From a marketing perspective, the printed symbol requirement makes an excellent tie in for a printed campaign. This is not a recommendation to create a print piece for the sole use of Augmented Reality, but in the days of the ubiquitous URL on all printed material why not use that very same printed advertisement to add to the digital experience.  A good concept still drives good creative, but why not use all the tools we have available to add a little flavor.  I wouldn’t recommend biting into a clove of garlic, but add it to spaghetti sauce and it definitely makes things taste better.  The same concept can be applied to the immense appetite of our consumer minds.

People don’t buy iPhones to talk on the phone.  They buy them because they are cool.  Augmented Reality is the tool that can help us bring a little cool back into the creative and therefore the product.  Kelloggs, Doritos, and LEGO have already leveraged their packaging to integrate Augmented Reality in order to enhance their customer’s digital experience.  This increases brand exposure and cross promotion, because we all know that someone who has purchased the product is more likely to purchase another offering of the same brand.  Augmented Reality has become a digital solution to brand loyalty.

With all of that being said I find myself still wanting more.  Being a geek at heart, I naturally want to see how far we can push Augmented Reality.  So far I have seen a lot of 3D models on top of pieces of paper.  It’s hard to believe that this is the only thing Augmented Reality can do.  After doing a little soul and Google searching I found some of the WiiRemote projects from Johnny Chung Lee then I stumbled upon a video of Jeff Han speaking at the TED conference.  The message was clear.  There is no need for the mouse and keyboard anymore.  Without a doubt the future of our digital experience will be gestural navigation.  That means using our fingers on a touch screen will be the status quo.  The ravenous adoption of the iPhone and its gestural navigation was the ultimate proof of concept for this prediction.  It’s not really a prediction…its already here.  The good news is that Augmented Reality is our transition from the keyboard and mouse.

Using a webcam in our digital projects is no new trick, but with the addition of Augmented Reality and motion detection we have now discovered the potential of digital interaction without a mouse or keyboard.  Don’t put your mouse and keyboard on the shelf yet, but be prepared for the new reality.

Start by going to the Twitter SWX API page.  You will see a full list of methods you can use, but the instructions were a little tricky.  Here is some sample code to get you started.  This is AS3 and is being used with SWX 2.0 beta.  The code below gets the three latest updates from a user timeline.  The TRACE statement only calls one update from the results array.  That should give you a good start.  Here is the source for the people that want it all.

import org.swxformat.*;

var swx:SWX = new SWX();
swx.gateway = “http://www.swxformat.org/php/swx.php”;
swx.encoding = “POST”;
swx.debug = false;

var callParameters:Object =
{
serviceClass: “Twitter”,
method: “userTimeline”,
args: ["username", "password", "username", 3, null],
resultHandler: resultHandler
}

swx.call(callParameters);

function resultHandler(event:Object)
{
// Display the text property of the first result.
trace (event.result[0].text);
}

I am putting together this post in the hopes that someone will find it and have an easier time getting into PureMVC than I did. I found three very useful articles, which helped me understand PureMVC, but the trick was to read them in the correct order. There is also the assumption that you have some understand of OOP and Design Patterns.

Here are the articles to read:

1. Understanding the PureMVC Open Source Framework – Do not download the source.  Read the article and type the code along with the discussion.  This will help you understand and you will have better retention of the material.
2. Minimalist MVC Example – This is a great discussion about what each part of PureMVC does.  Go ahead and download the source, but make sure to adjust import statements for the current AS3 port of PureMVC.  If you read the previous article first you will get alot more from the material in this article.
3. Move The Cheese – Now that you have the Standard version of PureMVC down, you should go on to the Multi-Core version.  This should be a walk in the park since you are already familiar with PureMVC.

This is defnitely a tool for non-developers, but GAIA also has the flexibility to be used by experienced developers.  For PureMVC fans there have been implementations of GAIA on a PureMVC framework.  The nice thing about GAIA is that it allows you to access view assets very easily.  Read more about it here.

I like to have it open when I am coding because I can copy and paste the HEX while seeing all the colors together. This really helps in selecting the proper accent colors.