Lego World is a building site like no other. Thousands of children of all ages are invited to play, test and experiment with millions of Lego bricks. The sky is the limit and imaginations are encouraged to run wild.

This year, we are thrilled to announce that YDreams will also be there thanks to Intel’s interest in piloting our interactive Virtual Aquarium at its Lego World booth!

Intel, whose technology is used in Lego Digital Signage as well as other Lego products, has showcased its technology in past editions of Lego World. This year Intel invited YDreams to adapt and bring a Lego World version of its Virtual Aquarium (first developed and deployed for shopping centers Forum Sintra (Portugal) and Marmara Forum (Turkey) in 2011) to exhibit at the Intel booth at this year’s event.

The Lego-adapted Virtual Aquarium at the Intel booth will enable Lego executives to test the concept by demonstrating to guests how innovative technologies may be used to promote the classic Lego building brick and simultaneously offer Lego fans new creative and memorable digital experiences.

The experience, will offer guests to Lego World 2012 the chance to create and thoroughly customize virtual pet fish based on Lego building bricks. A touch console, located alongside the virtual aquarium, comprised of nine 46†monitors, will invite guests to create their new friend from scratch – they decide on the shape and color of the Lego brick that will determine the fish’s body and fins, as well as the color of its eyes and stripes. The variables available will enable guests to create a multitude of distinct fish, so the risk that any two fish will be identical is minimal! Once guests finish creating their Lego fish, they release it into the Virtual Aquarium, sit back and watch as their new friend explores its new environment.

Lego World 2012 opens February 16th and runs till February 19th at Bella Center, Scandinavia’s largest exhibition and conference center, located in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The EU recently considered Speed-FX, an R&D project developed by YDreams and Barcelona’s Universidad Pompeo Fabra for UK-based Filmlight, as one of the 15 key success stories in recent years.

Millions of people saw the 2011 Academy Award winning film, The King’s Speech but few people know that this box office hit was made possible, at least in part, by a groundbreaking R&D project funded by the European Commission.

In 2002, startup Filmlight carefully targeted EU funding and teamed up with then startup YDreams and Universidad Pompeo Fabra (UPF) to revolutionize the world of cinema post-production. The resulting R&D project, dubbed Speed-FX, provided the basis for FilmLight to develop a more efficient, flexible and cheaper system for cinema post-production than anything previously available.

Between mid 2002 and mid 2004, experts at YDreams and UPF provided Filmlight with the technical research and development input needed to produce the new required application that became known as Baselight, and ensure that the new open architecture system would be entirely reliable. The impact of this development was to bring post-production within the reach and the budget of far more users than ever before, and propel FilmLight to recognized industry leadership.

While FilmLight’s founders had the vision and commitment to spearhead the project, it would not have been possible without YDreams’ and UPF’s R&D capabilities and of course EU co-funding. The EU funded 2.1 million euro of the 3.5 million euro SpeedFX project. As a result FilmLight was able to out-compete more established players and establish itself as a clear market leader, quickly achieving sales that dwarfed the initial project cost.

The SpeedFX project further contributed to FilmLight’s winning a highly prestigious UK accolade - the 2006 Queen’s Award for Enterprise in International Trade. In addition to this, in 2010, it won four Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Scientific and Technical Awards. The SpeedFX project’s vision was, without a doubt, an important part of FilmLight’s dramatic rise to international success.

We recently launched our Digital-out-of-home (DOOH) website. The site highlights our most successful solutions – solutions we have integrated into our projects over the years, and have been paramount to shaping interactivity paradigms.

These solutions, with a special emphasis on Natural User Interfaces and Augmented Reality, include screens, kiosks, billboards, wall, floor and ceiling projections and many others.

For a better look at our solutions, as well as practical applications for each one, visit http://www.ydreams.com/products/

Our YVision team has been pretty busy these last few months replacing some of the engines to make sure YVision is executable on as many platforms as possible. The work’s paid off! This latest release brings better support for Silverlight 5 and mobile devices in the near future.

Check out the features for the latest release:

This release is only for Windows but we hope to have the Mac OS X release soon. We are working on optimizing the ‘build process’ so we can have simultaneous and more frequent releases in the future.

Go to our download page to get this latest version. We hope you have as much fun trying it out as we did developing it!

Associação Salvador realiza hoje cerimónia de entrega de Prémios

A Associação Salvador, com o objetivo de estimular a investigação no domínio da reabilitação psicomotora, promove anualmente o Prémio “Ser Capaz – Investigação e Tecnologia†que tem um valor de 10.000 euros. A cerimónia pública de entrega dos galardões realiza-se hoje, às 18h30, no Espaço BES Arte & Finança na Praça Marquês de Pombal, 3, em Lisboa.

A atribuição deste prémio prevê o financiamento de projetos que contribuam para o desenvolvimento de produtos, instrumentos, tecnologias, metodologias, equipamentos ou sistemas técnicos que previnam, compensem, atenuem ou neutralizem a incapacidade de uma pessoa portadora de deficiência motora.

