Category: Event

Mobile World Congress 2016: Buying Location-Based Mobile Ads By Keyword

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
The 2016 Mobile World Congress continues today in Barcelona, Spain, where several mobile ad tech vendors are promoting their tools capable of making the shift from online to real-world advertising. Among them, xAd‘s new ad-buying tool called MarketPlace seems particularly interesting, for it claims to make buying location-based mobile ads on a global scale as easy as buying a keyword-based search campaign.

The xAd MarketPlace is built off data from 100 million locations around the world the company has collected in recent years, each tagged with keywords – such as “fast food lovers,” “car dealerships,” or, more precisely, “KFC stores” and “BMW lots” – that reflect specific groups of places that marketers would want to target with mobile ads. Advertisers buying certain keywords will have their mobile ads served to consumers in all locations with those tags, targeting potential consumers by their behavior (where they are visiting) instead of demographics.

This innovative ad-buying tool currently powers ads in 70,000 apps reaching 300 million global users, according to xAd, and KFC, Starcom Mediavest Group, and iHeartMedia are among a handful of brands that have tested it.

What Brands Need To Do
For brands looking to reach a global audience based on interests and behavioral data, this new tool from xAd offers a streamlined platform to conduct a location-based campaign. The locations are tagged based on consumer interests, and showing up at those tagged locations definitely make those consumers desirable targets for brands to reach. As mobile ads continue to evolve, we anticipate more new ad buying tools like these to pop up and bridge the gap between mobile and real-world advertising.

 

Source: AdWeek

 

Header image courtesy of mluxurystyle.com

 

Mobile World Congress 2016: Virtual Reality Becomes A Step Closer To Reality

Posted on by Lab Team

What Happened
On the first day of the 2016 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, several brands eagerly shared news about their latest development in virtual reality.

The HTC Vive, which made its big debut at MWC last year, returns with an official $799 price tag,a preorder date of February 29th, and an early April ship date. HTC also announced that its Vive headset will integrate some phone functions on both iOS and Android to allow users to answer calls, check text messages, and view calendar reminders without removing the headset. Similarly, LG is also making its entry into the burgeoning VR market with a pair of new products: the lightweight and compact LG 360 VR headset and the LG 360 CAM for capturing spherical photos and video. LG partnered with Google for easy sharing of videos to YouTube 360 and photos can even be uploaded right to Google Street View.

Samsung also returned to Barcelona with an aggressive push for its Gear VR headsets. The company made the consumer version of Gear VR available for $99.99 in November last year, and now it is giving out the VR headset for free with the purchase of its new Galaxy 7 phone for a limited time period. Samsung also brought in Mark Zuckerberg for its press event to talk up Facebook’s partnership with Samsung to support 360-degree videos on Facebook and working to make the VR experience more social. Moreover, Samsung also unveiled the Gear 360 camera that is just smaller than a baseball and aims to make shooting and sharing 360-degree photos and videos easier.

What Brands Need To Do
In line with what we saw at CES earlier this year, the news from MWC shows that virtual reality is quickly gaining momentum as a nascent medium, as more and more companies start developing affordable, consumer-facing VR headsets, as well as the tools for capturing, creating, and sharing 360-degree content. While virtual reality technologies may still be a few years away from mass adoption, as we predicted in the 2020 section in our Outlook 2016, companies like Samsung and Facebook are laying the groundwork for that to happen. For brands, this means that it is time to start exploring what VR technologies have to offer and consider developing branded VR content to excite and engage consumers with immersive experiences.

 

Header image courtesy of mluxurystyle.com

Outlook 2016 Event: Conversational Interfaces

Posted on by Lab Team

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This is the first in a series of videos recapping our Outlook events, each highlighting one theme from our Outlook 2016.

This event focused on the role Conversational Interfaces play in shaping the future of brand communications, featuring three industry insiders on the panel discussion:

  • SoundHound | Michael DiNuzzo, Sr. Director of Sales, East & Midwest 
  • MSG.ai | Puneet Mehta, Founder and CEO 
  • x.ai | Alex Poon, Founder and COO 

For more information on our Outlook 2016, please visit our Outlook Website. If you’d like to attend one of our future events, please reach out to our Client Services Director Samantha Barrett ([email protected]).

