Category: Augmented Reality

  • Econet’s Augmented Reality Treasure Hunt: Fun But Rough Around The Edges

    Econet’s Augmented Reality Treasure Hunt: Fun But Rough Around The Edges

    Econet’s Yo Play Treasure Hunt is a pretty intriguing way to giveaway prizes. Whilst I won’t get ahead of myself and call it the most interactive giveaway we’ve seen locally, from a tech perspective it can be argued to be exactly that.

    The idea of using just your smartphone and a web browser to go on a treasure hunt is extremely fascinating and the fact that a 250MB data bundle is enough to go on the hunt means there aren’t many barriers for those interested in playing. Is the experience as seamless in the real world? Well, I fired up the YoPlay Treasure Hunt website on my phone and set out to get answers and hopefully some treasure.

    First was choosing which treasure to pursue, with the nearest choices being either Westgate or Avondale. I went with Westgate (because it’s closer to where I stay and I could come back and write this piece quicker).

    At this point, it’s important to note that YoPlay Hunt prizes are redeemable during specific times (12-2 pm & 4-6 pm). I arrived at Westgate at 1:20 pm as the second screenshot above proves – well within the advertised time frames.

    YoPlay Hunt advert with hunting times as seen in today’s Herald

    I’m not sure why there are specific hunting times but I believe it might be because opening it up for 24 hours would result in the available prizes running out in a matter of days. If that’s the case, I think it’s a reasonable approach to increase the game’s lifespan and the number of people who actually play it.

    Anyway, after arriving at Westgate and getting close enough to redeem the prize, I selected the GRAB IN AR option and my camera fired up instantly. I quickly located the box containing the treasure and attempted to pick up my treasure – which I hoped would be a TV I could use in my makeshift gaming setup.

    PS: If you don’t want the AR experience you can just pick up your treasure by tapping on the box on the map in your web browser

    Instead of a shiny new TV, I got an error message I couldn’t understand:

    I was told to activate a session and instructed to buy a session pass. I couldn’t find the options in the Yo Play menus so I went to the nearest Econet shop – which was a few metres away from the prize fortunately. I showed them what was going on and I was informed by one of the agents that the session had actually ended thus I couldn’t redeem anything and would have to try again at 4 pm. Great!

    I was also informed that to participate in the Yo Play Hunt I would have to pay a subscription of ZW$1.99 per hunt.

    My first hunt ended up being anti-climatic as I walked away from Westgate empty-handed. Even though the execution wasn’t as great as I hoped, I still believe the gamification of such a giveaway is pretty cool and the fact that it gave me a reason to get out of the house and go on this adventure is still something I enjoyed.

    Maybe I’ll try again before the 21st of February and I’ll be lucky on my next attempt. My hopes of a makeshift gaming setup are still alive…

    Observations from the treasure hunt

    Here is the list of locations you can hunt in right now;

    Outside of TV’s players can also win cash prizes, EcoCash, airtime, smartphones and “many other things” according to Econet.

  • [Updated] Econet Launching Augmented Reality Treasure Hunt On 12 February

    [Updated] Econet Launching Augmented Reality Treasure Hunt On 12 February

    Econet has just announced that from 12 February, subscribers will be able to take part in an Augmented Reality (AR) treasure hunt. Those of you who follow tech trends may know Pokemon Go the extremely popular AR game that drove a large part of the world crazy a few years ago and that’s what I liken the new treasure hunt game that Econet has released to.

    https://www.facebook.com/econetzimbabwe/videos/879513669159655/

    If you’re not familiar with Pokemon Go, I’ll just explain how the Treasure Hunt works; on your phone, you’ll be able to fire app the web-based game in your browser and once in-game a map opens and if you hunt down treasure by going to certain locations and collecting the Yo Play Atoms – which are boxes containing rewards. You’ll have to fire up your camera or be within a certain distance to collect prizes which you can trade-in at Econet shops for real-life rewards.

    Update: Users will only be able to hunt between 12-2 pm and 4-6 pm. Not sure why that’s the case but it seems like an odd thing to add such friction to the process. This will mean if you’re in an area with prizes but it isn’t one of the listed times, you won’t be able to collect the boxes containing treasure.

    This gamification of what would otherwise be a boring normal giveaway is definitely a first especially when you take into consideration the tech being used.

