A few months ago I had an opportunity to sit down with a few smart people (Demi Kandylis, Shawn Pucknell, Scott Suthren, Dré Labre) and we hashed out a preferred model for how a new type of conference could work. We didn’t want it to be completely unstructured, like an un-conference. And we didn’t want it to be a rigid schedule of rapid-fire presentations. We wanted a short, succinct presentation like TED, but then we wanted to have time for a reaction and conversation: a real discussion about what had been said and how it might impact us all.

Conferensation: Another questionable hybrid word (like phygital) that combines the speaking power of a conference with the intimacy and exploration of a conversation.

Observation should be followed by application. In other words, if you tell me your concept (observation), then show me how to use it in my life (application). In my creative workshops, I split the class into smaller groups and ask them to tackle specific problems, which are then presented back to everyone. Can this model be duplicated in a conference? Can a conference become a conversation?

We’ll soon find out. Next Friday, October 14th, marks the first ETA (Emerging Technology and Advertising).

We invited 7 diverse and challenging speakers (see above) to break us out of the echo chamber, as well as creative and strategic leaders in the advertising universe to lend their thoughts and opinions. Each speaker presents on a challenging topic (for roughly half-an-hour), ending with a challenge to the audience (like, “How might agencies be transformed if consumers paid for the ads?”). The speaker then joins the audience for a 20 minute discussion about this challenge. All the speakers will be participating with the audience all day, distributed and sitting at the various attendees tables, and participating directly with the attendees in the conversations.

And I get the enviable job of hosting the entire day: introducing the event, the speakers, interviewing some of them, and posing the questions to the crowd.

If you are interested in the future of advertising, but are sick of the marketing echo chamber of social media experts and phygital services, you don’t want to miss this ETA. How does magic, neuroscience, graffiti, home broadcasting studios, memes, or culture interact with the latest technology? How will this play out for companies, brands, consumers, and ad agencies? These topics (and more!) will be presented and discussed.

Also, Google doesn’t suffer from it’s typical ‘designed by engineers’ problem on this one. They employed creative agency The Church of London who ‘celebrate the physicality of print’ to great effect. Think Quarterly is a bespoke limited-edition book sent only to Google’s favourite UK clients and advertisers, but it can still be (ironically) enjoyed as a PDF or digital magazine.

For the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, DreamWorks has commissioned a promotional website where you can transform yourself into Optimus Prime. The facial recognition and tracking works surprisingly well, and is fun to play around with for a laugh. If you click on the spinning autobot icon, Bumblebee will fly onto your printed AR marker and show you a new trailer.

This 3D modeling looks a lot better than the Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000 graphics (see above left). The lighting and detail create a ‘closer to reality’ feeling than a lot of other AR wraps. This is due to the bright lighting from the front, as though the robot is lit from your computer screen. The tracking works way better than on the Nintendo DSi (see above right), which has a very hard time finding and resizing in real time. Once I had the ActiveX plugin loaded, the Optimus mask stayed with me (and on me) and rarely lagged.

This use of AR+facial tracking works to create buzz before a movie premier, but let’s take a quick 10 in 10™ to imagine how this technology could be used for other purposes:

1. Costume websites let you try on masks before going to the store to buy/rent them.
2. Cosmetics companies let’s you ‘paint’ your face with blush, rouge, eye shadow.
3. Frame manufacturers give you different styles of glasses to model.
4. H&M let’s you try on hats.
5. An online ad for domestic abuse could show you a live picture of yourself with a black eye and a disturbing caption (no time to write it now).
6. A plastic surgeon specializing in rhinoplasty could let you test noses. But they’d have to be bigger than the original to fit over your real nose, so never mind.
7. You could play a ‘stare down’ game to see how long you could stare at the screen without blinking
8. In a similar vein, you could be challenged to a game of ‘serious’ where you’re not allowed to laugh. The computer would show you funny pictures and scenes, and read your expression. If you smile you lose the game.
9. Bedtime stories: you could do skits of famous fairy-tales over a webcam. Imagine mom or dad is away on business and can freak out their kids by turning into the big bad wolf. Okay, scratch that one too.
10. Trying on different hair styles and colours would also be cool: an AR salon.