CES 2016: Lenovo To Launch First AR-Capable Smartphone With Google’s Project Tango

Posted on by Lab Team

Today at CES, Chinese PC-maker Lenovo announced that it has inked a deal with Google to create the first smartphone with Augmented Reality (AR) capabilities. Set to launch later this year, this yet-to-be-named phone will incorporate Google’s Project Tango technologies to let user take 3D-scanning of the surrounding environment and superimpose information and digital images onto those images.

Project Tango, launched by Google in 2014, has gotten off to a rather slow start, and this new partnership with Lenovo could spell great opportunities for Google to push AR technologies into the consumer market.

For more of the Lab’s CES coverage, click here.

 

Header image courtesy of Lenovo’s Twitter

CES 2016: These Smart Wireless Earplugs Will Send You To Sleep

Posted on by Lab Team

There’s no shortage of wireless headphones and earplugs at this year’s CES, but Hush’s smart earplugs stands out for its unique function. Instead of focusing on great sound quality or customizable shapes, Hush is designed to block out the noise by crooning sleep-inducing sounds into your ears and help you fall asleep.

Users can choose the sleep sounds of their choice via Hush’s smartphone app and load it onto the smart earplugs, which helps to preserve the phone’s battery. It will also recognize the alarm you set on your phone and play it to wake you up on time. As more and more everyday devices become connected with the smartphone and gain new functionality, we expect to see more smart gadgets like this infiltrate our daily life.

For more of the Lab’s CES coverage, click here.

Header image courtesy of Hush Technology’s Website

 

CES 2016: ModiFace Brings Next-Gen Smart Mirror To Retail

Posted on by Lab Team

Smart mirrors that virtually change outfit or makeup for customers are exactly new – Ralph Lauren has started testing smart mirrors created by Oak Labs at its NYC flagship store. But at CES 2015, ModiFace came out with a new smart mirror that brings interactive mirrors to the next level. Not only can it change makeups on demand with great accuracy, it can also be programmed to simulate skin-care, anti-aging, teeth whitening, and contact lens effects on users’ live 3D videos. It even features gesture control in some makeup selections that allow users to change lipstick colors by kissing the camera or changing their eye shadows by raising their eyebrow.

Dubbed ModiFace Mirror HD, it is available for brands to customize for their products and put to use in stores today. For brick-and-mortar retailers, especially those in fashion and cosmetics, this offers a great new tool to engage shoppers in stores and encourage on-site sampling.

For more of the Lab’s CES coverage, click here,

 

Header image courtesy of ModiFace

 

CES 2016: Intel Unveils 3D-Printed Connected Dress

Posted on by Lab Team

This year at CES, we are seeing a lot of connected clothing that tracks biometric data for fitness and health purposes. Among them, the “Adrenaline Dress” showcased by Intel caught our eyes. Its namesake came from the fact that our muscles expand when our adrenaline level is high. With built-in Curie computing module made by Intel, the dress can monitor your adrenaline level based on the conductivity of your skin, and can expand and contract itself accordingly so that it would always remain a perfect fit. For now, it is only a prototype made entirely with a 3D printer, but it points to an exciting new possibility for the next generation of wearables.

 

For more of the Lab’s CES coverage, click here.

CES 2016: YouTube Keynote Session Promises Digital Video Domination

Posted on by Lab Team

Earlier today, Chief Business Officer of YouTube Robert Kyncl took the stage at CES 2016 to deliver a keynote session on the growth and future of digital video. He kicked off the session with a bold yet reasonable prediction that by the end of the decade, digital video will be the thing that people spend most time on besides sleeping and working. Throughout his keynote address, he laid out four key reasons why digital video, and YouTube by implication, will dominate our future media landscape.

Mobile

Digital videos may have started out on the desktops, but it is inherently fitted to transit onto the mobile screens. Where TV has struggled to go mobile, YouTube took the plunge long ago, and now more than half of YouTube’s traffic comes from mobile devices as consumers become increasingly used to consume media on mobile devices.

Music

“Half of teens today use YouTube as their primary music streaming source,” Kyncl pointed out. To capitalize on YouTube’s vast library of music and music videos, YouTube Music Key is now included in YouTube’s subscription service Red. Scooter Braun, the man who discovered Justin Bieber on YouTube and made him into a star, took the stage and shared some insights into YouTube’s impact on the music industry.