    The way it’s been done takes the context into consideration in a manner that many will appreciate. One such instance is the treasure-hunt being web-based and not requiring users to download an app. This takes into consideration the fact that data is expensive at the moment and would deter a number of people from playing the game. It also takes into consideration that the treasure hunt has a time limit thus an application isn’t really necessary – we already have too many ghost apps on our phones anyway.

    We’ll test out the treasure hunt experience once it goes live and share our feedback.

  • Wanna Kicks Is An AR App That Lets You Try On Sneakers

    Wanna Kicks Is An AR App That Lets You Try On Sneakers

    There are things that are certain in life. The sun rises from the east. We drink to quench our thirst and smart rinotangira kutsoka. Don’t ask me why that’s the case – I don’t make the rules.

    Whilst the first two certainties I mentioned don’t need much mulling over, the third one requires that you constantly make choices. Choices regarding which shoes you’re going to wear and about which shoes you’re going to buy. Wanna Kicks helps with the latter.

    The application uses Augmented Reality to let you try on sneakers you might want to buy. I can think of two situations where this comes in handy:

    1. You’re buying shoes online and you want to have an idea of how the shoes will on you. Just point the camera at your feet and you’ll know.
    2. You’re not necessarily looking to buy shoes but you do want to switch your style and thus you’re just going through all the shoes in the app to see what might suit you.

    Wanna Kicks is extremely easy to use. You fire up the app, choose from the 10 sneakers currently available (it’s still in beta), and then you point your camera at your feet.

    Because the app is in beta, sometimes you get really great results and on other occasions, you get not so great results – that’s just the name of the beta game I guess.

    The app last got an updated just before Christmas and hopefully, they’ll keep refining it and adding in more sneakers so some of us who are interested in this sort of thing can continue seeing which trendy designs fit us best and we make informed purchase decisions

    Download Wanna Kicks on Android

    Download Wanna Kicks on iOS

  • Local Artists To Host Free Digital Painting & Augmented Reality Workshop

    Local Artists To Host Free Digital Painting & Augmented Reality Workshop

    You probably haven’t heard of Wada Collective but this group of artists is doing seriously cool things in the world of art and after attending one of their Augmented Reality artist talks earlier today I was left in awe.

    Basically, Wada collective is a group of Zimbabweans artists focused on bringing forward art in new media. What does that mean? Well, here are some samples of some of the augmented reality pieces that were on display today;

    Coooooool

    This same group of artists is going to be hosting a free workshop on digital painting and augmented reality on the 24th & 25th October featuring Codin Popescu from Artivive (the app responsible for the cool visuals in the videos above) as well as an unnamed award-winning Italian illustrator.

    Interested participants will need to have a laptop for the workshop.

    Apply for Wada’s Afro Future Art Workshop here

    PS: You can also email workshop@wada.co.zw or WhatsApp 0719232705 if you’re interested in attending

  • Microsoft To Build Development Centres In Africa Over The Next 5 Years

    Microsoft To Build Development Centres In Africa Over The Next 5 Years

    Microsoft has shared their plans to construct development centres at a cost of more than 100 million in the next half-decade. The development centres in Africa are supposed to work with Microsoft’s local partners and government. Microsoft also hopes to hire engineers from these centres.

    The initial sites for the development centres will be in Kenya and Nigeria and Microsoft intends to hire 100 full-time developers at the two sites by the end of this year and expand to 500 by the end of 2023.

    The engineers Microsoft is looking to hire at the centres will work in fields such as Cloud Services, AI and applications for mixed reality.

    The plan to work with the governments appears to be something to help Microsoft grow their footprint in Africa and supplying the multiple departments of government will definitely give them significant revenues in the long-run.

    Microsoft is not the only company pushing cloud services on the African markets. Amazon and Huawei are also making some progress on penetrating the African continent and it will be interesting to see which company ends up winning the cloud wars in Africa.

  • Amazing, Facebook Now Lets You Post 3D Photos

    Amazing, Facebook Now Lets You Post 3D Photos

    Facebook just began rolling out support for its 3D photos, which make portrait mode images look much more realistic. The technology behind 3D photos captures the distance between the subject in the foreground and the background to come up with interactive images when you twist and turn your phone.

    How to turn your photo into a 3D photo?

