Time Out New York (TONY) is a Kid’s magazine targeting the New York Area, and the August Issue features an augmented reality trick linking it to a Webby Award winning video of the fifth grade chorus from Staten Island, care of Junaio. All it takes is an issue of the mag, and your handy smartphone.
Elizabeth Barr, editorial director of Time Out North America, has this to say: “Time Out is always looking for ways in which our readers can engage creatively with our product, so creating a cover that plays with augmented reality was a no-brainer. It reflects the spirit of fun that TONY Kids seeks to create on a monthly basis. The cover literally sings to our readers, allowing them to experience firsthand why our editorial team chose to feature the talented students of the P.S. 22 Chorus in the first place.
Full press release and a demo video after the break.
TIME OUT NEW YORK KIDS` AUGUST COVER COMES ALIVE WITH AUGMENTED REALITY
Time Out New York Kids and junaio® Premiers World`s First Mobile AR Magazine Cover Featuring Singing Sensation P.S. 22 Chorus
SAN FRANCISCO / NEW YORK, JULY 22nd, 2010 – Time Out New York presents the world`s first ever magazine cover to be enhanced by mobile augmented reality. The TONY Kids` August issue will actually sing from the newsstands. With your smartphone, point at the magazine cover and enjoy a video of P.S. 22, the Webby Award-winning fifth-grade chorus from Staten Island, which has found national fame on YouTube. All you need is to activate the TONY Kids P.S. 22 channel on the free junaio® browser. Once more Time Out is pioneering new ways of letting readers enjoy the magazine, by exploiting the latest advances in augmented reality technology to unlock video and 3D content at the click of a smartphone.
Gracing the magazine cover is the popular, Webby Award-winning P.S. 22 Chorus, which has found national fame via YouTube and garnered more than 19 million views. The fifth-grade chorus from Staten Island has enjoyed extensive media attention since clips of its performances went viral-videos of the elementary school chorus rocking out to contemporary hits by Lady Gaga, Alicia Keys and Rihanna.
Readers can download the free junaio app onto their smart phones from the App Store or Android Marketplace. Once the app is downloaded, users simply hold their smartphones up to TONY Kids` special cover and a video of the chorus performing “One Day” by Matisyahu will play, introducing readers to the chorus before they even open the issue.
“Augmented reality, in its simplest form, allows consumers to use their mobile devices to experience print products in a new and exciting way,” says Marci Weisler, digital business director of Time Out North America. “An image that was once static on a page now comes to life – one that allows readers to see and hear the content for themselves.”
Elizabeth Barr, editorial director of Time Out North America, has this to say: “Time Out is always looking for ways in which our readers can engage creatively with our product, so creating a cover that plays with augmented reality was a no-brainer. It reflects the spirit of fun that TONY Kids seeks to create on a monthly basis. The cover literally sings to our readers, allowing them to experience firsthand why our editorial team chose to feature the talented students of the P.S. 22 Chorus in the first place.”
For a video of the experience: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN0d1SSHaOc
More information:
About Time Out New York Kids
Time Out New York Kids is known by discerning, active parents as the go-to guide for where to go and what to do with their family in the city. In consistently providing New York parents and their children with essential information on where to go and what to do each month, we are regarded as a must-use playbook for the plethora of family activities the city has to offer. For more information, please visit: timeoutkids.com.
About junaio®
junaio® is the next generation augmented reality browser for camera equipped smartphones or other mobile devices presenting users with interactive web-based information and experiences wherever they are. Point your camera, click and view – about points of interest around you, events, places, products, news items. junaio®`s new media capabilities combine text, image, sound, video, 3D moving objects and especially augmented reality overlays onto real objects. junaio® can navigate outside as well as indoors. Due to the limitations of GPS inside buildings, junaio® uses LLA Markers to allow AR overlays inside museums, exhibitions or shopping malls with absolute accuracy. With junaio®`s open API, developers can create state of the art augmented reality applications. junaio® is available as a version for the iPhone and for Android. It includes object tracking, which allows image and object recognition, leading to totally new fields of applications, especially in the consumer market.
About metaio GmbH:
As the world-wide leader in Augmented Reality technology, metaio develops software products for visual interactive solutions between the real and the virtual world. Based on the software platform Unifeye, 3D-animations can be integrated seamlessly into live-video streams respectively into pictures of the user`s real environment. Founded in February 2003, metaio currently employs 60+ people at three different locations. The company is headquartered in Munich with the subsidiaries metaio Inc. located in San Francisco USA and metaio Asia in Seoul. metaio has been working with more than 340 renowned customers from different industries and geographical locations. Among them: BMW, Daimler, Siemens, Toyota, Peugeot, EADS, Bertelsmann, KUKA, LEGO, MINI, Popular Science, Focus Features and Volkswagen.
