Digital Dressing Room — Not sure if you want to buy that watch without trying it on? Nuevo Watches might have an answer for you. The Canadian watch maker’s new iPhone app leverages the phone’s camera to let users to try on watches before purchasing them. It’s a simple, but brilliant form of augmented reality that blends real and virtual worlds to help consumers make more informed purchasing decisions. Let’s see if major retailers catch on so you don’t have to return that unexpectedly hideous shirt you bought online.
Healthy Alternative — Barcode scanning is nothing new with iPhone users. NeoReader, RedLaser are just a few apps that enable users to compare prices and check out brand websites while in store. The UK Fooducate iPhone app uses scanning technology to allow consumers to retrieve nutrition info in the search to find the healthy alternatives to their favorite foods. The app blends the sometimes overwhelming grocery shopping experience with mobile tech to offer customers healthy alternative to their favorite, unhealthy foods.
3D Gifts — Virtual gifts are nothing new. You might even have a couple from your Facebook friends. But a 2D digital badge espousing how you’re a “Friend for Life” makes you say “eh” when compared to the Little World Gifts iPhone app. The app provides 3D boutique gifts such as bowler hats, chili peppers, balloon dogs and a series of other fun trinkets for your digital bookshelf. Brands have even jumped in the digital gift giving mix. The Tate museum partnered with Little World to promote its “Picasso: Peace and Freedom” exhibit with 3D versions of the artist’s “Monument to the Spaniards who Died for France.”
The Digital Piggy Bank — The piggy bank has long-been the standard for parental instruction on savings. Ekomini is dusting off the old piggy bank and giving it a digital makeover. The digital, coin-reading piggy connects to a computer to track children’s’ savings over time while teaching them about financial responsibility. The software incorporates planning, goal-setting and price comparisons — all helpful tools for a healthy financial future. Ekomini also wants to inject social responsibility into their digital piggy platform by showcasing charities.
Prediction
The combination of consumer empowerment via technology and the hundreds of thousands of brands that compete for their attention, the merging of the real and digital worlds will gain momentum in 2011. Augmented reality, in particular, will play a more significant role in how consumers entertain themselves.
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