Tag: ar apps

Augmented reality app changes Play-Doh into mobile game

The modeling clay may be one of the most low-tech toys ever created, but it now offers some high-tech fun.

A new augmented reality app has been launched to bring Play-Doh works of art to life. The majority of us have played with this modeling compound at some point in our lives. That said, the number of kids who are spending time with this type of toy is starting to shrink.

Kids are more likely to look to tablets and mobile devices for fun than they are to modeling clay.

In response, Hasbro has introduced a new augmented reality app. The purpose is to remind kids of all ages about how fun it is to be creative. The new Touch app is now available for iPhones and iPads. Kids and adults alike can use it to scan their Play-Doh creations. Once, scanned, they are brought into a virtual world where they are animated. This may seem rather gimmicky, but the response from both children and grown-ups has been a very positive one. People just seem to love it.

The augmented reality app is both immersive and entertaining, encouraging people to be creative.

Augmented Reality App - Play-DohIn this way, the sixty-year-old brand is giving itself the opportunity to become more relevant among children who are accustomed to seeing a digital version of their playtime. This mobile app can be used for free with any Play-Doh product the kids already have. That said, there is also an enhanced opportunity to play.

With the Shape to Live Studio set, kids have considerably more features available. The set retails at about $40 and comes with seven cans of Play-Doh, character and action stampers, cutters and a white scanning surface. It provides a notably larger environment as well as a larger number of characters for interaction. Overall, it can make the mobile game more fun.

The augmented reality app launches with a digital world that is essentially empty. That said, once a Play-Doh creation is scanned, it is brought into the application through the device camera. The scanning takes around 10 seconds to complete including the aligning of the image and the image processing. Inadequate lighting slows down the process, which must be completed on a white surface.

Collectible cards with augmented reality features launched by Sunny Queen

The egg farm company is now launching these fun additions to their products for consumers in Australia.

Sunny Queen, an egg farm company, has now announced that it has launched the first series of collectible augmented reality cards for families to be able to enjoy with their smartphones and tablets.

The collector cards are limited edition and will provide a range of different animated AR features.

The product comes in limited edition egg crates, providing a series of family friendly collector cards that are each augmented reality enabled. When a customer uses a smartphone or tablet with an AR app to view the cards, it allows animated characters to come to life on the device screens. This is not necessarily a new technology, as it has been appearing in a range of different types of industry and format, but this is the first time that it has been used for Australian consumer goods.

Sunny Queen has explained that it predicts that augmented reality will provide a unique new life for collector cards.

Augmented Reality - Image of Egg CrateJulie Proctor, the general manager of marketing and innovation at Sunny Queen, explained that “We wanted to do something special.” She also added that “We have gone to great lengths to ensure these are no ordinary collectible cards. The characters literally come to life through specialized animation techniques which will make collecting these cards and eating eggs particularly fun for families in Australia.”

In order to bring AR technology to this latest marketing strategy, the egg company partnered up with BCM, an advertising agency based in Brisbane. They also used Blippar TIM, the image recognition and AR app in order to make sure that what looks like regular collector cards could be transformed into a digitally enhanced experience.

Paul Cornwall, the managing director at BCM, said that “We knew we had to come up with something special for today’s digitally minded audiences.” He pointed out that children everywhere have access to a smartphone nowadays, which makes it possible for them to not only collect the cards in the traditional way, but also use mobile devices to view the augmented reality animations which “we knew had to be a winner.”