Star fronts the nation’s largest-ever interactive Augmented Reality stunt to launch the Nokia Lumia 800 smartphone
Sydney, Australia -Friday 16 March 2012. Today, Nokia Australia invited people to test out their dancing skills against an interactive Augmented Reality (AR) version of music star Timomatic to launch the Nokia Lumia 800, the company’s first smartphone with Windows Phone.
People in Sydney’s Martin Place saw themselves projected onto a giant, 12 square metre screen where they were challenged to a virtual dance-off with Timomatic.
The stunt, part of a nationwide tour called ‘Lumia Live’, is the largest interactive AR project to hit Australia aimed at demonstrating key features of the new smartphone in a virtual, interactive way.
Famed for his jaw dropping performances on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ and ‘Australia’s Got Talent’, Timomatic broke into the Australian music scene late last year with his debut single ‘SET IT OFF’, which provides the soundtrack to the AR stunt.
Speaking about his involvement in the campaign, Timomatic said, “I was pumped about working with Nokia on this project. I loved the idea of combining cutting-edge technology like Augmented Reality with my passion for music and dance.
“The footage was filmed in a studio and we experimented with a range of dance moves, both free-style and choreographed. It’s pretty amazing to see it all come together like that on the big screen,” he said.
The dance-off with Timomatic was just one of three Nokia Lumia 800 experiences that people could interact with. Each experience demonstrated a key attribute of the phone and was represented by a ‘tile’, which is on the phone’s home screen.
The Nokia Music tile provides access to more than 15 million tracks and comes with new music services such as Mix Radio, a free music streaming service and Gigfinder, which finds local music events in your area. The Nokia Drive tile turns your phone into a fully-featured sat nav with free voice guided turn-by-turn navigation, and the Marketplace tile provides access to thousands of popular apps.
The Nokia Lumia 800 AR stunt takes these experiences one step further by not just augmenting what people see and hear but puts them at the centre of the action.
To activate an experience people stepped onto a mat, powered by Xbox Kinect and touch sensors, and were surprised to see themselves projected onto a huge video screen. They then selected a tile with their feet triggering the on screen, fantasy experience where they could sing and dance alongside Timomatic, kick an Angry Birds’ character or pet a kangaroo trying to find his way back to Uluru.
Nokia’s head of marketing, Jolaine Boyd, said, “Nokia Lumia is a completely new proposition from Nokia and getting people to experience and judge the phone for themselves is key.
“What we love about this stunt is that it allows people to experience some of the great features of the phone in a new and exciting way. Judging by people’s reactions, they were amazed and impressed by what they experienced today,” she said.
AR works by pulling graphics out of a screen or computer display and integrates them into real-world scenarios. The technology blurs the line between what’s real and what’s computer-generated by enhancing what people see or hear.
The Lumia Live AR tour locations
People who fancy trying the ‘Lumia Live’ AR experience for themselves can go along to:
- Brisbane: King George Square – Friday 23rd March
- Melbourne: Federation Square – Saturday 31st March
Photographs from each event will be posted on Facebook at amazingeveryday.com.au where they can be downloaded and shared with friends. You can also follow the conversation online with #LumiaLive.
The Nokia Lumia 800
The Nokia Lumia 800 is an elegant, intuitive and easy-to-use phone, giving people access to a wealth of experiences and features such as music, navigation, apps and one-touch access to your contacts and feeds from Facebook, Linked-in and Twitter through People Hub.
The Nokia Lumia 800 home screen is a grid of live, animated tiles providing up-to-the-minute updates such as social networks status updates, news and weather feeds, email notifications and calendar alerts. Each tile can be tailored to deliver easy access to the applications most often used, for example: a music playlist, a gaming app, a Web page, or an e-mail folder.
The Nokia Lumia 800 is available now through Optus, Telstra, Vodafone and all major retailers for a RRP AUD$699. Nokia’s new, entry-level smartphone – the Nokia Lumia 710 – is also available through Optus, Virgin and major retailers for a RRP AUD$379.