Category: Augmented Reality

Augmented Reality

The Future of Weather Forecasting Is Design

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Until recently forecasting the weather involved showing a lot of bar charts, graphs, and satellite shots of hurricanes and storm fronts moving across a map. That was so 2017.

Now The Weather Channel meteorologists have integrated augmented reality (AR) into their forecasts to give greater graphic context to their warnings. Probably by the standards of what will be possible a year or two from now, it is pretty crude, but compelling nonetheless.

Up until now, AR and VR were mostly clever “parlor tricks” demonstrated by Gen Z geeks. They were awesome, but other than using it in Pokemon GO and some fantasy films, AR and VR did not have everyday practical applications. That is on the verge of changing. If we pay attention to what Apple CEO Tim Cook says, “AR is the next big realm of development for design and technology.”

Inc. Magazine predicts that the AR market is expected to reach $100 billion by next year — 2020. Industries ranging from medicine, retail, repairs and maintenance, to tourism and education are devising ways that AR will transform their business and change our lives. Those in the design profession need to pay close attention and consider the skills they will need and the people they will have to collaborate with to succeed in design.

business

Starbucks Grande Café and Roastery in Shanghai

By Delphine Hirasuna |

If you think that when you’ve seen one Starbucks cafe, you’ve seen them all, you need to visit the Starbucks Roastery and Reserve Tasting Room in Shanghai. The Starbucks signature mermaid and green brand elements are underplayed to the point of not being noticeable. Elegant wood and gleaming copper finishes adorn the 30,000-square-foot establishment, staffed by 400 employees. The place feels like “Disneyland” for caffeine lovers.

The sights are awesome and entertaining! A towering copper cask, adorned with more than 1,000 traditional Chinese chops (stamps) hand-engraved to narrate the story of Starbucks and coffee. A ceiling made out of 10,000 handmade hexagonal wooden tiles, inspired by the locking of an espresso shot on an espresso machine. A Roastery featuring three wood-carved bars, one of which is 88 feet long, where customers can watch beans being roasted and baristas brewing coffee using six different methods and beans from 30 countries. If that isn’t enough, an integrated AR system, built with an Alibaba web app, lets customers immerse themselves in the space through their smartphones. There is also specially crafted nitrogen-infused teas at the tea bar, and an on-site bakery offering scrumptious artisanal baked goods by famed Italian baker, Rocco Princi acclaimed from Milan to London.

With a population of 24 million people just in the city of Shanghai, even a gigantic Starbucks store can’t serve all the locals. Shanghai already has 600 other Starbucks cafes in the city, and 3,000 locations in 136 Chinese cities, with one new Starbucks location opening in China every 15 hours.

Augmented Reality

Vivid Sydney: Music! Lights! More Lights!

By Delphine Hirasuna |

Move over Paris, you are no longer the “city of lights.” In the 21st century that title goes to Sydney, Australia. Its annual Vivid Sydney festival transforms the city into a magical wonderland of light art sculptures, cutting-edge light installations, and gargantuan projection mapping extravaganzas. Vivid Sydney engages lighting artists, designers and manufacturers from around Australia and the world to illuminate, interpret and transform Sydney’s urban spaces through their creative vision. A contemporary music program matches the mood of the surreal display. No need to paint buildings in psychedelic colors or shoot fireworks into the night sky. Light is a malleable art form that treats Sydney Harbor as an inviting canvas morphing, evolving and bursting into a kaleidoscope of hues that vanish with the dawn. The 2017 Vivid Sydney festival is slated for May 26 to June 17, and is the largest show of its kind in the world.
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Virtual Augmented Reality

Video Mapping Entertainment on a Plate

By Delphine Hirasuna |

No longer just a mind-boggling novelty trick shown large-scale on building facades, 3-D projection mapping technology is being integrated into everything from live concerts, advertising, gaming, theater performances, product launches, and fashion shows. Now it has gone mini and personal, performing to an audience of one.

In Belgium, animation artists, Filip Sterckx and Antoon Verbeeck, from Skullmapping, have given new meaning to the term “dinner theatre” by putting the entertainment on the plate itself. Like a scene right out of the Disney film, “Ratatoille,” the well-known Le Petit Chef in Belgium amused diners by having a little chef personally prepare their meal right before their eyes. This example of spectacular precision videomapping isn’t just dazzling audiences with its new “gee whiz” technology, but has taken projection mapping to a new level by treating it as a tool to tell a story.
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