And my ten minutes are up. Can you think of any more? Leave them in the comments.

Cunningham’s design inspired the look of the 2004 Will Smith vehicle I, Robot, albeit in a far less sexy, androgynous way. And now, over a decade later, Svedka is using Björk’s android look-a-like to sell vodka.

With the help of oddcast, they have designed a [sex]bot-builder that you can customize to fit your fantasy: fishnet stockings (including a real fishbowl torso), french maid uniforms, biker hats, red heels, and even decals (aka tattoos). The male version has biker vests, football shoulders, rocket packs, and a tux. You are encouraged to upload a face to personalized your creation. I chose to upload Björk’s face to see just how close the resemblance is to her video. You can see it better if you right click on the embedded flash version below and zoom in a few times (see image below).

While it is kind of fun (you can put your robot in UGGs), it feels like they only went half-way. The builder is clunky, there is no sound, and the robots don’t do much after they’re built (you can rotate them and poke them for a few canned movements). This would be way more fun with additional options to customize, and a follow through on the promise “Are You Bot or Not?” I was expecting to vote on other robot creations, and to throw my Björk-bot into the mix. But perhaps the most shocking of all of these things: no lead generation. I can explore, create, link, and save without once entering my email address. I don’t know if this is a stupid oversight, or a brilliant ploy for spamless credibility.

This campaign has made me aware of Svedka vodka. But even more importantly: it has reminded me that my childhood vision of robot maids is still a distant promise.

Customers can choose from 4 different sizes (ranging from small to large) and then adjust the opacity of the box that appears using the Box Transparency slider. In the above picture I have chosen the Small Flat-Rate Box, which is supposed to be 8 and 5/8 inches long. It’s appears a little bit smaller than ‘actual size’, which you can tell because it isn’t as wide as the 8 and 1/2 inch paper I’m holding. It should actually be slightly wider than the paper.

What makes this truly useful, however, is the Persistent Box View which you can activate at the bottom left. Most augmented reality displays disappear when the target icon is covered. With the persistent view, the box will stay floating in mid-air when the eagle icon is removed, allowing a customer to hold up another item in its place. In this case I’m holding up a portable DVD player to see if it will fit into the Medium 1 box, and it appears as though it will quite comfortably.

Finally, with flashbacks of the movie se7en in my mind, I check to see if my head fits into the Large box. Sure enough, it does.

I don’t know if this is any more convenient than pulling out a tape measure, but it certainly looks cooler. And remember that these are still fledgeling ideas and applications. In a short time, when your mobile device is the augmented lens to view reality through, Priority Mail will have an app that will scan your images with a camera, tell you which box you’re going to need, how much it will cost, and where the nearest outlet is. Heck, it might even beam it directly to your destination.

R2-D2 and Chewbacca play Dejarik while C-3PO looks on, in Star Wars IV: A New Hope

One the strongest cinematic memories from my childhood is from Star Wars (surprise surprise). C-3Po R2-D2 and Chewbacca are playing a type of holographic chess on the Millennium Falcon, passing the time as they speed through space. The game pieces move and interact with each other and— even cooler— they fight! I wanted one of these Dejarik sets, and dreamed of a time when holographic games and toys became a reality.

Judging by the last few months on the internet, that time is well on its way. Augmented Reality is set to bring those holographic moments to anyone with a computer and a webcam, or even a mobile phone. Last night I gave my kids a printout of the newest Star Trek poster and told them to hold it up to the computer screen (at Experience the Enterprise). I watched their surprised faces when, on screen, they were suddenly holding a diminutive replica of a three-dimensional spaceship. Both of them loved the experience, and immediately started testing it’s boundaries: how much could they bend the paper, how far away could they stand, how close could they bring the paper into the camera. It was amazing to watch them instinctively push the limits of the technology. My son kept looking at the computer and then back at the paper he was holding, trying to figure out why it was invisible in real life.

Sebastian, Age 4, Experiences Augmented Reality for the First Time

They would have played with the USS-Enterprise for hours if I had let them, just like a brand new toy. This particular AR could fire torpedoes and phasers, and simulate flying at warp speed. How many other toys have that ability? It’s still a bit clunky and you really tire of holding a piece of paper up to a screen for a long time, but for a technology that is just begining to come out of its shell, it’s a wonderous experience.

