Hamburger steak, Voice actress and AR

Japan's Denny's is executing the campaign for the hamburger steak using AR and popular voice actress Aya Hirano.

Aya Hirano is very popular voice actress(seiyū) and J-Pop singer. She is known by the voice of Haruhi Suzumiya from "The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya".

Denny 'Management company SEVEN & i Food Systems released two AR application for this campaigns.

D Gold AR and GAME
http://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/d-gold-ar-game/id406649186?mt=8

D Silver AR and GAME
http://itunes.apple.com/jp/app/id407203606?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D4
*There are not only the iPhone application but also the Android application

 When you read a menu, you may find the AR marker there.

Then, let's use "D Silver AR and GAME".

 Start screen of application

Let's start the camera.

CG animation of Aya Hirano appears when you photograph an AR marker with the smartphone's camera.

 Afterwards, the screen changes into the menu introduction.

While you watch AR contents in this way, the hamburger steak food which did order arrives. (I forgot to take the hamburger steak!)

And you get such an AR card when you pay the bill.

Then, let's use "D Gold AR and GAME".

Then, Aya Hirano's different version of CG animation appears. She moves and talks!


After this, the application changes to the serial code input screen.

When you input the serial code described in the AR card...

You can watch a special movie of Aya Hirano. The special movie has four patterns in all, but the AR card is distributed at random. If you want to watch all movies, it's necessary to go to Denny's a lot, and collect cards.

The distribution of the cards are carried out until January 23. And, the limit of contents is January 31. Hurry up!

Tsukuba University's Second Life Machinima

It's cool works!



Japan's Tsukuba University Computational Intelligence and Multimedia Laboratory shoots a PV with 3D virtual world Second Life.
Akira Yamamoto shoot a this works(He is a movie director at real life).

Akira Yamamoto's website
http://playgroundofsecretbase.blogspot.com/

This PV is used for student invitation and a demonstration of Laboratory.

A lot of Tablet in Comic Market

I went to world's largest self-published comic book fair "comic market(Comiket)" at the end of last year.

What comic market ? via Wikipedia

This event is a sacred place of the otaku. And it's the place that can know the most tip of the Japanese contents industry.

I was able to watch the "change" that was here this time. It is that a lot of creators were using the tablet. iPad, Kindle, galaxy Tab......(and a little PSP, too). There were a lot of people who were using iPad.

In last summer, there were a few people who used tablet. Main users were the people who wrote a novel as the people who made a game. But, I was able to watch tablet with every genre this time. There was even Cosplayer which showed a collection of own Cosplay photographs on iPad.

The e-books correspondence of the publisher in Japan is much later than foreign countries. But Japanese creators begin to make e-books steadily.

JUMP FESTA

On December 19, I went to JUMP FESTA.

JUMP FESTA is Japanese exposition event, all about anime comic, game, movie and music, sponsored by Shueisha. There are various exhibition booths about comic magazine brand "JUMP".

via Wikipedia

There was a lot of exhibition such as e-Books, Social game, Social apps for iPhone/Android, 3D film and AR about new technology this year.

TECMO KOEI HOLDINGS CO., LTD.'s new social game of dating sim for women.


Japanese mobile carrier KDDI collaborated with popular comics "ONE PIECE"

KDDI exhibited AR contents of ONE PIECE which used new Android smartphone "IS03". It used a palm as an AR marker. Characters of ONE PIECE appeared there when I shaded a palm with a camera of IS03 which started application. Because this AR contents are JUMP FESTA-limited, so we can't usually watch this. I wish we can watch this again.

KDDI × ONE PIECE goods

1000 students gathered in the job fair in AmebaPigg

It is not already unusual that the job fair is held in virtual world. But, are there the company holding a serious job fair in the "cute" 2D virtual world? CyberAgent utilizes their virtual world "AmebaPigg" for job fair.

Now, CyberAgent strengthens overseas development, andpush forward the employment of the engineer for the development of the Android application. However, all niversity student may not live in the metropolitan area(CyberAgent holds a "real" job fair only in Tokyo and Osaka).

Last month, they held job fair in AmebaPigg for the university students who graduate from a university in spring, 2012. Then about 1,000 students gathered there. 40% logged in among them from country area and the foreign countries.

This cute avatar is CyberAgent CEO Susumu Fujita(Himself operates it properly!)

Then avatars of five employees appeared and did Q&A session with students.

As for job fair, the examples that used 3D virtual world and a virtual event system were found till now. Most of them are serious. All the participants wear suit and avatars are real graphic... But, CyberAgent and AmebaPigg proved that job fair could hold even cute 2D virtual world.