Friday 18 November 2011

Tesco demonstrates augmented reality with Kishino

As you have no doubt gleaned from the media by now, Tesco is taking augmented reality seriously as a great way of bringing a great experience of our products and services to customers.

Until now, a lot of augmented reality has been marketing led. The experience you get when you use your smartphone or iPad with the Blippar app and point the camera at our ‘Price Drop’ logo you’ll see what I mean. I include the logo below so you can try it on your smart phone with Blippar right now:




The first thing I thought of when I saw augmented reality in action was to consider how it might help customers visualise the size and shape of our products better. This is particularly true of products you can’t see fully-formed such as toy construction kits (for example, lego and airfix models). It’s sometimes difficult to visualise the size of a fully formed kit when its in pieces in a box and all you have to go on is the photo on the box cover.



Here is what you get if you hover an iPad 2 over the image above (click for larger version):


Augmented Reality can also solve a slightly different problem - how about TV sets where you wish you could turn the TV around so you could see what sockets are available on the back?

Problems solved - R&D and marketing teams worked with Kishino (formerly Total Immersion) who are trialling a list of TVs and construction kit products on a web page at:

http://www.tesco.com/augmented-reality

Congratulations to the team at Kishino who have done a great job - and even produced a video demonstrating how it works, available on Youtube:




So go have a play at the web address above and let me know what you think!

5 comments:

  1. This looks very impressive - I'm looking forward to giving it a go.

    I think with this sort of thing, however, in my opinion, it's important to acknowledge the creativity of those that have come before you.

    Instead of saying:

    "The first thing I thought of when I saw augmented reality in action was to consider how it might help customers visualise the size and shape of our products better. This is particularly true of products you can’t see fully-formed such as toy construction kits (for example, lego and airfix models). It’s sometimes difficult to visualise the size of a fully formed kit when its in pieces in a box and all you have to go on is the photo on the box cover."

    This could be read as trying to claim that AR for Lego boxes that show a 3D virtual model of the finished thing was your/Tesco's idea. Which obviously, it's not - as Lego have been doing AR kiosks for years. (I think it was done by the same guys who did your app, initially, before they started working with metaio).

    Say that you want to bring it to more people, or bring it to the mainstream in the UK, or say that you want to bring it into people's homes, or say that you want to extend it beyond Lego models to include stuff like TVs.... these would all be great things to say. (And are all reasons why it's so great that Tesco is doing this sort of work).

    But don't just say that you had a cool idea, and leave it at that. Because people who don't follow the space will be left with the impression that this was all Tesco's original idea.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Dale

    Many thanks for your feedback - appreciated!

    Yes I understand what you are saying. I hope I don't come across about inventing the whole idea - as you say there is the Lego kiosks which do an impressive job.

    On the other hand we were experimenting with Virtual Reality Markup Language (VRML) back in the late '90s hoping to recreate grocery products into VRML. I tried using VRML primitives such as cubes and cylinders and convert them into products in a form of 3D virtual store.

    My notes from the time also show my looking at toy construction models where we had the idea of possibly getting hold of CAD diagrams and translating them somehow into VRML code (we sold a couple of construction models - including a Darth Vadar helmet(!) - through a 'Tesco Direct' catalogue of gift ideas back then).

    However nearly everyone was on dialup modems back then and the internet bandwidth was too narrow to support VRML and 3D in any decent way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hi Nick,

    Tried the augmented reality, but doesn't seem to work on my macbook.

    Any Suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi Nick,

    This is a really good move for Tesco. It would be great to hear feedback as to uptake in the next 3-6 months.

    I have seen a few other retailers trial Augmented Reality recently, and I think it has huge potential for the retail industry.

    Congratulations on implementing this.

    Rob Isaacs
    MoBank

    ReplyDelete
  5. That is some pretty impressive tech, reminds me of playstation move

    ReplyDelete

As this blog grows in readership - and because it carries the Tesco brand - I have had to become more careful about the sort of comments that are acceptable. The good news is that I'm a champion of free speech so please be as praising or as critical as you wish! The only comments I DON'T allow through are:

1. Comments which criticise an individual other than myself, or are critical of an organisation other than Tesco. This is simply because they cannot defend themselves so is unfair and possibly libellous. Comments about some aspect of Tesco being better/worse than another equivalent organisation are allowed as long as you start by saying "in my personal opinion.." or "I think that...". ... followed by a "...because.." and some reasoned argument.

2. Comments which are totally unrelated to the context of the original article. If I have written about a mobile app and you start complaining about the price of potatoes then your comment isn't going stay for long!

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4. Insulting / obscene messages.


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