Augmented reality bridges written and sign language

The DEAF MAGAZINE communicates in both of these languages. It is a lifestyle and society magazine about the culture of german sign language. Through the use of mixed media and augmented reality technology, it links the written language directly with the german sign language and makes it easier to his readers to affiliate information and allows to a better understanding of the written language. It also opens up even hearing readers, access to the german deaf culture. Check out this video starting at 3:20.

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This NFC-Enabled Ring Stores Your Personal Data On Your Fingertips

Have you ever wanted to wave your hand to unlock a door or transfer your contact information by simply touching a phone? How about keeping all of your top secret passwords at arm's length, literally? Well, with this Kickstarter-funded near field communication-enabled ring, all that could soon be possible.

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The SIM card sticker that allows easy access to mobile networks across the globe

For those who travel abroad, there's always a pang of jealousy when locals are able to switch on their phones upon landing, without a thought of excessive fees. While smartphones make a great travel companion—especially abroad where maps, translators and staying connected with home can make or break a trip—roaming charges can be a major burden. With the exception of global mobile plans, the only other option is purchasing a local SIM card, which can be time-consuming, expensive and at times downright confusing. World travelers take note: Canadian tech startup KnowRoaming offers the solution we've all been waiting for, but never knew of.

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Q3 magazine ad revenues up 4% to nearly $4.8B

American consumer magazines are showing some signs of life.

Despite a decline in ad pages sold, U.S. magazines' print ad revenues rose 4% during the third quarter to $4.75 billion as rebounding readership allowed publishers to charge more, according to new data from Publishers Information Bureau, a unit of MPA -- The Association of Magazine Media.

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Video Previews Entice Consumers to Buy Magazines

What better way to captivate potential readers than with an in-book preview video from the Editor-in-Chief herself? Vogue is just one publication to recently use a QR Code-activated experience in the magazine and on newsstands to convince readers they need to buy the magazine.   

Vogue recently featured a very special video from Editor-in-Chief Anna Wintour previewing the contents of this year’s famed September issue. Consumers at could watch the video on their mobile devices by scanning a QR Code placed in the magazine and on newsstand shelves – an enticing preview that convinced readers why they needed to make the purchase.

Watch the video here.  

Obvious Engineering’s Seene app lets you create and share 3D photos on the iPhone

Computer vision R&D startup Obvious Engineering has released Seene, an iPhone app that aims to be a “3D Instagram” by using depth capture technology to let you create photos with a parallax effect.

Seene records an image from four different angles in order to generate its 3D images. The recording process has a steep learning curve, but the results are quite cool. If you’ve captured your subject properly, you’ll be able to rotate your phone to view the scene from different angles.

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Victoria's Secret adds Image Recognition Scanner to brand app

Victoria's Secret mobile app users will notice in the recent update an image scanner has been added. Now users can engage with the catalog just in time to fulfill all the impulses prevalent during the upcoming holiday season. Commerce as well as videos have been enabled into the scanner. For more info download the app or read about it here.

Disney changes our concept of touch

Disney has a new process of rendering 3D tactile features on touch screens. In their new algorithm, the human hand can feel the textures of objects as presented on the screen.This can have wide reaching impact on e-commerce and m-commerce as we know it as this type of technology evolves for commercialization. Read more about this breakthrough from Disney R&D here.

QR Code Reader Scan gets top App Store Spot after Shark Tank

Garrett Gee presented his mobile app Scan to investors on Shark Tank, not to close the $1M being offered but more for publicity. It paid off - Scan moved from No. 5 on among Utilities paid apps in the app store to No. 1 after the appearance on the show. Scan's app lets users scan bar codes and QR codes using the phones camera. Businesses can also link to phone numbers, payment options and mobile websites. Read more about their business and the Shark Tank episode here.

There's Still Hope For Magazines

There was moderately encouraging news for consumer magazine publishers this week with the release of third-quarter ad numbers from the Publishers Information Bureau, which showed the erosion of print ads is slowing while tablet ad units continued their surge.

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Magazines Experiment With New Kinds of Paywalls

A la carte paywalls have been in vogue with magazine publishers lately.

In July, Esquire put a $1.99 paywall around a nearly 10,000-word investigative story, "The Prophet" by Luke Dittrich. In a note about the paywall, David Granger, Esquire's editor in chief (pictured above), explained that the story took months to produce — and that such journalism doesn't come cheap.

