YDreams, a Portuguese information technology company, has been quiet in the augmented reality news lately, but remedy that with their release of an AR twitter product called Flyar for your PC.
What is Flyar?
Flyar is a free Twitter visualization application that uses Augmented Reality and gesture interaction. You can set it as your screensaver or just play around with it.
It uses your webcam to create an augmented video image, enabling you to visualize incoming tweets (from your account or a general feed) in a twitteresque setting that you can interact with.
How does it work?
Flyar uses your webcam to create an augmented reality image where birds fly or hang around tree branches and fly towards you to deliver tweets. The birds represent incoming tweets, and their color represents different types of messages: blue for normal messages, green for replies and red for direct messages.
When a bird is standing on a branch it means you have a new message. With just a tap you can “call” him and he’ll fly to your side to deliver the tweet (only one bird at a time). You can also interact with the birds by disrupting their flight patterns, or affect the falling leaves. The flock of birds flying around tells you how many messages you have waiting to be read.
It works as a screensaver which means it’ll be active when you come back to your computer. Later on when the technology develops and I’m wearing my Vuzix AR920 Wraps, I’ll have the eyeball space to wait for a bird to deliver my tweet where ever I am. In the meantime, AR birdies delivering my message will be desk-bound only.
YDreams also released a compilation video of their products. The montage goes through examples of AR sightseeing, museums, interactive catalogs, advertising, books, full-body motion capture and a slightly creepy playground.
I’m not sure how the interactive playground works, but it’ll mean we can finally play with our imaginary friends for real.
[…] this week’s video comes from YDreams, and you have probably seen it before. It’s called Flyar, and it’s an interactive screen saver that shows you Twitter updates […]