I’m looking forward to the LucaArts AR gameboard that let’s me play Dejarik on my coffee table. Are you listening George?

Update: Here are a few more bonus pictures:

You go to a concert. You’re given a free poster. Small print on the poster suggests you place it on a wall facing a webcam for added effect. You mount the poster and record a short video of you reviewing the concert. What you don’t know is that it contains an augmented reality marker – a simple fiducial that can be used as a point of reference for computer software to insert or embed digital imagery that wasn’t there before. This marker might look like an icon, a logo, or a simple QR code. In this example, it is the black Warner Brothers logo on a white square background.

The software reading the marker is built into popular media upload sites like flickr and YouTube. It works on both photographs and video. When a marker is recognized, a simple calculation is made based on its size and angle, and a limited ad field is created. In this case, the ad field is the size of the poster. Since the poster is mostly black, it is easier for the software to effectively mask the area and appear ‘behind’ other objects.

When your video is displayed, contextual ads are embedded seamlessly into the background. They change depending on who is watching the video, and at what time. Placing these ads in situ is far more effective than overlays because the content appears naturally in the environment. And if the ad is related to the original content (i.e.the Green Day poster) and the audience (people who want to watch you review the Green Day concert), than it should theoretically be more powerful. In this example your Green Day poster becomes an announcement that the band is making a local appearance next week: local to the person viewing the video.

Rolling over the limited ad field turns off the mask, and brings the announcement into the foreground where all of it can be read. Clicking on it opens a new window with further information.

As time goes on, the old poster from the last album is digitally updated when a newer album is released. Your paper poster has essentially become it’s own electronic billboard, thanks to the magic of augmented reality.

But who controls this new display area? Is it owned by you, the content creator? Is it owned by the online service providers, the Googles and the Yahoos? Or is it owned by the traditional companies who distributed the physical originals? Ultimately it will be all three— in a complicated revenue sharing agreement. Since Reprise Records distributes Green Day, and is owned by Warner Music Group, Warner Brothers might want to show some of their other media properties. If a big movie release is pending, WB could choose to convert all their augmented reality property to movie posters. Flickr’s serving software and augmented reality presentation layer would need to be updated, and you would need to click a checkbox allowing WB to present action movies. Now, instead of an old concert poster, there’s a promotion for the new Sherlock Holmes movie. You would be paid by the view, and even more by the click. Or something like that.

And what about three-dimensional objects? In both pictures and videos, the augmented reality marker can calculate perspective, and therefore embedded 3D objects into a scene. But they need a bit more space. Ideally, the software would look for a smooth, uniform colour and expand the mask beyond the borders of the original poster. In this case the expanded ad field takes over the entire wall. Now there’s a lot more space to insert a realistic object into the scene.

The next trick is to match the lighting. In this example, an IKEA shelf (complete with books and magazines) is embedded in place of the band poster. IKEA would have to pay Warner Brothers (both of which pay flickr, of course, who hopefully then pays you!) for the right to advertise these shelves to your audience.

Rolling over the shelf results in catalogue information being displayed. Clicking could then pause the video, but allow you to inspect the shelf in three dimensions, including zooming in for more detail. (I don’t know why you’d want to zoom into the details of an IKEA shelf, but it was a conveniant example.)

Companies will need to encourage users to display or capture these augmented reality markers in their pictures and videos. Revenue sharing and giving the users some control over what is displayed would go a long way. Imagine an Augmented Adsense of sorts, where you could set parameters over what type of images are embedded, and track how much you earn.

Then you could choose and change the poster you wanted to have hanging on the wall behind you, without leaving your chair, and get paid to do it.

Augmented Reality Markers will find their way onto T-shirts, changing the way we see concert footage. They will find their way on to cars and buses, changing the way we see streaming traffic camera feeds. They will find their way onto the logo-dotted backdrops of red carpet galas, so that photo-opps of celebrities become even richer marketing opportunities. They will find their way onto signage at popular vacation destinations so your family travel photos become ads for future vacationers…

The possibilities are endless, but the plausibility is up to you. Do you look forward to this new potential revenue stream, or are you repulsed by the idea of marketers placing ads deep inside your own creations? Please discuss.