Mobile Year in Review 2011

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Video Editing With #iMovie on iPhone

Experimenting with iMovie for iPhone.

Just a little disappointed with the jump in the cut as you can set a duration time for the titles, but you have to use it over a specific video or image section that determines its length. Although there is a limited amount of styles, the video does export well keeping the quality of the original video. It does however require a WiFi connection when trying to directly upload through the app.

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Do you know who works here?

Yes that's right, I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you ...with laughter of course!

Although I can't say that I work in the building pictured above, I can say I don't work too far from it!

With it now being over a week since my immersion into the London lifestyle I thought it would be good to give an overview of what I've been experiencing down her in The Big Smoke!

Moving down the weekend before starting a new job in never easy but in my case it was and everything has run really smoothly. Having London on your door step is just brilliant! You get to quickly realise how important Oyster cards are too.

With regards to my new job I'm working as an in-house Junior Web Designer & Developer for the Evangelical Alliance in London. It's a Christian charity organization resourcing, networking and representing members by giving them a voice in parliament. They roughly have 28,000 individuals, 3,300 churches and 750 Christian organization within their network.

So as their 'in-house' Web Junior you'd think I'd be just be working on the same site day-in and day-out, but no, thankfully I'm not.

The resources the Alliance provides to its members includes a variation of content from sub sites, emails, newsletters and most importantly their Idea magazine.

I've therefore been touching up some images and graphics for newsletters banners, social media pages, editing videos and redesigning certain sub sections of one of their sub brands. I'm also helping to develop some wireframes for the new site they're currently trying to redesign.

As I'm only in a web team of two they're currently outsourcing the initial design and development of their new website however my aim is to get more of it done in-house to limit costs.

Come September I'll be also working on a project to design and develop a site aimed at 18 - 30 years old and have been selected as a possible project manager for a smaller job advertisement board site too.

For me this shows that not all in-house jobs that you may see are as boring as you first think they are.

All in all I'm enjoying London as it's a great place to live. I'm enjoying the job, building up professional experience and although my blogging may dry up a little, I am exactly where I want to be - A Multimedia Graduate working as a Web Designer in London.

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Student Accommodation in Chester Website

www.studentaccommodationinchester.co.uk

A small information site designed for a client offering student accommodation in Chester, North Wales.

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A Quick Driving Lesson Website

Just a quick website that I've produced for my brother-in-law. He's a driving instructor down in Yeovil, Somerset.

Presenting A STAR Driving Tuition

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New Designers Exhibition

See the full gallery on Posterous

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A Couple of Images from the #MultimediaMMXI Exhibition

See the full gallery on Posterous

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My 'Month On' Update as a Multimedia Graduate

Although it's been a silent month of blogging, in which I'm sure you've all enjoyed the peace and quiet, I've now received my final results for my degree. I'm pleased to say I've passed with a First Class Honours in Multimedia! Yes you can hold the applause as this doesn't guarantee me any job, but just puts me in a better position for one.

So a month on from final deadlines and my 10th episode of my video blog, I've been busy with exhibition and interviews. Our #MultimediaMMXI exhibition went well and I've also had some offers for interviews from that which I'm excited about.

I've also been working on our New Designers exhibition which I've been selected along with another 8 Multimedia students to exhibit our work. The work that I'll be exhibiting is connected to my personal research document on Augmented Reality and Quick Response Codes. If you're interested in what I did through that process you can look at it via this blog under the appropriate PRP tags. The exhibition will be taking place on the 6 - 9 July.

My client project for the Colwyn Bay Hockey Club is now live too. Once the appropriate members and team captains of the club get training on how to use WordPress to it's full potential the site should really take off!

Finally I've had some feedback on my WebGrad site and will be soon adding the ability for users to get the RSS feed that I'm displaying on the site for themselves. This means users can user their own RSS readers rather than having to come to the WebGrad site.

Well that's it for now, but look out for a portfolio update in the coming weeks as I've got more of my work to add to it!

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New #WebGradEngine V2

A week on from the first release of The Web Grad Engine and I'm already rolling out V2.

Presenting http://www.webgrad.co.uk

What's new?

• More Twitter keyword searches integrated into one feed for better results
• Facebook Like button
• A designated Twitter account for your suggestions - @WebGrad
• It's own domain name - webgrad.co.uk
• More results from feeds. No 50 results per feed
• More RSS feeds from other websites included
• A deeper explanation of the project found under 'Info' tab

Hope you like the improvements!

