As though rock climbing weren’t exciting enough, AR is now being used to turn it into a kind of video game.

Indoor climbing company, Brooklyn Boulders, has now launched a new type of augmented reality experience that allows its customers to turn their regular bouldering challenges into an entirely new competitive video game experience.

The sport of indoor rock climbing has been spiking in popularity and businesses are working to stand out.

As climbing gyms start to appear all across the United States, it is reaching the point that these companies are starting to need to work to allow themselves to stand out from the competition. In this effort, Brooklyn Boulders – located in New York City – has become the first in this industry to implement an augmented reality technology based game on their bouldering wall. The hope is that by adding a lit up, competitive game experience similar to video gaming, it will help to make this sport even more appealing and will draw people specifically into their location.

The augmented reality climbing game experience was first created by John Cheng and is called Time Trial.

Time Trial is a form of digital AR climbing game from the Randori startup. The game works by projecting numbered circles next to the hand hold positions on the various climbing walls. When a climber touches those circles, he or she gains points. The purpose of the game is to be able to collect all the available points throughout the length of a climb. Moreover, the climber must complete the bouldering challenge within the shortest time possible.

In order to run the Time Trial system, the equipment needed includes a laptop to run the program, a camera sensor, and projectors. Cheng, a former student of computer science, is a Brooklyn Boulders member and originally demoed his AR game, last year. Since it was first showcased, Time Trial has gone through additional evolution as it can now display the scores and times of the climber on the wall next to the number targets.

Cheng is now working to implement the augmented reality climbing experience at locations outside of Brooklyn Boulders and is currently looking into opportunities in Queensbridge and Chicago.

Alibaba is finding success despite China’s slowing economy

China’s economy may be slowing down, but that has not stopped Alibaba from seeing impressive gains throughout 2015. During the last quarter of 2015, Alibaba reported a total revenue increase of 32%. The company attributes this growth to the growing number of mobile users in China. Alibaba has been focusing more heavily on mobile commerce in recent years and has managed to find extreme success in this young but rapidly growing sector.

Number of active monthly users has skyrocketed for Alibaba

Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang has noted that the company has added some 47 million active users on mobile devices. This brings the company’s total active monthly mobile users to 407 million. These people are using mobile shopping apps to purchase goods and services through Tmall and Taobao, two online marketplaces owned by Alibaba. Mobile commerce has proven to be quite lucrative for Aliaba and the company is likely to continue pursuing its efforts in the mobile space for the foreseeable future.

As mobile commerce grows, Alibaba is investing more heavily in effective marketing strategies focused on the mobile sector

Increasing its focus on mobile commerce also means that Alibaba is taking mobile marketing more seriously. With the number of mobile users on the rise, finding ways to effectively engage these consumers is becoming a major priority for several companies. As such, these companies have begun investing more in mobile marketing. Advertisements designed specifically for mobile devices, either on applications or on web browsers, have proven capable of connecting businesses and consumers, fostering more mobile commerce activity.

Mobile marketing is becoming more important for companies that want to engage a mobile audience

Mobile marketing has become a very important aspect of mobile business overall. In China’s slowing economy, people are becoming more cautious about how they spend their money. Consumers have been interacting with advertisements more frequently, however, as they are conducting research into products that they may be interested in. Effective marketing strategies could influence the way consumers spend money, especially in a mobile commerce environment.