For some time now, artists, programmers and marketers have been seeking innovative ways to collaborate, to blur the line between art and technology, thereby creating complex systems that merge the real world with the digital world. As the year comes to an end, we have brought a compilation of the best in experiential technology from around the world in 2013. Find out right here.
Nike – House of Deadly
Unless you’re Messi, Ronaldo or Neymar, in this instance, you would have never have had the experience playing a game of football under the floodlights, watched by millions of adoring fans. However, for 400 lucky participants, this is exactly what happened, as Nike created one of the coolest football user experiences that we have seen to date. Nike’s House of Deadly was a ‘stadium’ large scale installation in Bangkok that invited participants to immerse themselves in a truly remarkable user experience that merged the cool of Nike Football and the high-performance of Brazilian superstar Neymar. By using a combination of lights, motion graphics and infrared technology, they broke the experiential mould by bringing the video game experience into the real world.
Pepsi Like Machine
If you’re a sucker for vending machines, wait till you hear about this one. here’s a new Pepsi Sampling Machine from Belgium that dispenses a sample everyone time you like their Facebook Page. Once you get to the front of the line, the vending machine drives you to a mobile site, where you can like the page, and then chose your flavour, just hit the one you want and it will instantly pop out.
Mind Reading Beer Machine
Imagine being able to pour beer with your mind. Well, stop imagining! Castle Lite has made it possible by introducing the world-first Extra Cold Mind Reader. Conceived and developed by digital agency Hellocomputer, this awesome machine is designed to reward you for focusing on ‘extra cold’. The machine utilises an EEG headset, which is calibrated to record the brain waves along the scalp by measuring the brain’s spontaneous electrical activity over a short period of time.
The Extra Cold Mind Reader headset detects specific signals, such as conscious thought, emotion and facial expression and uses these signals to control the operator’s experience. Users are absorbed into a unique sensory experience with interactive lighting, cold air effects, rich immersive visuals and sound in an interactive game, where they must battle hot, distractive scenarios to prove they can maintain their focus on ‘extra cold’. The reward is a minus 4-degree Celsius Castle Lite draught. And the longer you’ve concentrated on ‘extra cold’, the more beer is poured.
Heineken – Departure Roulette
On Monday, Heineken unveiled a marketing stunt in which travelers at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport were asked to ditch their current plans for a game of “Departure Roulette.” Travelers who happened to pass by Terminal 8 were given the opportunity for an adventure of a totally different kind, and asked to exchange their current plans for new ones. Those who decided to take the challenge were then asked to press a red button on a billboard showing them their destination. Those who were spontaneous enough to brave the unknown were rewarded with spectacularly exotic destinations such as Morocco, Thailand and Cyprus. They were also given $2,000 for expenses, along with two free hotel nights for their trip.
Windows 8 – Live Tile Experiment
Microsoft may be under legal fire for the Live Tile functionality in their Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 OS, but that will not stop them from promoting the hell out it. In honor of the Windows 8 world-wide launch, Microsoft executed a surprising marketing stunt in the street of downtown Oslo, Norway on the night of October 26. In collaboration with the popular Norwegian electro-rock band Datarock, a construction team and quite a few participating actors, a false wall was raised between two buildings and a specially designed Windows 8 music tile was accurately placed in front of it. When night fell, a loud party began behind the wall and the Windows 8 music tile lit up. Once stepped on by a curious person passing by, the wall immediately fell down, exposed the party and famous band and dancers spilled out on to the street.
