And you thought my giant robot prediction was crazy....

Earlier this month I was able to visit CeBIT, the world’s largest technology show case, in Hannover, Germany. The exhibition space is absolutely enormous totally over 5,000,000 square feet. Imagine the biggest convention center building you’ve ever seen then imagine at least 20 buildings of that size and you’ll have an idea of how big CeBIT is.

I was able to meet some brilliant people from around the world, speak on a panel about social media, and be exposed to some great bleeding edge technology. All in all it was a great couple of days (even though I missed my flight on the way back).

Most buildings were focused on one subject that included green technologies, security, enterprise network technology, mobile, GPS, computers, gaming, or my personal favorite “the future parc”. The future parc was focused on innovative new technologies whether they had been productised or not. You could look at technologies at an early stage with the potential that you might see a new opportunity for it’s use.

I’ve highlighted some of my favorite items below that I saw during the conference. Some are really far out and some are fairly simple – I hope you enjoy the quick summary.

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I was out with some friends having a drink tonight when the conversation sparked a memory of a big prediction I had a couple years back. Everyone thought it was a bit nuts, but in the interest of making it public record I’m going to share this prediction with you. Why do I need to make it public record? Well, according to my friends one or all of the following thing will happen if I’m right:

• They will immediately pay me $1,000,000
• Pigs will fly out of their asses and do some form of aerial acrobatic show.
• Hell will not only freeze over, but Satan will open some form of ice skating rink that also serves free heart shaped lollipops.es

Now that I’ve got that out of the way I’m going to share one of my most far out predictions for the future. Call me crazy, but I truly believe this will become reality in our lifetime.

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If you’re not familiar with augmented reality yet it is a technology that combines live video footage and computer graphics to create a whole new experience through the viewing window (typically either using a web cam or certain smart phones).

It works by providing the augmented reality software with some form of tracking marker that it knows to overlay 3 dimensional graphics over. The results are astounding – it truly allows consumers to feel as though you have brought a little piece of your imaginary world into their reality.

Right now marketers and technology innovators have done some very interesting examples of augmented reality using symbols printed locally and are then placed in front of your home web camera. Although I think this is fun and definitely buzz worthy I believe the true opportunity is in the not too distant future as more and more mobile phones adopt the technology. Image the potential of being able to re-invent outdoor and print marketing by adding an interactive component to almost any ad by just pointing your mobile device at it.

If you know of any other great examples please forward them to me. I have included a great example of a two player mobile game for Fanta developed by my friends over at the Hyper Factory as well a brilliant Papervision 3D and augmented reality combination.

Visit Fanta.eu to watch a video of the Fanta game in action or actually use it with compatible smart phones.

Otherwise check out the video after the jump.

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For the last couple years I have attended the Cannes Lions. It’s my favorite advertising festival of the year: the work, the location, the people you meet, and, of course, the parties. I think what truly sets it apart is it’s international judging panel. Only allowing one judge per country prevents countries like the US or UK from throwing their weight around and creating a biased judging pool – I believe this results in the most accurate and honest results and it shows in the quality of work that wins (even if some of it is a bit over the top).

Due to it’s long standing success and the quality of the work it has become, without fail, the most respected advertising award show in the world and draws in the greatest minds in advertising and marketing. Say what you like about marketers we do actually have some brilliant wonderfully creative minds in our industry. I think really great creative types are less concerned with the medium they work in and are just focused on being able to unlock their mind and think in unconventional ways.

Humanitarian Lion is a group advocating a new addition to the Cannes Lions. They want all agencies that submit work to the Lions to also submit a single document of their thoughts on how to solve some of the worlds great humanitarian issues.  Read More »

Consumers want information everywhere and at all times: from access to their service accounts on phone IVRs, main portals, social networks, and mobile devices, to identifying music with programs such as Verizon’s V Cast Song ID, or iPhone apps such as midomi and shazam. The latest trend is to allow the consumer to easily retrieve additional information on anything they want, lately commercialized using Matrix codes, also known as two-dimensional bar codes.

The most popular matrix code is a QR Code, created by Japanese corporation Denso-Wave in 1994. The “QR” is derived from “Quick Response”, as the creator intended the code to allow its contents to be decoded at high speed. QR Codes are common in Japan, where they are currently the most popular type of two dimensional codes.

QR Codes are used in a broad context, including both commercial tracking applications and convenience-oriented applications aimed at mobile phone users (known as mobile tagging). QR Codes storing addresses and URLs may appear in magazines, on signs, buses, business cards or just about any object that users might need information about. Users with a camera phone equipped with the correct reader software can scan the image of the QR Code causing the phone’s browser to launch and redirect to the programmed URL. This act of linking from physical world objects is known as a hardlink or physical world hyperlinks. Users can also generate and print their own QR Code for others to scan and use by visiting one of several free QR Code generating sites.  Read More »