O período de candidaturas da segunda edição do prémio decorreu entre 23 de maio e 14 de outubro de 2011, tendo o júri, composto por Salvador Mendes de Almeida, fundador e presidente da Associação Salvador, por António Câmara, presidente da YDreams e por Fernando Lobo, professor -DEEI-FCT– Universidade do Algarve, selecionado três vencedores de 22 candidaturas rececionadas.

Declarações de Salvador Mendes de Almeida, presidente da Associação Salvador: “Faço um balanço muito positivo desta segunda edição do Prémio Ser Capaz pois recebemos um elevado número de candidaturas de projetos com elevada qualidade, que espero virem a contribuir para o desenvolvimento de novas soluções que favoreçam a vida das pessoas com deficiência motora na sociedade.â€

Prémios

1º Prémio – Valor € 5.000 - Miguel Silva /Jorge Martins/Paulo Melo/Carlos Vasconcelos
Projeto “DACHOR - lntegrated Design and COntrol of Hybrid Active Orthoses”

Menção Honrosa 1 – Valor € 3.500 – Projeto IntellWheels
Luis Reis/António Moreira/Marcelo Prety/Brigida Faria /Sergio Vasconcelos

Menção Honrosa 2 – Valor € 1.500 - Projeto Living Home Center
Carlos Pires/Fernando Pinto /Victor Teixeira (Microsoft)

In our continued effort to make sure our interfaces are easy to use and visually appealing, we’ve recently launched these in the Lisbon area. Have a look

A tactile shopping center directory for Forum Sintra (on the outskirts of Lisbon) and tablets for accessing additional info about l’Oreal products at Perfumes & Companhia shops in Portugal.

Forum Sintra Shopping Directory

Consulting info on shopping directory

Tactile Tablet for L'Oreal Products

An amazing Virtual World, fueled by YDreams technology and design, recently opened to the public at Istanbul’s Marmara Forum on December 15, 2011. YDreams conceived and developed an enchanted realm inhabited by friendly eccentric creatures called Marmarians for the Multi Mall Management Group shopping center, whose aim was to offer young guests a space for creative expression while simultaneously connecting with shoppers, and enhancing customer loyalty.

Young guests to the center are invited and encouraged to let their imaginations run wild and “give life†to their own exotic creations. Two touch consoles, located at each end of the video wall, comprised of fifteen 40†monitors, invite shoppers to create and customize creatures that ultimately become a type of virtual pet. Guests use the touch screens to create their new Marmarian from scratch – they decide on the shape of the body, its texture and color as well as the color of its eyes and stripes or spots. The variables available enable guests to create up to 30.000 distinct creatures, so the risk that any two will be identical is minimal! After determining what their new Marmarian looks like, guests name it and release it into the brand new Virtual World!

Creating their new pet creature is only half the fun; to make sure they grow into happy, healthy Marmarians, they need to be fed and visited, a task that can only be accomplished by checking in at the touch consoles at Marmara Forum. The more you visit your virtual pet, the bigger and happier it grows, and the more you are able to further customize it by adding new features.

In addition, a dedicated website (http://www.virtualworldmf.com/front/web/index.php) is also available so that guests can regularly check up on their Marmarian from home to see how it’s doing. Furthermore, a point system which gives way to discounts at selected Marmara Forum stores and restaurants has been implemented, so by checking in at the center to feed and visit their pets, guests are also increasing their eligibility to win great discounts.

Click on image but for the full effect turn on webcam & sound

Bruce Sterling mentioned our virtual aquarium project “Fixelêndia”, for Forum Sintra on the outskirts of Lisbon, on his ‘Beyond the Beyond’ blog via Wired.com

http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/12/augmented-reality-ydreams-fixelandia/

The video powered by YDreams’ technology:

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/fgRtoNjIhRg ]

Audience Entertainment (AE) ̶  co-owned by YDreams  ̶  and NCM Media Networks are bringing audiences’ favorite brands to life on the big screen in select movie theaters across the U.S. this holiday season.

AE and NCM Media Networks worked together with a top travel industry brand to create a new interactive cinema audience game. The game, powered by a proprietary platform that enhances human-computer interactions and create engaging and robust applications, will be used for the first time in a national cinema ad campaign across the United States.

In the game, moviegoers are able to join a classic cartoon character in a 90-second interactive, big screen version of a wild water ride from the comfort of their movie theater seats. By moving their arms and acting together as a group, the audience creates a virtual “human joystick” to control the videogame action onscreen – zipping down the slide and retrieving objects along the way. The score will be posted at the end of the game, but no matter what the tally, the audience always wins by being among the first in the U.S. to experience the future of cinema advertising.

The new AudienceGame is being presented exclusively during NCM’s FirstLook pre-feature program in select movie theaters in major markets including Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Knoxville, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Washing-ton, DC.

This exciting new campaign features Audience Entertainment Group’s first-ever use of the combi-nation of live video and animated overlays in an AudienceGame.

To view the game, CLICK HERE.