For more updates on the Web Grad Engine follow @WebGrad on Twitter

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#WebGradEngine V2 In The Making

Today has been the release of The Web Grad Engine V1 and I'm already buzzing with ideas for V2 which will be the next update. The reason for V1 being so limited in gathering information is because I wanted to get the ball rolling. Now it's a case of adding to improve usability and scope in the information it provides to the user.

Some notes I wrote down last night for V2 include the following -

Merging different Twitter searches into one feed

Although merging these Twitter feeds will remove their avatars, just provide the user with a link to that particular Tweet, it might provide users with better quality of information. Last night while keeping track of the Twitter feed I noticed a Twitter user tweeting back to those who mentioned they 'need web designer.' This user would then tweet 'Hey, I here you need a web designer.' This would trigger my search to pick his tweet up too resulting in a mass of reply tweets. In merging the three it would break these mass reply tweets up.

Styling & Extras

Maybe some custom colours relating to where the information has come from for the RSS feeds. May be a little difficult as it will all be coming from one feed.

Adding in some more social media connections, for example, a Facebook 'like' button and Twitter stream for updates and developments on the Web Grad Engine.

More columns for more information to be displayed. These columns will have vertical scroll bars to hold more results but not increasing the page length.

Contact form for suggesting improvements, more RSS feeds sources, etc. Also a deeper 'About' page explaining the reason for creation and the face behind the product.

Further Expansion Ideas (V3+)

Although not a key aim of the project yet, I have considered adding in some adverts relating to the subject of web design and job hunting as this could act as a source of income to keep the project going. I have however postponed this part of the project as I want to aggregate quality content, build up visitors, Twitter followers and general website assets then go on to selling ad spaces.

Adding in location based real-time results with Geolocation or post code/city being inputted manually. This would then improve the quality of the results.

For more updates on the Web Grad Engine follow @WebGrad on Twitter

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The Long Awaited Episode 10 is Here! Sit Here, Be Cool - Episode 10

The long awaited Episode 10 is here to introduce The Web Grad Engine!

The Web Grad Engine is an aggregator for Graduate Web Designers jobs through the using the power of Twitter searchers and RSS feeds.

If you're interested in it why not check it out for yourself at http://webgrad.cityandwool.co.uk

For more information on its developments follow it on Twitter - http://twitter.com/webgrad

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Introducing The #WebGradEngine - The Graduate Web Designer's Aggregator

Over the last few days, and as my graduation has got closer, I've wanted to increase my job searching capabilities. What better way to do this than through a single page that updates in real-time!

Using a custom search in Twitter and multiple 'Web Design jobs' RSS feeds combined into one RSS feed, I'm creating some sort of a custom TweekDeck for job hunting.

As I slowly develop it into including more RSS feeds and better custom searches through Twitter I hope that this will be a product that can help any type of Web Designer looking for work.

Being released as Version 1, I know it's not perfect but the information it's gathering is so I wanted to be able to share it as early as possible.

Feel free to add suggestions of RSS Feeds or particular Twitter searches you might use. I am wanting to add in multiple searches like 'need web & designer' being one, 'want, web & designer' being another and 'hire, web & designer' being a third. These are ones I've used in the past and have worked.

I've also considered a Freelance section and a Professional section. Freelance being more small jobs picked up through Twitter, then Professional being more permanent job related.

Well, here it is for you're enjoyment...

The #WebGradEngine found at http://webgrad.cityandwool.co.uk

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Introducing The #WebGradEngine - The Graduate Web Designer's Aggregator

Over the last few days, and as my graduation has got closer, I've wanted to increase my job searching capabilities. What better way to do this than through a single page that updates in real-time!

Using a custom search in Twitter and multiple 'Web Design jobs' RSS feeds combined into one RSS feed, I'm creating some sort of a custom TweekDeck for job hunting.

As I slowly develop it into including more RSS feeds and better custom searches through Twitter I hope that this will be a product that can help any type of Web Designer looking for work.

Being released as Version 1, I know it's not perfect but the information it's gathering is so I wanted to be able to share it as early as possible.

Feel free to add suggestions of RSS Feeds or particular Twitter searches you might use. I am wanting to add in multiple searches like 'need web & designer' being one, 'want, web & designer' being another and 'hire, web & designer' being a third. These are ones I've used in the past and have worked.

I've also considered a Freelance section and a Professional section. Freelance being more small jobs picked up through Twitter, then Professional being more permanent job related.

Well, here it is for you're enjoyment...

