internet cool?!

My closest friends know how much of an evangelist I am interactivity in schools and the positive impact and potential it can have on our children and their education. I’ve had a number of children’s interactive projects over the years (the most recent being KideoPlayer, a family-friendly interactive YouTube filter) but nothing I’ve come across recently has the potential of this…  

Meet The Hidden Park, an iphone-guided scavenger hunt that uncovers trolls, fairies, tree genies, and other fantastic creatures skulking around actual landmarks at your local park. You read that right. It’s awesome. And my boys and I are doing it this weekend.  :) 

Convincing kids to spend an afternoon away from the PlayStation is a tough sell with the promise of xBox and Wii sitting in your living room. (Nature? Booooooringi!) Use your children’s video-game obsession to lure them outdoors where the best games always come to life. 

The ‘augmented reality game‘ can be played in a growing number of public spaces across the globe, including New York’s Central Park, Boston Common, London’s Kensington Park, and Ueno Park in Tokyo. Tapping into your iPhone’s GPS, the app leads families on a quest to help the Magical Wildlife Protection Association prove the existence of magical beings in the park, which is in danger of being bulldozed by money-grubbing developers. (But imagine the themes, and geographies we could bring to this idea? This is just the tip of the iceberg). Does anyone have an land they want to donate? :) I’ll make the app!

The map the game supplies is also enchanted; as you move past specific landmarks, it throws out riddles and puzzles to clue you in on where to go next. The cool factor comes into play when your kids use the iPhone’s built-in camera to document their discoveries. Just like magic, the park’s mystical denizens make their presence known.

Maybe fresh air isn’t overrated, after all.

Get it here:  The Hidden Park $6.99 at Apple iTunes Store

Learn more here :  The Hidden Park

The following is an homage to an awesome post I found over at Rubbishcorp. Go read it. Or read it here. Or whatever. Either way, its the best compilation of the affects of Augmented Reality on your fancy pants mobile device. It’s about to become as big a deal as Ron Burgundy…

Augmented Reality technology isn’t new, but it is taking on a whole new meaning in your mobile device. As positioning and recognition technology strengthens it will find a much more mass audience. Devices sporting geotagging, triangulation, recognition, wireless and compass technology have raised the virtual/physical mobile experience bar as they all work seemlessly together (behind the scenes) to now serve everyone with masses of information layered over the ‘real’ world.

No longer will you have to haplessly unfold a map at a museum, search endlessly for the semolina in a supermarket or not know exactly how much further to go before you reach your a bar, train, resturant, etc.

Your face is even free game! This TAT demo shows your social network(s) profile, media, personal data etc. all hovering around your noggin’ when someone points an at you.

Nokia are in on the act with their indoor location systems as well as Point & Find and apple has also raised the bar by getting involved with this little beauty.

Add to that ViPR technology which has been around for a while and can recognize actual objects (via a connected database) and best not forge RFID that registers objects within close proximity and again can pull data from a connected online source.

Time people spend with mobile continues to rise and compete with other sources as a direct result the increasing usefulness of the technology in making connections in the ‘physical’ space. And the raft of Augmented Reality applications that make use of a devices enhanced positioning and recognition capabilities are not limited to phones - increasingly gaming devices and MP3 players use the technology.

Screen-based experiences are increasingly overwhelming our experience of the physical world making, further blurring the lines and making the virtual a very “real” part of our lives. Social networking has already transformed our relationships and Augmented Reality looks to be the thing that does the same for shopping, traveling, culture, drinking, language translation and pretty much everything else.

Like the MP3 player and camera before it location and recognition technology will soon be ubiqutous on mobile devices. The influence that has on our lives cannot be underestimated, it will be massive.