Social Nerdia was at the live taping of The Engadget Show in New York City. Lucky Charms is not a sponsor, but the cereal sure got a lot of attention thanks to Fable III’s designer Peter Molyneux. Watch the video with Somerlea to know why.

Here’s the story on Engadget’s site.

Lisa Murphy is the Product Marketing Manager for Metaio, a company that develops software products for visual interactive solutions between the real and the virtual world.

Metaio is responsible for some of the coolest augmented reality implementations and they recently partnered with Time Out New York Kids to bring P.S.22′s famous YouTube video to your phone through mobile AR (via their Junaio browser). It’s a brave new AR world and Metaio is one of the companies leading the charge.

1) From movie posters to Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, augmented reality marketing is generating a lot of buzz. However, the usage and awareness of AR is still not very high. Is buzz the ultimate goal in AR marketing today?
 
Buzz is definitely a goal for brands and it sometimes is the ultimate goal. But for many others, brands are looking beyond the buzz to deliver an interactive brand engagement experience or help drive sales of their products. For example, LEGO, a partner of ours, created the LEGO Digital Kiosk installation at their retail stores. The LEGO Digital Kiosk allowed shoppers to see a 3D model of the actual LEGO toy with animations and sound right on top of the product package when held to the kiosk. ( )In this execution, LEGO not only created a buzz, a great brand experience, but also sold more products as a result of the experience. (more…)

Touchscreens have been around for a while now. We’ve become used to them thanks to the wide array of small and personal mobile devices we carry on our pockets, manipulating them to open and close windows, zoom in and out on maps, and bring data to life as we move, swipe, hold, and press pixels. No longer do we have to think about interacting with computing devices with one single point of interaction. And no longer are we limited by a stylus, a mouse, or even a keyboard. Today, our fingers give us access to a wealth of digital information that we could only imagine decades ago.

While the mouse is still the main way in which we talk to the desktop, but that is certainly starting to change. I’m not saying the mouse is going away, but it’s starting to feel old, tired, and full of limitations. Its only a matter of time before all screens are controlled by our touch, and new and exciting applications that are manipulated by two, three, four or more points of interaction become the norm, not the exception.

Watch the various videos in this post to see the Microsoft Surface and Windows Phone 7 Series in action, as well as parts of the SXSW Interactive 2010 presentation “That Game Feels Nice: Tomorrow’s Touch Interaces” about Win7 touch games by Microsoft’s Amish Patel and Fuel Industries’ Philip Glofcheskie.

(more…)

The Social Nerdia Show! Episode #20 is now available for streaming below, on blogtalkradio, or as a podcast on iTunes.

In this episode, @socialnerdia and first-time co-host @domineconcept talk about the latest..

Tech News: eBay finally sells a large portion of Skype, personalized in-videogame ads, Augemented Reality in your eyes with Wi-Fi in your brain, Wikipedia color schemes

Not-So Tech News: Disney acquires Marvel, Fox’s Twitter commentaries on re-runs, and Macaulay Culkin rumored to be real father to MJ’s “Blanket”

Upcoming Movie Releases: Gamer, Extract, Amreeka

Upcoming Music Releases: They Might Be Giants – Here Comes Science, Derek Webb – Stockholm Syndrome, David Bazan – Curse Your Branches, Andrew WK – 55 Cadillac, The Used – Artwork

Randomized Topic of the Day: Crowdsourcing (CP+B / Brammo, Fiat)

Announcement: Don’t forget!!! Today’s the last day to vote for SXSW panels… Please vote for “Here Come All the Latino Bloggers“ http://bit.ly/votesxsw

Guitar Hero changed the way we play video games by allowing us to actually feel like we’re playing instruments with a real band. Even non-gamers appreciate the social aspects of the game.

With several titles across all consoles, the game has evolved into one of the best selling franchises ever.

To promote the new “Guitar Hero Smash Hits” game, Activision has put on a interactive award show in which people vote online for their favorite riffs, vocals, breakdowns, and more. All in all there are 9 categories and 48 nominees in the “Guitar Hero Smash Hits Music Awards 2009“, based on the songs on the game (which comes out June 16th).

(more…)

Microsoft showed new Xbox 360 games (including Metal Gear Solid) and exciting new features for Xbox Live at a very impressive E3 Press Conference today.  Here are the highlights (and a few images!). Note: No Hulu integration, but who knows, maybe next year..

Xbox Live integration with Twitter! This has to be the best part of the announcement. Twitter on all 3 screens is fantastic for everyone.

Integration with Facebook! Customized Facebook experience for the living room. Integrates Facebook Connect. Real-time. Great design.

Integration with last.fm!  (more…)