GSMA hooks up with Metaio for AR guide to MWC

Rating: See the MWC 2012 ad spring to life in augmented reality

Explore the Mobile World Congress of 2012 in augmented reality thanks to an alliance between leading augmented reality(AR) specialist, Metaio, and the show’s organiser – the GSMA (GSM Association). The pair offer owners of Android or IOS device the opportunity to walk through an interactive 360° world view of the conference. Or to make the print advertisement come to life in 3D. The actual AR layar seems to have been created for the GSMA by TAB Worldmedia – a Dutch company. We wondered why only Android and iOS devices were covered but then we realised, of course, that Metaio has only created its Junaio AR plug-in for those two mobile OS. So visitors to Barcelona with BlackBerries or W7 Mango handsets (like the Nokia Lumia 800) are left out in the cold. Anyway, TAB Worldmedia says that it, “helps premium brands realise their mobile augmented reality strategy on the highest innovation level.

As a fully independent and private agency, we create and publish interactive augmented reality content to all public AR enabled mobile browsers and apps.”
The company also promises to “help boost your business into the future of global or hyper local mobile marketing.” We’re not sure what hyper local is.

If you point you mobile phone’s browser at the right MWC 2012 page http://m.mobileworldcongress.com/, you can download the junaio AR plug-in.

We expected to be taken directly to the MWC AR layar. However, you have to search for it. It should be under MWC12 360° Experience.

There’s another one which should work with the MWC 2012 ad. The blurb tells you that all you need to do is point the junaio browser at the ‘eye’ in the MWC 2012 advert and scan it.

On our third try, it worked and we could see a montage of icons floating in the handset’s browser. Very impressive.

It’s actually a good ambassador for mobile AR after all.