CCC makes it simple and easy to select what you want and schedule backups. I chose the sparse image option so CCC only needs to update my backup with changed or new files.

Another free backup software solution for macs is Super Duper. I found Carbon Copy Cloner to be simpler and easier to use for my needs. Super Duper also has a paid version for $27.95 for the hardcore backup user.

My solution currently looks like this: The majority of files backup from my iMac to the drive on my 500 GB Time Capsule via wireless-N. I backup my music files to an external Lacie 1TB hard-drive via firewire 800. I also backup all my video files to a Western Digital My Book Studio hard-drive. This drive is connected via USB to the Time Capsule for streaming of video content via Plex. My Book Studio drives are specifically make to run efficiently with Apple’s base stations. I only wish my Time Capsule had firewire 800; l the difference in speed for backups is a noticeable increase from USB. Also important to note; your initial backups may take anywhere from 30 minutes to 8 hours depending on the amount of data your plan to backup. Be patient.

Other tips: In my experience I have had the least amount of problems and failures with Lacie and the Western Digital My Book drives. Keep in mind the connection speeds of your devices. If you have firewire 800 it might be worth the extra price to buy a drive that supports that feature. This is particularly important if you are also looking to stream video from the drive.

Backing up is an important part of data management. Overall make sure you are backing up at least on a weekly basis. There are always more secure ways and other solutions depending on your needs. This should get you started. Please feel free post your backup solutions and questions in the comment feed below. And happy data management to you.

This Wednesday April 21st, I will be attending the Augmented Reality Conference. A one day part of the Emerging Communications Conference at the Airport Marriott in San Francisco, CA.

The AR Conference is the world’s first and largest commercial augmented reality event. Industry leaders will be sharing their expertise on a variety of AR related subjects. Topics range from a presentation on crowd sourced traffic apps by Di-Ann Eisnor, Community Geographer, of Waze to the applying the advancement of desktop applications to the future of mobile AR, presented by Blake Callens, Senior Software Engineer at Zugara.

This conference is going to be a place where the future of the marketplace will be molded. The advancement of AR is changing the way that consumers experience their products and promotions. As with other industries in the past few years AR is helping to put the power back in the consumer’s hands. When the consumer decides how and when they experience a promotion the relationship is enhanced.

Other industry leaders presenting will be Bruno Uzzan of Total Immersion, Peter Meier of Metaio, Dana Farbo of Acrossair, and Mark Rolston of Frog Design. Take a look at the full schedule here.

Keep up on the AR Conference news throughout the day on Wednesday by following hashtag #arconf on Twitter. I will also be providing updates on the sessions via Twitter. You can follow me @mdusing.

When it comes to retailers embracing new technology Target® is working to stay top. With the latest version of Target’s iPhone app the retailer shows just how serious they can be about shopping with technology.

One of the biggest advancements in version 3.3 is the addition of a barcode scanner. Powered by Occipital a Boulder, CO based app developer. The barcode scanner allows guests to build shopping lists (TargetLists) and price items right in the aisle. TargetLists include managing wedding or baby registries, wish lists and daily shopping items. Scan any item in stores and access the product details, reviews and store availability.

With 3.3 Target brings you Daily Deals. Much like Amazon’s Gold Box Deals, each day Target offers special discounts available only for a limited time. The deals are available through online ordering only but do include free shipping.

And lastly Target makes it easier for their guests to ask questions with contact us and feedback features. Way to go Target! When retailers take the time to innovate and listen to their guests sales improve and the relationship grows. iPhone users told Target how they wanted to use their app and Target has shown they can listen.

Visit Target app on iTunes or text “APP” to 827438 (TARGET) to receive a download link.

Now thats some pretty well designed mail.

Rahul Mahtani & Yofred Moik from the Industrial Design program at Syracuse University had an idea called Google Maps Envelope Beta. The concept was to have the option inside Gmail to send a printed envelope via snail mail. The envelope would show a call-out for the locations of the to and from addresses. The rest of the envelope is covered in a map between those destinations with the driving route. It won’t be coming to Gmail anytime soon though, this is just a concept. It’s a get design enhancement to an old practice.

If you are interested in actually sending some “map mail” there is an option however; Map Envelopes. Map Envelopes allows you to print an envelope lined with your sending location. You can include a map of where you were when you wrote them. All you have to do is visit the website, select a location and message then print the envelope.