    To make 3D photos, you can take a photo in Portrait mode and upload that photo on your news feed as a 3D photo. It’s that simple. According to Facebook, it works best with images that have a significant amount of contrast between the background and the foreground. It certainly offers a whole new way of looking at portrait mode images. But the feature isn’t perfect yet because depending on the photo, some 3D photos will look better than others. Anyway, you can check out a video demonstrating how to post 3D photos by following this link.

    Facebook continuously making photo sharing enjoyable

    This is a natural step for Facebook considering that the platform already supports 360-degree images. The way the 3D photos are optimized is through a very similar movement of the user’s device, just simple and gentle tilts. Users would have choices to adjust and experiment with creating “multiple layers, contrasting colors, and textures in order to create photos in 3D”. The social networking giant would also allow users to view 3D photos in VR using the “Oculus Go” browser.

    While all the Facebook users will be able to experience 3D photos in the News Feed from today, the ability to create one will roll out to everyone in the upcoming weeks. The 3D feature supports Portrait Mode photos from the iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone X, and iPhone XS for now.

  • Facebook Has Come Up With A Cool New Video Calling Device

    Facebook Has Come Up With A Cool New Video Calling Device

    Facebook has just unveiled its first-ever Artificial Intelligence (AI)-powered smart video chat devices, Portal and Portal+. These devices can display photos and videos posted by friends on Facebook and are made for AI-enhanced video calls with Facebook Messenger, an app with 1.3 billion monthly active users. The devices will be able to speak with Amazon’s Alexa and stream music from Spotify, Tidal etc.

    Facebook said the Portal line is meant to bring people closer together in a way that feels natural and eliminates the friction of video calls on laptops and smartphones.

    Portal Specs and what it can do

    Portal can do group video chat with up to seven people, using the Messenger app on smartphones and tablets. Calls will also include ways to read stories using augmented reality and a platform for third-party developers and partners to deploy AR experiences for kids and adults.

    Both Portal devices embody a series of AI-driven services, including Smart Camera for video calls that zoom to follow a person and Smart Sound to regulate the volume of call participants so each comes through at a good volume. Spotlight mode can also be used to make the camera follow a single person in a video call.

    People-tracking capability in Smart Camera does not include facial recognition software, and at launch, Portal will not include any form of facial recognition, as had been previously reported.

    Competition and the future of Portal

    Portal will have to compete with other similar devices from Apple and Samsung, as well as Google’s Home and Amazon’s Echo line of smart speakers. Facebook might be considered late to the smart speaker market, but it’s right on time for the battle brewing between large tech companies eager to ship hands-free speakers.

    To enrich experiences on and off video calls, Facebook will open a Portal App Store and introduce a “software development kit” that lets partners and third-party developers use Portal to create augmented reality experiences for kids and adults that can be used during video calls.

  • You Can Now Add “Cartoons” In Videos Thanks To Google

    You Can Now Add “Cartoons” In Videos Thanks To Google

    Google has followed in the footsteps of Facebook in adding an augmented reality mode in its Motion Stills application. Motion Stills is an app that enables you to take short videos and transform them into GIFs and fast-forward videos with an advanced stabilization feature. The app is basically a GIF camera with fancy software tricks.

    In the default mode, you can capture a three-second looping clip. The app has really powerful stabilization software, which ensures videos taken through the app is not bumpy and constantly  . The app also has an interesting Fast-Forward mode. In this mode, you can record up to a minute of fast forward footage.

    Default Mode

    In Default Mode users have an option to save footage as either GIFs or videos

    Yes, the video is a bit bumpy but that’s mostly because software stabilization is no match for Zim roads.

    Testing The Fast-Forward Feature

     

    AR Mode

    More excitingly, Google just introduced AR Mode. Users can now insert animated 3D objects into the real world before recording. The app then sticks the animated 3D object on any surface, even moving ones e.g your hand or head. Motion Stills isn’t as advanced as Facebook AR Studio which allows users to create 3D Objects they can then use in their own videos.

    Yes, even aliens like Techzim

    Office printer was under attack

    Motion Stills works on any device with Android 5.1(Lollipop) and above. The phone also has to have a working gyroscope sensor. Let us know if you’re an augmented reality fan who will be using Motion Stills to create awesome videos.