There has been a large development in augmented reality that could possibly revolutionise advertising. An example of one of these companies is only a stones throw away from our Cambridge office – Autonomy.  The talented team have produced their mobile app called Aurasma. It uses image and pattern recognition to identify images and objects in the real world, blending them with interactive content such as videos and animation called ‘Auras’. Please watch the video below.

Autonomy have worked with a variety of different brands offering a ‘different user experience’. An example of this is on Tottenham Hotspurs new 2011 kit. Once you hover your phone over the aurasma logo with the app turned on you’re greeted to a video of Spurs playing in the middle of the shirt.

As you can imagine the concept is pretty revolutionary. This would mean that a company could just show a logo, image, advertisement and show a video, link to a website, or give directions, instantaneously to the consumer/user. This could also mean that business cards and flyers are no longer 2D,they can allow a user to link straight to a facebook brand page or to a special offer that is cutrently available on the brands website.

With the concept now proven, another company is bringing the solution to other brands. BlippAR is the latest company to realise the power of this technology. The BlippAR™ platform uses the latest image recognition technology to make the advert itself the trigger for the virtual content. What the content consists of… is totally brand dependent. BlippAR, Still in it’s infancy (only being created in the summer 2011) have already worked with some great brands offering something a little bit ‘special’ to the normal advertising agencies.

You can download Aurasma here:
Iphone, Android

Download BlippAR here:

Iphone, Android

What are your thoughts on this new tech? Will you find yourselves wanting to interact with products and brands?

Over the last couple of days we noticed one app that stands out from the crowd. Path…

Path – Introducing Path 2 from Path on Vimeo.

“On Path you can share your thoughts, the music you’re listening to, where you are, who you’re with, when you wake and when you sleep, and your photos and videos. For those of you who enjoy sharing on networks like Twitter, Foursquare, and Facebook, we’ve made it simple to check-in, upload photos and videos, and tweet directly from Path. A feature we call Automatic enables Path to learn about you. as you go about your daily routine. You can optionally choose to have your Path updated with stories about your life—automatically. Path is a journal that writes itself.

Path is the modern journal for the modern age. Welcome to the mobile era, welcome to Path.”

Path seem to have done all the hard work for Facebook to setup a cheeky acquisition. With this addition facebook would add another string to their bow. This would allow their app to bring in the website’s features instantaneously to their own Facebook app with hardly any additional work needed.  Path already integrates with Facebook, Twitter, and Foursquare but it’s also seen as a personal journal that allows your ‘closest friends’ to see what you’re up to. The app currently only alllows 150 friends but to be honest who really has 450 friends? Surely they’re just ‘acquaintances’.

Not only does Path have some decent social additions it also brings an ‘Instagram’ nature to their platform. When you add a photo or video to your ‘path’ you have a choice of filters that you can apply during or after it is taken. There are also additional filters you can buy like the ‘camera+’ app.

Overall This app is one you ned to watch and once you start playing with it you’d think that Facebook would be stupid to not take these guys under their wings. What are your thoughts? Would you think about it if you were Mark Zuckerberg.

That was now over a decade a go and many things have since changed. We have seen new technologys enter the fray and a huge shift in the part the internet has to play in our everyday lives. With the volume of work we do in the education sector it’s almost amusing to think that we are catering for site visitors trying to make the most of the web using software that is older than their pupils.

Internet Explorer 10 is now fast approaching, version 9 is the latest full release and IE7 is now looking a bit long in the tooth these days. As a result we are now forced to publically announce something we have been internally practicing for some time now – the intention to no longer support such an old piece of software.

The time it takes to make all of our new programming work on older browsers is becoming longer and more disproportionate to its usage every day. To put it bluntly, we don’t want to be doing it and our clients don’t want to be paying for it.

Giants of the internet such as eBay, YouTube and Google announced their lack of IE6 support a good couple of years back now. Over this time we have been offering various ways to combat IE6 users from alternative site pages to polite messages. From now on, unless you specifically need IE6 support to fulfill your project, we will simply ask users on such old browsers to update and concentrate on delivering you the best sites for the modern web.

To help our cause even Microsoft have put together their own site to track the demise of their legacy browser. Take a look at www.ie6countdown.com now.

Rolec are a leading specialist in the design, manufacture and installation of electrical connection, hook-up and distribution equipment. It’s been a year of change for the company as they move and develop into new areas and the site build has been tailored to suit.

Take a look at the site now at www.rolecserv.com

After a lengthy development process Microsaic have launched their new ‘Microsaic 3500 MiD’. On the off chance that means nothing to you, it’s the smallest, quietest and greenest molecular ion detector there is and is going to make a big splash in the world of mass spectrometry!

In going to market Microsaic need a brand new web presence that reflects how far they have come and presents themselves to the wider scientific community in the best light possible. Work has started and launch is expected in November!

The project not only involves repositioning their online presence but also developing a complete solution for their client management. We’re excited to be involved and are looking forward to launch in October.

I’ve learnt so much in the last week and a half,  Recently I’ve helped towards making a mobile site that was put live not long ago and I’ve also learnt several other techniques when it come’s to HTML and CSS.

Yesterday, I started learning about jQuery, and i finished off the basics today. I’ve made lots of notes on all of what i have learnt, so I will be able to apply these skills when making a website at school.

Rebecca.

With the help of James, the lead designer,  I have began to design a future music website/blog in photoshop which I am hoping to create in the near future. In order to do this, I had to learn the basic skills when it comes to using Photoshop.

Yesterday, I learnt how to create Navigation Bars and Forms and today I have learnt how to make Buttons and Picture Gallerys all using CSS3. I am looking forward to next week when i get to apply all these skills when creating my website.

Rebecca.

I will be putting a link up to the website that I made on tomorrow’s blog.

Rebecca.