The #WebGradEngine found at http://webgrad.cityandwool.co.uk

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Personal Research Project on QR Codes and Augmented Reality - Final Presentation

prp_final_presentation_2011.pdf Download this file

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Artefact 6 - Evaluation

Due to the complications of the previous artefact I strayed away from heavy code and opted for further research into projects that are trying to replicate what I'm trying to do. I then came across Daqri. Daqri is currently a beta service that provides users with an easy non-code-heavy way of producing QR Codes that link to information on a user specific web page. It also provides the user with an Augmented Reality feature to add 3D models to the QR Code. The only problem with this is that the AR feature only works through the Daqri application, currently only on iPhone and iPad.

Having been in contact with the developers at Daqri, I've managed to suggest for them to add a feature similar to my last artefact in adding an Augmented Reality video plane as adding video in this way increases its interactivity and the users engagement than just a plain 3D model without animation. I also had a few problems with their mobile as it wasn't optimised for mobile devices and was slow to load.

In testing Daqri's functionalities it does work brilliantly however there are some areas that could be developed and improved. Ultimately the product did what I set out to do which was seeing if QR Codes and AR could help us share information, which it does. My only reserve is that the development of Augmented Reality is slower than QR Codes and it will take a little longer for the full potential of AR to be realised and users create applications for AR to be visually impressive and useful to the user. Nevertheless over the next year I can see a huge increase in the use of QR Codes on advertising and self-promotion items as it is a brilliant way of sharing information quickly.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Multimedia Exhibition Images and Profile Text

Here are my five catalogue images for my final year Multimedia Exhibition in June. I'm also adding in this short profile to describe myself -

Dan is a well-motivated, hardworking and adaptable individual seeking employment in the web industry. He can effectively convey ideas and concepts visually and through written or verbal communication. He also enjoys taking pride in the quality of his work. Using the skills and knowledge he’s learnt in HTML5, CSS3, PHP and WordPress, he can successfully design and develop creative, standards-compliant web solutions that fulfil the requirements of the brief within the time constraints.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Getting Your News Through Social Media

Four hours ago the news of a possible stabbing incident/hostage situation at Nottingham Trent University Clifton campus library started to emerge on Facebook and Twitter.

The big tweet that kicked it all off

I then wanted to keep up to date with any developments so started to follow the situation realtime through Google. This was done by using some keywords to narrow the search.

Within an hour of it hitting Twitter @FlyFM_News were on it! Various tweets from a collection of tweeters then followed as the real details emerged of the situation.

This then resulted in a full press release from the Nottinghamshire Police to clarify on what actually happened.

 

Due to students using Twitter and Facebook the news was 'escalated' but it also reminded me of a story I came across about five journalists planning on locking themselves away in a French farmhouse with access only to Facebook and Twitter to test the quality of news from the social networking and micro-blogging sites. This was back in January 2010.

Unfortunately I couldn't find any outcome to the experiment either.

I then stumbled upon this interesting article that referred to the French experiment as 'flawed' and highlighting that social media is a conversation, not a newswire.

To add to that, tonight I've seen an interesting side to news and Twitter. Although you can get one off tweets that people could start taking as fact, you also have the conversation that develops from that which brings out more clarity to the situation. In hearing murmurs of a shooting, stabbing, kidnapping or any sort of situation you can always rely on journalists, which in this case were our very own Fly FM team, that are ready to explore the credibility of the initial statement.

For me tonight has highlighted the power that one tweet can have in sparking conversation, but it has also highlighted the importance of testing the credibility of statements before taking them as fact. Within 3 hours a short tweet gets put straight by a Police statement. A crazy night for news through social media.

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The Culmination of my Personal Research Project on #QRCodes and #AugmentedReality

qr-ar-poster.pdf Download this file

If you're not sure how to scan the QR Codes, find out here

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Testing #Daqri Features on an iPod Touch - Artefact 6

Live testing of Daqri.

Things are still in beta so the vCard doesn't work at the moment.

Auto playing the AR didn't work either although I did select it in the settings.

Nevertheless, the AR on the QR Code does work brilliantly!

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Logo Development For Our Multimedia Exhibition 2011

Some logo's were submitted in the group meeting today which I attended. We collectively wanted to develop the logo further by integrating certain ideas. Here are my alterations to the images submitted by Tom Edson. Final logo will be decided on tomorrow.

Forgive it's roughness.

The two hand-drawn, scribbled fonts used are PaintyPaint and SF Zimmerman 1.0

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Logo Development For Our Multimedia Exhibition 2011

Some logo's were submitted in the group meeting today which I attended. We collectively wanted to develop the logo further by integrating certain ideas. Here are my alterations to the images submitted by Tom Edson. Final logo will be decided on tomorrow.

Forgive it's roughness.

The two hand-drawn, scribbled fonts used are PaintyPaint and SF Zimmerman 1.0

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#Daqri May be the Answer - Artefact 6

Introducing Daqri.