In mid October we posted about our Virtual Aquarium project for Forum Sintra, on the outskirts of Lisbon, where guests get to create their very own customized virtual pet fish and then standby and simply enjoy the view.

Enjoy the video:

Ynvisible, YDreams’ first spin-out company, has successfully set up the first production site for the assembly of its interactive displays and their integration into final products, enabling the company to take on its first higher-volume commercial projects. This first production capacity is the result of a partnership between Ynvisible and Guide, a printing house with over four decades of experience specialized in graphic design and printing services for the publishing industry.

The partnership between the two companies brings together Ynvisible’s technological know-how and Guide’s experience in industrial printing. In addition to the installation and optimization of the production process, Guide will also be involved in the production efforts to deliver Ynvisible’s commercial projects.

After a successful series of tests, Ynvisible is currently producing batches of final products for its first commercial projects. First products will be delivered in the coming weeks to international clients. The installed capacity allows Ynvisible to produce up to tens of thousands of units of a final product per month, using in large part conventional printing processes.

According to Jani-Mikael Kuusisto, Ynvisible’s Chief Business Development Officer, “the set up of Ynvisible’s first production line is a major achievement that will allow the company to start delivering commercial projects and test different market applications. In addition, it is also a critical infrastructure for developing and testing future generations of Ynvisible’s technologies and productsâ€.

Nuno Penedo, Guide’s CEO, added that “Ynvisible’s technology brings new life to traditional printed/graphic products. The combination of electronic elements and paper products provides new opportunities for an ancient substrate – paper – and offers an energy boost to the graphic arts and printing industries.â€

The partners are looking to expand their forms of collaboration, as Ynvisible introduces its technologies and interactive solutions to further production locations and geographical markets.

An Augmented Reality Billboard experience, by Disney Parks, that spans across Times Square!

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/DRRu5dKRfTU ]

Ynvisible (YDreams’ first spinout company) in collaboration with Enfucell and IDTechEx, produced close to 1600 interactive badges to distribute to participants and attendees at the upcoming Printed Electronics USA 2011 tradeshow.

Ynvisible's Interactive Badge for the Printed Electronics Tradeshow

The badges contain three interactive graphic layers, activated by the push of a button. Each layer, designed specifically for the event, conveys IDTechEx’s marketing messages. Technologically, the interactive badges are a hybrid solution, based on a combination of printed electronics  ̶  Ynvisible’s electrochromics-based interactive graphics and Enfucell’s SoftBattery®  ̶  and traditional electronics, namely the printed circuit boards, buttons and wiring. Designers from Ynvisible and IDTechEx jointly designed the interactive badges, with the final assembly of badges carried out by Ynvisible.

“The combination of established color printing and printed interactive graphics brings new levels of interaction and communication power to everyday items. Consumers who enjoy the interactivity of on-line content and services will now increasingly start to find such features also in printed products”, said Jani-Mikael Kuusisto, Chief Business Development Officer for Ynvisible.

IDTechEx Printed Electronics USA 2011 conference and tradeshow is the biggest event in the world on the topic. This year’s tradeshow will be the largest Printed Electronics exhibition to date, with 105 exhibiting companies already confirmed. The tradeshow is on from November 30th to December 1st, 2011 at the Santa Clara Convention Centre.

The following video gives us a comprehensive overview of printed electronics spin-out Ynvisible and its relationship to parent-company YDreams:

Appshaker came up with this very cool way for people to interact with the amazing world of National Geographic Channel’s content from around the globe!

Take a look:

[ http://player.vimeo.com/video/31479392?title=0

Live Augmented Reality for National Geographic Channel / UPC from Appshaker Ltd on Vimeo.

The exhibition Viagens Italianas (Italian Voyages), sponsored by UNESCO, recently inaugurated at the Brazilian National Archive in Rio de Janeiro, and YDreams Brasil was responsible for conceiving and implementing interactive solutions for the exhibit that include a Magic Book, an interactive walkway, multimedia projections and directional sound columns geared at presenting contents and helping visitors explore the intricate and complex relationship between Brazil and Italy, largely due to the huge influx of Italian immigration to Brazil between 1887 and 1930, as well as Brazil’s strong Italo-Brazilian heritage.

The exhibition, which opened November 3rd, 2011 will run through till February 10th, 2012 at Rio’s National Archive.

For more information: http://www.arquivonacional.gov.br/cgi/cgilua.exe/sys/start.htm?infoid=882&sid=40

Following Portugal and Switzerland, the Sensorium (a sensorial experience initially developed by YDreams for L’Oreal Portugal’s Luxury division, and launched in November 2010) roll-out continues. Another interactive gondola was just installed in Stockholm at Ã…hlens, Sweden’s largest department store!

In September we told you about the work we did for two booths at Rock in Rio 2011 - O Submarino and Virtual Hang-gliding over Rio de Janeiro state.

Below, the videos, to give you better idea of what we are talking about!

O Submarino:

Virtual Hang-gliding:

[ http://www.youtube.com/embed/hnMBTU-kyh0 ]