Diverse Content

Kyncl also counts YouTube’s diverse content as one of its strength. “YouTube is a democratic platform, which allows everyone to create a video for anyone,” he said, and that’s why YouTube has something for everyone. Therefore, digital videos are choice-based viewing, and YouTube holds the biggest content library for viewers to choose from.

Immersive Content

Looking ahead, YouTube is betting on spherical videos and VR-mode viewing to be the next big thing in digital video. Kyncl invited Nick Woodman, CEO of GoPro on stage to talk about the allures of 360-dgree videos, and announced a partnership between YouTube and GoPro, which aims to help create more immersive content on YouTube using GoPro’s 360-degree cameras.

 

For more of the Lab’s CES coverage, click here.

CES 2016: What’s New And Hot In VR and AR

Posted on by Lab Team

With Oculus Rift set for its late March ship date, it seems like Virtual Reality is making its first step towards the consumer market. Besides Oculus, the show floor at CES 2016 is abuzz with a number of lesser-known players in the VR and AR spaces showcasing their newest products. Here are some of the Lab’s favorites.

Avegant Glyph
Elegantly designed as a one-piece VR audio-visual headset, Avegant Glyph (pictured) offers users a personal theater experience that integrates the screen into the band of headphones.

Orcam
Designed for those with sight disability, Orcam is a pair of smart AR glasses that read out the name of what you point to.

Solos
Solos showcases their cycling AR glasses that put performance and fitness data right in cyclists’ field of vision.

NASA VR
Using both Google Cardboard and the Oculus DK 2, NASA let attendees experience a few of their VR apps to inspire and educate about space.

Krush Moveo/ooVoo
The Krush products offer a 4D experience with a free-rotating VR simulation pod that allow users to experience virtual reality content in 360-degree.

LeTV’s LeVR Headset
LeTV, a Chinese streaming service is also showcasing a relatively new and lower-end VR headset that uses its smartphone as a display. The company made headlines earlier with its partnership with Qualcomm on its newest phablet LeTV Max Pro.

Immersit
Immersit makes a 4D motion platform that moves furniture in sync with the VR experiences users are watching.

Vuzix
Vuzix is showcasing its newest VR headset named iWear Wireless Video Headphones, which allows users to stream 3D, and 360-degree VR movies directly from the internet, as well as two more industrial-facing AR glasses.

 

For more of the Lab’s CES coverage, click here.

 

Header image courtesy of Avegant Glyph’s Kickstarter Page

CES 2016: Samsung’s Keynote On Its IoT Solutions

Posted on by Lab Team

This morning, the Lab attended Samsung’s keynote address to hear what Dr. WP Hong, President of Samsung SDS, have to say about Samsung’s IoT solutions. Here are some highlights from his keynote.

Devices In Sync With Real Life

Samsung is set on bringing connectivity to every facet of the modern life, showcasing a slew of IoT devices it has: its new smart fridge “Family Hub Refrigerator” in the kitchen, the new quantum dot display SUHD smart TV in the living room, a smart car integration through a partnership with BMW, and a new powerful bio-processor for fitness trackers we wear. All these new devices are aimed to serve one purpose – sync up modern consumers’ daily life no matter where they are. The company even partnered with Ascott to develop “the Internet of Real Estate,” where all connected devices in the same building will be centrally connected to create the smart buildings of the future.

Open Platform And “IoTivity”

Dr. Hong stressed at the beginning of the keynote about Samsung’s belief in the benefits of an open IoT platform and its commitment in giving the consumers more control with true interoperability among its devices (or as Dr. Wong calls it, “IoTivity”). To that end, Samsung is working closely with Microsoft to make sure its new 2-in-1 tablet Samsung TabPro S, which runs Windows 10, is capable of controlling the smart home devices plugged into its IoT platform with Cortana.

IoT Brings New Security Challenges

With a wide-ranging IoT devices and an open platform come some great security challenges. To solve those new security issues, Samsung developed Samsung Knox, a security protocol built into its IoT platform, which banks like Goldman Sachs is already using to create new security measures for their enterprise IoT devices. Moreover, it has also developed a set of Security Solutions for its smart TVs to ensure the data transferring between smart home devices and smart TVs is safe and secure.

 

For more of the Lab’s CES coverage, click here.