Call it Projector Runway. Diane von Furstenberg made a splash with her collection that debuted Sunday during the New York Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2013 shows — and not just for her chic prints and flowing palazzo pants.

The New York-based designer also put Google Glass augmented reality glasses on the catwalk, with her models wearing the high-tech specs and capturing the action on the runway (more on that below).

Also wearing the web-enabled specs at the show: Google co-founder Sergey Brin and von Furstenberg (who addressed Googlers on her vision back in 2006) herself.Continue reading...

One example of Apple rivals jostling for the spotlight ahead of the now-confirmed iPhone 5 announcement foreshadowed on Sept. 12th: Nokia has been teasing its Sept. 5th mobile announcement in London with a series of videos on the brand's YouTube channel.

Nokia's new smartphone teaser campaign started with a flirtatious blonde bicyclist in "Things are about to change" on Aug. 29th, shifting gears to a blonde-cropped Jean Seberg lookalike in three teasers today — "Stay tuned!" "Nearly there!" and "One. More. Day."

The narrative hints at (a) augmented reality, as she goes shoe-shopping (and winds up with a pair of red canvas TOMS slip-ons) and (b) wireless charging and syncing for the new Lumia Windows 8 smartphones, as our heroine confronts the tangle of cables in her apartment:Continue reading...

Every August, IKEA fans look forward to the thunk of the furniture store's new catalog in their mailbox or doorstep. Those days may be packing up — IKEA US has announced that its 2013 catalog being shipped to homes next month will be pre-released as a digital version on July 31, including relaunching its IKEA Catalog App for smartphone or tablet with a digital twist this year: augmented reality.Continue reading...

Film: Ice Age: Continental Drift (20th Century Fox)
Total Products Spotted: 0
Standout Placement: N/A
Most Memorable Placement (positive): N/A
Most Memorable Placement (negative): N/A
Overall Product Placement Integration Grade (1-10): N/A
Comments: It's a real challenge to justify brand-based references and jokes in a film that's mean to take place tens of thousands of years ago. It's even harder to legitimately place a product on the screen. That's why product placement in animated features set in Ye Olde Pre-Marketing Times is scarce and left to contemporary kid pics like Madagascar 3 while, like ancient Scotland-set Brave, the Ice Age franchise — the new #1 movie at the box office following the weekend opening of Ice Age: Continental Drift — is left to drift product placement-less. Offscreen, however, the film put together a wooly mammoth's worth of tie-ins and marketing muscle, well beyond augmented reality and a Dark Knight Rises spoof. Continue reading...

In addition to the expected kids' marketing tie-ins such as a McDonald's Happy Meal promotion, Ice Age: Continental Drift  opens in movie theaters today with a mobile campaign it hopes moviegoers will find cool: GoldRun’s augmented reality mobile app.

Using the free photo app, available for iPhone and Android, fans can pose with more than a dozen characters, including Scrat, narrated by Chris Wedge, Manny (Ray Romano), Diego (Dennis Leary) and Sid (John Legquizamo), from the fourth film (expected to top the box office this weekend) in the wildly popular Ice Age series.Continue reading...

It's hard to say which is cooler news out of IBM's research labs — the development of plastic ninjas to destroy deadly bacteria, or the news that it's testing augmented reality shopping, "like applying search or a personalized version of Google Goggles to the world of physical store shelves,” as Ad Age puts it.

IBM's mobile app acts like a personal shopping assistant, giving consumers personalized product information while they browse. Consumers download it, then input selection criteria, such as, a low-sugar, high-fiber breakfast cereal, then pan the shelves with their mobile device’s camera across the cereal shelf to identify products that match. 

When the app recognizes a product, the AR technology overlays digital details on the image, such as price, ingredients, and discounts, even providing same-day coupons and loyalty points.Continue reading...

In a first for the NFL and Tiffany, and to celebrate the unveiling of their Super Bowl XLVI championship ring, the New York Giants are inviting fans to share in the moment.

Big Blue die-hards around the world will be able to virtually “try on” and take photos with the Tiffany & Co.-designed ring, as well as each of the team’s three previous Super Bowl rings, using a free augmented reality mobile app by GoldRun. Participants will also be able to pose with the coveted Lombardi Trophy.Continue reading...

While The Five-Year Engagement with Jason Segal and Emily Blunt is poised to take top spot at the box office this weekend, the real fan/brand frenzy is a week away.

Prepare yourselves for Hype Overload: Marvel’s The Avengers movie is opening on May 4th and the plan is for the company to have more than 600 (!) pieces of merchandise tied to the film at Walmart alone. You can be sure every character — Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, The Hulk, Hawkeye and Black Widow — will get his or her toys, gear, and apparel as part of the merchandising blitz.

A great deal, if not all, of these products will be found in the aisles of Walmart, where fans of the film will also be able to use a nifty augmented-reality app tied to the film in order to locate the Marvel-ous merchandise (and not just on a T-Mobile phone, as shown in Walmart's video above).Continue reading...