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Swirl Networks gets $8M led by Hearst

Proving that publishers have a vested interest in the shopping activities happening on mobile, Swirl has raised $8M led by an investment from Hearst Ventures. Swirl launched in August 2012 and has information about sales across 33,000 stores and 220 brands. Some of their major partners include Nordstrom, Ann Taylor and J. Crew. The pilot retail program which launched in May was such a success that stores such as Kenneth Cole and Timberland saw a 75% open rate of the Swirl app in-store. Read more about the investment here. 

Paypal launching QR code checkouts; Amazon challenges Paypal turf

As mobile integration into print continues to evolve, payments, easy check-outs and other technologies are also evolving to create a world where our impulses will be satisfied soon that we can ask Siri. Paypal has announced today that they are partnering with retailers to allow customers to check out using their paypal accounts in store. Paypal is not just for online shopping anymore! Read more about it here. 

Nipping at the heels of Paypal who dominated the online payment space at one time, Amazon has just released a feature using APIs to allow 3rd party retail sites to offer the ability for customers to pay with their Amazon accounts. Amazon of course will collect a percentage of the transaction but more importantly it will eventually give Amazon insights into consumer behavior beyond the scope what you might find on the site. Read more about it here. 

4 BIG Reasons Why Direct Mailers need to think “Digital” and Mobile

Smartphone usage is probably the biggest thing to happen to marketers since the inception of the Internet itself! Mail plays a particularly strong role with the smartphone, but only if used properly. QR codes could be on the brink of extinction if they don’t start being used more effectively – by making the site mobile friendly, and by making forms less effort to type on.

Pairing direct mail with video and social media, through QR codes or using apps for scanning automatically, makes your campaign mobile optimized. 

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Mobile Advertising Budgets Up 142 Percent Over 2011: IAB Industry Survey

As mobile devices enable consumers to easily interact with brands, mobile advertising correspondingly attracts more budget and is expected to continue this upward trend.

Marketers at 300 U.S. companies increased their mobile advertising budgets by 142 percent from 2011 to2013, according to Marketers Perceptions of Mobile Advertising, produced by Ovum for Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). Of the marketers surveyed this year, over one-third allocated more than $300,000 to mobile advertising, compared to merely seven percent in 2011. Among them, 16 percent spent more than $500,000 on mobile advertising, while the highest bracket in 2011 survey was "more than $300,000."   

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UXDi NY Fall 2013

Check out the class blog for General Assembly's NYC Fall 2013 User Experience Design Immersive Workshop.

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How To Create The Best Retail Experience

At last month’s PSFK SEATTLE event, we invited some of the city’s innovative people to discuss their latest projects and reveal the inspiration that lead to their creation. One of those individuals was Dr. Nadia Shouraboura, a tech entrepreneur and the CEO of Hointer, a company that is reinventing the brick and mortar retail experience by combining innovative in-store mobile applications and POS technology with traditional shopping. 

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Tech stocks: BlackBerry jumps on new buyout talk

Shares of smartphone maker BlackBerry have surged 4.5% in early morning trading off a report of new suitors exploring a bid for the struggling company.

According to Reuters, BlackBerry is in talks with Cisco, Google and SAP on a potential deal to either sell the company or parts of its business. The report does not confirm which of the three companies will make a bid for BlackBerry.

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Sports Illustrated Is Testing a New Type of Paywall

Sports Illustrated is testing a paywall that lets readers access its print articles early if they watch a 30-second video ad first.

The provider is Selectable Media, which has been testing consumers’ willingness to watch video ads for free WiFi, music and games. This is its first public test with a major consumer magazine.

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The Web Is a Lab for Marketable TV Content, and Vice Versa

The lines between digital and linear distribution are a lot less blurry than advertised when it comes to the business models of cable television and the online space, but content is a different animal altogether.

Take Drunk History, for example, which has evolved from a YouTube sensation to a full-blown half-hour on Comedy Central, averaging a serviceable 0.5 rating in the 18-49 demo over the course of its debut season. That platform shift is a neat reversal for showrunner Jeremy Konner, who saw his Web comedy Ghost Ghirls optioned and then scuttled by Syfy before the show was revived by Yahoo.

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