Fun with AR: Strangers on a (BART) Train

Augmented reality poses all kinds of exciting opportunities for gaming and advertising alike. However, we sometimes like to ignore those and think about what can go horribly, horribly wrong.

(Click for a readable size.)

Design's gray areas

Color blindness affects about ten percent of the human population. Which means if you're a commercial artist, someone out there has had to interpret your work in grayscale. Even for experienced black and white film photographers, knowing what looks good sans color is tricky business. Enter: We are colorblind.com. The site highlights existing problems, like this one:


where the design actually gets in the way of usability for those who can't see the difference between pink and taupe. It also offers suggestions, many of which make for good design whether you're colorblind or not, like using rollover hints in addition to a legend, and skipping pie charts entirely.

This brings me to another, bigger thought: everything we design and write as professionals is made, inevitably, for strangers. Making ideas make sense to someone else is the basic challenge of living in a society, and it's our job, at the most fundamental level, to keep exploring new, better ways of doing it.

Good luck.


via monkey_bites.

Imagine a world where everything fits right. And matches.

Augmented Reality Texture Extraction Experiment from Lee Felarca on Vimeo.

There are a million possible applications for this awesomeness, most of which are probably also completely awesome. But, being a consumer whore, I decided to write about just one seriously consumerrific use for being able to upload the volume and texture of a product: making sure shit perfectly fits _____ body part/hallway/dining room color scheme before you buy it. (With your AR mobile PayPal account.)

Take that, stupid Ikea coffee table that I'm always stubbing my toe on.


Extra thanks to zero point nine for being rad and showing me awesome stuff.

PayPal's convenient, yet germaphobically horrifying vision of the future.

San Francisco ad shop EVB made this video for their client PayPal. Give it a good watch for me and then continue on to my craziness below.



1. Yes. You guys rock.
2. Touchscreens everywhere = serious OCD germaphobia madness. I already use hand sanitizer after looking at the 38 Geary. Movie posters that have probably been pissed on are not going to be my preferred point of sale.
3. Good luck getting this concept in practice before anyone else. No I mean it. It's probably the only thing that will save PayPal.
4. A more practical but less cool-looking scenario would be an augmented reality program for existing devices with ad and product recognition. Paypal could partner with advertisers to put an AR marker - or just a bar code - on any physical ad, menu, or even the product itself for an instant online mobile purchase. "OMG I love your shoes! Can I scan them???" Also, fewer germs.


Thanks to EVB for getting my thinker thinkifying.

The ultimate user interface

Interaction isn't just HUDs and flash games. It's the means by which we experience things. And I would like to experience 0 to 62 in 3.4 seconds behind the wheel of this muthafucka.



Via If it's Hip, It's Here.

Why advertising and video games are the perfect filler for this rad Venn diagram I made

Video games are awesome. We love video games. We'll play video games all weekend until we stink and there's crumbs everywhere. But what do video games really do for us? Or for the world? Or for abandoned kittens in Somalia? Mostly jack. Sorry video games. I'll admit my thumb-eye coordination rocks now, but I've gained 5 pounds since I bought Fallout 3 so it evens out.

Advertising, however, is universally hated. No one likes ads. Especially the ones they play during your online videos that are 40 million times louder than the show but only last 20 seconds and can't be paused so you just have to mute them and sit tight until Star Trek is back on so you can then pause and go to the bathroom. God those guys are idiots. And yeah, I watch Star Trek on YouTube. Gene Roddenberry didn't see that one coming! Ha. Anyway. Advertising sucks except for one instance: when it actually makes you do something. Laugh, think, buy Clorox, stop driving with a 40 hangin out the window, or donate five bucks to homeless penguins. In those cases, we love advertising. (And by "we" I mean you, me, penguins, the State of California and/or the suits cashing in on your new bleach purchase. Let's not limit ourselves.)

If you're starting to think these two industries sound like perfect compliments and that I must be retarded for suggesting that this is anything new because there's like 400 companies who are already making hybrid ad-game thingies, then hold your horses. Good job keeping up with the latest ad-game-lovechild news though. This blog is about one thing and one thing only. These three things:
One-way advertising is dead. If you think the "New and Improved!" lint shaver in the ad someone left on the seat next to you on the BART train seems one-way, it's not. Even at 3am in a tunnel somewhere underneath Market Street, you can look up that lint shaver and find out if it really is new and improved, if it's made using child labor, if it's available used for half the price, and what kind of warranty it comes with, just in case the 57 guys who gave it a four-star review were wrong. If you're making ads and not taking that into account, I genuinely hope you've been in a coma since about 2000, because otherwise I don't want you tarnishing my blog with your wrinkly, beady eyes. Everything is now interactive, which is good because interaction gets consumers more involved, more loyal, more connected with each other, and gives them the chance to contribute their own suggestions and ideas - which, by the way, don't always suck. Interaction is awesome. But it's hard to swing it your way, because you have to make your message worth it for people to bother spending time with.

The ultimate masters of getting people to spend time doing shit are, by the way, video game makers. Just ask my flab.

So hey ad people, hey video game people: we have a lot to learn to from each other. Especially if we wanna have jobs in five years.

And that's why you should subscribe to this blog.