So QR codes are great, but what if you make them the size of a building? And then make the tweets of the people in the building visible through an Augmented Reality viewer on a cell phone? And then, decorate the building any way you want through your AR viewer.
One Translation: Interactive billboards that are huge, grab attention, and all without cluttering up the landscape. Magical things can happen here. Throw in some PaperVision and you’ve got some cool possibilities.
I love the direction this is going. James and I presented about QR at Ignite a while back, and it is great to see things still happening. It doesn’t happen that much in the US because…um…well…maybe we’re too lazy to hold our phones up that high? Not sure why.
Direct Link if the embed fails — http://go.bugfrog.com/2y
N Building from Alexander Reeder on Vimeo.
From the creators who need a shout out on this one. I pulled the following from here, and I hope they don’t get pissed. Most of it is in Japanese which I don’t read very well. I mean, I can read it of course, but I just don’t understand any of the words that I am reading because I don’t speak Japanese.
Here is our latest project, in which we as Qosmo.inc tried to “augment” additional information upon a physical artifact, namely a building, with new digital media technology empowered by iPhone.
N Building is a commercial structure located near Tachikawa station amidst a shopping district. Being a commercial building signs or billboards are typically attached to its facade which we feel undermines the structures’ identity. As a solution we thought to use a QR Code (two-dimensional bar code) as the facade itself. By reading the QR Code with your mobile device you will be taken to a site which includes up to date shop information. In this manner we envision a cityscape unhindered by ubiquitous signage and also an improvement to the quality and accuracy of the information itself.
December 15th, 2009 we held an opening which included the limited release of an iPhone application made specifically for N Building.
If a QR Code is static, what could we do with a dynamic device like the iPhone? Our proposed vision of the future is one where the facade of the building disappears, showing those inside who want to be seen. As you press on the characters their comments made on online appear in speech bubbles. You can also browse shop information, make reservations and download coupons. Rather than broadly tagging, we display information specific to the building in a manner in which the virtual (iPhone) serves to enhance the physical (N Building). Our goal is to provide an incentive to visit the space and a virtual connection to space without necessarily being present.
The building is detected in real time by its shape (for an example, see video). Characters are then superimposed over the live video. Twitter feed comments are located via GPS tagging. Store information, reservations and other infrastructure is part of the iPhone application. The iPhone application is not for sale in the iTunes App Store, but is available to interested parties on request. While N Building’s QR code provides a subtle yet important queue to users to take out and use their mobile devices, Qosmo, Inc. is available to implement a similar system for structures without QR Codes or any markers.
If you are interested in this project, please feel free to contact us: 