I'm currently testing it as a beta tester.

It works really well with the integration of the QR Code and Augmented Reality however it doesn't work with video in the way I'd hoped it to.

Although my particular augmented reality business card plays the video automatically on a manipulative plain, with Daqri you have to select to play the video within its own video player as it doesn't play automatically.

If only the Daqri could play a selected video above the QR Code (See example below) It would be brilliant!

I'm going to play more with the service over the next few days as it has some augmented reality features for using models which I want to look at.

Also another problem I have is that I don't have an iPhone or a new iPod Touch so I'm borrowing the use of one while waiting for their Android app to be released.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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I'm Spitting QR Codes

qr-mouth-print.pdf Download this file

A few weeks ago I spotted this video and thought it was a brilliant idea. I've therefore create my own, Version 1, to hopefully develop into something that I can use for real. So far it's just a short video but I would like to develop into a proper introduction. I may also use this idea as one of my exhibition images once developed further.

Also here is another example of the same technique being used in a magazine -

If you're not sure how to scan the QR Code, please see this previous blog post - http://blog.cityandwool.co.uk/how-to-scan-quick-response-codes-with-your-sm

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Artefact 6 - Planing

After completing my 5th Artefact, the Augmented Reality Business Card, I came across two major problems -

1. I couldn't apply my own marker, the QR Code AR marker
2. There was no audio playing making the video which made it useless

How do I over come these problems?

The problem lies with my a lack of ActionScript 3.0 knowledge as I don't know how to code in a video plane so when the marker is visible it would display my video.  With my previous artefact not having audio maybe I could produce a motion comic of some sorts to counteract the fact there is no audio. This would be the only way to come out with something that's an improvement on the last artefact.

I have therefore looked at a few examples of motion comics, with Watchmen and Batman being the best examples as they display the text too.

In the meantime I need to look again at my example to see if I can change the marker files to the one I had created.

Obviously and help or suggestions feel free to comment below

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Client Project - Complete

The Colwyn Bay Hockey Club website is now finished and ready to be handed over to the client.

It's a full WordPress site build with HTML5 and CSS3.

It will hopefully be found under http://www.colwynbayhockey,co.uk over the next few weeks too.

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Client Project - Validating

It's nice when things work out and you see the green bar.

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Artefact 5 - Evaluation

I encountered many difficulties in coding functionality into my augmented reality business card in this artefact. I also had trouble finding methods of augmented reality that would work on mobile devices. I did try using Junaio, an augmented reality browser by using the marker from the previous artefact but I found it difficult to change the 3D model it was producing. I therefore tried coding a version myself but was unsuccessful. After contacting the developers at Junaio they suggested using a different marker as it would be hard for the application to encode and track it correctly.

As I was having trouble producing my AR business card through Junaio for smartphones, I decided to further my research into an AR toolkit for Flash in ActionScript. As Flash utilised a computer's webcam this would hamper the business card's flexibility in mobility however it was more important for me to see it working correctly on a computer rather than on a mobile device. With limited ActionScript knowledge it was difficult to produce what I wanted exactly and not being able to change the model it produce was the biggest problem. The QR Code AR maker however worked better using Flash. Following more research I found an SWF file and connecting source files that would play a video. I then managed to replace the video file with one of my own. I was however unable to change the marker file as it were encoded differently. Once completed and tested, users liked the interactivity and manipulative features. Unfortunately adding audio was a problem.

To conclude, it's a sound way of adding and sharing information to a traditional business card however if you don't have the coding capabilities to add in key functionality like audio it can be an incredibly hard task to perform.

A working example of my 5th Artefact, for those of you who haven't tired it yourself yet.

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Client Project - JavaScript Disabled and Out-of-Date Browser Warning

As you know not all browsers fully support HTML5 and CSS3, and since I’ve been coding my client project in HTML5 and CSS3, I’ve needed to add in a few extra features to tell the user to upgrade their browser with a short error message below. Example if the user is using Internet Explorer 8 or later –

!html

Also since the website uses a large chunk of JavaScript to create the weather widget, I’ve create a simple no script message. If the browser has JavaScript disabled –

!html

Warning – Your Browser has JavaScript disabled. Please enable Javascript to make full use of this site.

If sure there are better ways of going about it but here are two very simple examples.

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Client Project Mobile Site Using WPTouch Plugin for WordPress

WPTouch works brilliantly with my client porjects site! I've just selected the news page so club members can get their news on the go. It also includes a switch to the full site too.

See the full gallery on Posterous

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Artefact 5 - My Augmented Reality Business Card (Video Example)

A working example of my 5th Artefact, for those of you who haven't tired it yourself yet.

