Konami Digital Entertainment released virtual dating simulation game Love Plus[J] for the iPhone/iPod touch on Monday. There is a series of three apps corresponding to three heroines starring in the game, which are Love Plus iM (Aika Takamine), Love Plus iR (Rinko Kobayakawa) and Love Plus iN (Nene Anegasaki).
Left: An composite picture demo using augmented reality of Love Plus. Right: A Collage picture of Steve Jobs who presents the iPad on which Love Plus runs. (source: Yomige 4[J])
Beside playing the game, it allows you to get a shot of you and the heroine as a couple by the iPhone-embedded camera. Now you can feel as if she were just next to you – but only in the picture unfortunately.
Some GPS-enabled virtual conversation features are expected to be added in the future app updates.
Japan’s second largest ad agency Hakuhodo DY Media Partners, Sony CSL‘s spin-out specializing in developing location detection technology with WiFi signals Koozyt and the country’s second-ranked newspaper in its circulation the Asahi Shimbun jointly started a new ad service using the iPhone today.
The new service is named A-Clip, by installing the iPhone app and shooting an image of an paper-printed ad that you’re interested in, you can view videos and other extensive information associated with the ad.
The first ever ad enabling this service is placed on the Asahi’s morning edition of January 8th, and you don’t need to scan any 2-D barcode but just shoot an image of the ad itself. Koozyt’s image recognition technology built in the iPhone app will detect which ad you watch, it shows you a video associated with the ad on the iPhone screen.
Digital Signage Consortium[J] has set up digital signage devices at Akihabara station and on the streets around there, and is helping Japanese Red Cross to campaign blood donation by using the augmented reality technology.
The device enables face recognition, and it can count how many people have seen the screen. When you stop by in front of the device, it shows your appearance overlapped with the popular Vocaloid character Miku Hatsune‘s hair and the Red Cross nurse cap.
In association with Japan’s National Institute of Informatics, NEC and Tokyu Agency(ad agency), Tokyu Corporation, which operates major railway lines including Shibuya-Yokohama, started today the trial of an augmented reality service “Pin@clip[J]” (pronounced “Pina-Kuri”, and named after pins and clips) using iPhone for commuters and shoppers in the Shibuya area, which allows you to tag information with every corner of the town by overlapping it on the real landscape images when you’re there, and to share accumulated knowledge with the other people in the area.
You can post news and information about the spot where you visit with its geographical attribute which is measured by the iPhone’s GPS feature. Shops participating in the service can provide their bargain news to the app when the users come nearby.
That motion reminds us of a rider controlling a horse by pulling a lead rope on his back. When a controller moves a yoke on his remote control device, the head-mount device will pull its holder by the closer ear to the direction ordered. The concept of the device is highly inspired by the 40-year running popular TV animation series of Japanese sweetheart Sazae-san[YouTube, J] who pulls his younger brother by the ears when scolding him for his bad behavior.
First, choose a laundry clothing to be folded and capture an image of it with a camera. Then the system defines how it should be folded and sets a moving path to do so.
By using an LCD and photo-elasticity, the lab team has developed a pressure-sensitive two and half-dimension interactive surface. If you press a certain point of the transparent gel, that part will be depressed. A overhead camera detects the change of refracted ray caused by the depression, and then the system changes the face emotion projected on the gel.
Every cube has a photodiode on the bottom. That semiconductor measures the strength of the ray to find the distance from the light source, and will let the cube’s illumination change color depending on the distance.
HongKong-, Tokyo-, London- and Silicon Valley-based tech start-up MotherApp has kindly developed the iPhone/iPod reader app for us. Click on the link below for it. Absolutely free.
Android Reader App
Tokyo-based Android app developer ACL Inc. has kindly developed the Android reader app for us. Click on the link below for it. Absolutely free.
Note: The link above works only with the Android-enabled devices.
