Hasta La Ideas

The augmented reality makeover of an Academy Award-winning short

From the outset, “The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” was imagined as a children’s book. The story is essentially about a man’s magical life among books, and it makes perfect sense as a picture book. Moonbot Studios—founded in part by “Morris Lessmore” author William Joyce—decided to go a different route by producing the story as an animated short. The short ended up winning an Academy award, and Moonbot went on to create an interactive iPad app, which was so wildly successful that it had librarians everywhere fretting about the end of the book as we know it. Now Moonbot and William Joyce have made a physical picture book with an augmented reality app that finally completes the picture for “Morris Lessmore.”

On its own, the book is brilliant. Joe Bluhm provides new illustrations that surely place the book among the top releases of 2012. Imag-N-O-Tron, the downloadable app that brings the book to life, cues voiceover and animated graphics for each spread. “We got a peek at this new technology called augmented reality—which I guess isn’t new now—but it’s new in the way that you are able to target images,” says Moonbot’s Brandon Oldenburg. “That’s where the magic happens. Augmented reality, up until now, always had to target a QR code. Now we’re able to target an illustration.”

Oldenburg points out that those uneasy about the story-telling power of the iPad app were delighted by the harmony of augmented reality. “The app isn’t replacing the book; it’s showing you a way to bridge the gap between the old and the new,” explains Oldenburg. Without overcomplicating the experience, Imag-N-O-Tron keeps the timeless integrity of the printed book while bringing in animated and interactive elements. Moreover, the framework of Imag-N-O-Tron can be used to enable future publications from Moonbot as well.

Oldenburg is right: this certainly isn’t the first time AR has been applied to a book, but it might be the most seamless integration to date. As the capabilities of the technology continue to expand, AR promises a niche future for the printed storybook—a way to bridge the analog-digital divide.

“The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore” available from Moonbot and on Amazon, and you can find Imag-N-O-Tron in the iTunes App Store.

Uncover treasures buried in your inbox with the new app

In the past we lost photos in attics, closets and shoe boxes stuffed under beds. Now, they just as easily go unnoticed deep in the depths of email inboxes. To bring these neglected snaps back to light, Lost Photos weeds through your email account of choice to find any photos that may have gotten forgotten in the shuffle, taking the legwork out of the otherwise tedious task of sifting back through old emails. Simply choose an email account, log in and give it a few minutes to work.

Lost Photos uncovered thousands of .jpg and .gif files among as many emails, taking us back to some of our favorite yet forgotten stories in the past year or so. If you want to expedite the task, the home page lets the user turn off .gif search or skip over images prior to an adjustable date. Once the images start popping up, share them among several social media outlets, or just hit “view photos in finder” to see the results neatly organized by date in a desktop folder.

Whether you’re searching for lost treasures or old assets, Lost Photos seems worth the $3 price tag. Visit Lost Photo online for more details and purchase in the iTunes store.

La trovate su Photojojo.

Streamline digital content with the click of a button

Whether you’re an information junkie or just someone with little time for filtering through the surplus of online content, Reading is designed to help. Founded by Max Fenton—online editor of McSweeney’s “Believer” magazine—and Greg Leppert of Svpply fame, Reading combines the literary and tech worlds for one seamless feed that allows you to see what other people are perusing, or share stories that you find interesting like a personally edited newsreel.

It’s as simple as downloading the bookmarklet and tagging what you’re reading, but you can then also click on one of three buttons that appear in the top right corner—”yep,” “nope” or “share.” Back in your feed, any stories you said yep to will have a green checkmark next to them, and any nopes will be crossed out in red. You can also delete any stories you read and no longer want listed in your feed, like the one on Neopets or about which Silicon Valley women party the hardest.

You can also auto-program your selections to have a “hook,” so that every time you mark something with a yep, for example, it posts to platforms like Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook and more, or conveniently to Instapaper for reading offline.

Reading is a super easy way to share information online and build a community of friends whose reading interests pertain to yours. Even if you don’t make it all the way through your feed, once you’ve amassed a network you can use the search field to enter a topic and see all of the stories related to that that haven been bookmarked by the people you’ve chosen to follow.

To sign up, visit the Reading website.

Gorgeous weather with Hollr’s new iPhone app

Mobile development house
Hollr follows up last year’s
GO HD, a GPS-based app that lets users explore a new dimension of their neighborhood in real time by posting pictures and videos of their daily activities while neighbors do the same. This month the company distinguishes itself yet again with Solar, a simple and visually appealing weather app that turns checking the forecast into a surprisingly enjoyable experience. In the onslaught of recent apps designed to reveal the climate’s intentions for the day, Solar outranks its competitors by shying away from complex interfaces and confusing vector polygons and instead chooses to make high design a priority by sticking to the basics.

The rain-or-shine experience begins by selecting a city of origin, and Solar lets you view the weather for up to four destinations simultaneously with an intuitive double tap or pinch—a winning feature for travelers. The true genius behind the app’s design reveals itself once you hone in on a single location, with a home screen that displays on the time, date, weather condition (rainy, sunny, partly cloudy) and temperature in the upper lefthand corner while a beautiful, hyper-sensorial colorscape fills the background in gradient hues that reflect the time of day. When applicable, an understated animation will fill the display with soft raindrops, dewy fog or snowflakes, but Hollr’s take on this now-standard weather app feature doesn’t go over the top.

Solar’s most winning element comes in the form of its 24-hour forecast: scrolling up prompts the appearance of a simple clock in the screen’s upper righthand corner, its hands advancing through the day as your finger moves northward. The time, date and weather update in corresponding real time as the hours flash by and the aurora-like background undergoes a series of dazzling changes in color combinations. The effect is pleasantly subtle, giving you a more artistic vision of what the day has in store. In the other direction, swiping down brings a three-day forecast into view at the top of the screen, while swiping left-to-right allows you to sift between chosen cities.

Hollr’s newest creation wins out with its minimalist design and unwillingness to burden users with unnecessary information. Though the app doesn’t delve into the technical information required by a sailor or mountain climber, it emerges as the perfect digital addition to any city dweller’s cadre of innovative, simplified applications.

Solar is available for 99¢ in the
iTunes App Store.