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Client Project Gallery Plugin for WordPress

In searching WordPress for a gallery plugins for my client project, I've come accross the NextGEN Gallery. I have used this plugin on a previous project and found it's ability to batch process images really helpful. It can crop, resize, create thumbnails, add watermark and create various galleries and albums which can all be adjusted through the plugin's settings. The gallery's supports lightbox box too which you add via another plugin.

I will also need to look at the images within posts and create thumbnails for them to be used in the blog posts.

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Further Client Updates

Today I finished the sites footer. I've added in an admin login section which replicates the login method of navigating to /wp-admin. This was done using the following code -

Once logged in, a simple dashboard appears allowing the user to access the full dashboard -

I've also added a simple but stylish jQuery scroll to the top button. The 'Top ^' links to '#top.' I'm also using the Google Code link to the latest jQuery file.

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Artefact 5 - Presentation

artefact5.pdf Download this file

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Artefact 5 - My Augmented Reality Business Card

print-marker.pdf Download this file

Print the marker.

Connect your webcam.

Answer the questions.

Yes, here's Artefact 5.

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Developing My Augmented Reality Business Card - Progress Report

I've spend a few hours searching through Google and various connecting sites and have found a little helper in my attempt to create my own Augmented Reality Business Card. I've been having trouble with getting my QR Code based AR marker to work effectively so I'm in the process of designing an improved version. However, I have managed to get my video to display on a test version. This was using code that was already written that I've then adapted for testing. It's also using a set AR marker.

Next steps are to improve the video, change the marker and work out how to get the sound working with the video.

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A Look at WordPress Plugins For Creating Mobile Themes

One of the many positives for using WordPress as a site's Content Management System is its ability to install plugins. With 13,944 different plugins available it can be hard to find the right one for the job. In my case I want to look for plugins that assist in the creation of a mobile optimised version of my site.

Step 1 - Search the WordPress Plugin Directory for keywords such as 'Mobile'

Step 2 - A good tip for finding the best plugin is to search by 'Most Popular' or 'Highest Rated'

Step 3 - Find the best plugin, download and install!

Here is a short list of the 3 best plugins for optimising your website for a mobile device -

WPtouch

WPtouch automatically transforms your WordPress blog into an iPhone application-style theme, complete with ajax loading articles and effects, when viewed from iPhone, iPod touch, Android, Palm Pre, Samsung touch and BlackBerry Storm/Torch mobile devices.

The admin panel allows you to customize many aspects of its appearance, and deliver a fast, user-friendly and stylish version of your site to touch mobile visitors, without modifying a single bit of code (or affecting) your regular desktop theme.

The theme also includes the ability for visitors to switch between WPtouch view and your site's regular theme

WordPress Mobile Pack

The WordPress Mobile Pack is a complete toolkit to help mobilize your WordPress site and blog.

It includes a mobile switcher to select themes based on the type of user that is visiting the site, a selection of mobile themes, extra widgets, device adaptation and a mobile administration panel to allow users to edit the site or write new posts when out and about.

WordPress Mobile Edition

WordPress Mobile Edition is a plugin that shows an interface designed for a mobile device when visitors come to your site on a mobile device.

Mobile browsers are automatically detected, the list of mobile browsers can be customized on the settings page.

My Final Call
After looking at the plugins above, I've decided to use WPTouch for my client project. This is because it provides a more concise mobile version of the website and its design is modern and simple for all types of mobile devices. I also like that this plugin provides the user with the ability to switch between the desktop version and the mobile version of the site. For me this is important as sometimes I still want to view full sites on my mobile device.

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Intel's The Chase Film. Amazing.

Agency: Venables Bell & Partners
Client: Intel
Executive Creative Directors: Paul Venables, Will McGinness
Creative Directors: Paul Foulkes, Tyler Hampton, David Kim
Copywriter: Josh Parschauer
Art Directors: Beau Hanson, Dan Kenneally
Interactive Design Director: Ezra Paulekas
Production Company: Nexus Productions
Directors: Smith & Foulkes

Details thanks to - http://www.creativereview.co.uk/cr-blog/2011/january/intel-the-chase

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Thanks to #Saqoosha My AR QR Code Business Card Works

OK it doesn't work perfectly yet, and I haven't added in my own 3D model, but I've been able to create my own marker file so the SWF file will recognise my business card marker and produce the pink box above it. It does struggle to produce the 3D box all the time but this is due to the size of the QR Code. It's to small and detailed for it to be easily recognized.

Next step is to customise the AR in producing my video with a transparent background using green screen.

I may also need to improve the AR marker for better recognition.

Link to the tutorial

See the full gallery on Posterous

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