Augmented Reality 2020: Best Mobile Apps

Today, smartphone users have access to a wide variety of augmented reality applications — for leisure, for navigation, for work and for solving everyday problems. So it's time to talk about the best AR apps of 2020. Here's what you can download and try out right now. Just a Line  [caption id="attachment_1383" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Just a Line[/caption] A new Google Doodle game has arrived. Now we do not draw in Notepad, but immediately in the real world. The Just a Line app lets you draw in augmented reality, take photos and videos with a new image, and send them to your friends. Finish drawing your world. All you need is a smartphone, a finger, and imagination. Download Just a Line: Android, iOS Google Lens [caption id="attachment_1384" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Google Lens[/caption] Google Lens is the latest incarnation of the Google Goggles concept. This is a giant search engine that uses the power of an entire cloud server to recognize texts, images, objects, and places that the camera is pointed at. Point your smartphone camera at any object — a street, a house, a monument, a fountain, or an item of clothing in a store — and Google Lens will tell you everything you wanted to know about it. The app is available in a separate version on Android, and is also embedded in "Google Photos" on Android and IPhone. Download Google Lens: Android Google Maps [caption id="attachment_1385" align="alignnone" width="1280"] Google Maps[/caption] The new version of Google Maps is a more pragmatic augmented reality app. Just turn on AR mode and your smartphone will be your guide anywhere. The intuitive AR app will help you find your way in a big city, complementing reality with signs and arrows superimposed on regular Google panoramas. Download Google Maps: Android, iOS Civilizations AR [caption id="attachment_1386" align="alignnone" width="1920"] Civilizations AR[/caption] The BBC Сivilizations AR app is an interactive sequel to the series of the same name. Here we can see more than thirty artifacts from different eras and civilizations. Thanks to augmented reality, you can hold ancient treasures in your hands and view them from all sides. Each artifact is presented in three dimensions with a circular view. See through artifacts, read and listen to stories about them, and discover ancient secrets of their origin and use. Download Civilizations AR: Android, iOS Quiver [caption id="attachment_1387" align="alignnone" width="640"] Quiver AR[/caption] Augmented reality apps are also available for children. Quiver is a virtual coloring book and probably one of the best children's AR apps. Here the colors come to life. On quivervision.com a large set of images is available: children will have something to paint and who to paint. Cartoon characters, animals, educational pictures and landscapes — everything you color and print will come to life in full, in augmented reality mode.  Download Quiver: Android, iOS Inkhunter [caption id="attachment_1388" align="alignnone" width="620"] Inkhunter[/caption] Inkhunter is a unique augmented reality app for those who want to get a tattoo. Try on a tattoo before you apply it. Select a drawing, draw a marker on the body and point your smartphone camera at it. Inkhunter overlays the image, and you can rotate, move, zoom, and change it in detail - until it finally suits you. Choose from the many drawings in the app itself or upload your own. With Inchunter you will definitely not regret your future tattoo. Download InkHunter: Android, iOS YouCam Makeup [caption id="attachment_1389" align="alignnone" width="648"] YouCam Makeup[/caption] YouCam Makeup — your pocket stylist. An augmented reality selfie camera turns your smartphone into a beauty salon. You can choose and try out lipstick, eyeliner and other make-up from the brands L'oreal, Maybelline and Urban Decay. The app also has social network features: you can share your new image with friends, follow other users, explore and buy tried-and-tested accessories. Download YouCam Makeup: Android, iOS Euclidean Skies [caption id="attachment_1390" align="alignnone" width="2436"] Euclidean Skies[/caption] Euclidean Skies is the only paid app in our review, but we couldn't avoid it. This amazing puzzle game is a combination of the impossible worlds of Escher and Rubik's cube. Here you are a guide to help the adventurer overcome his enemies. To do this, you need not only to move in the playing field, but also to move this field: rotate it and move it. The game has an augmented reality mode: you can place a large, colorful, fancy playing field right in your room. Download Euclidean Skies: iOS These are not all mobile applications with augmented reality that are available today. Follow our publications — there is still a lot of interesting things ahead. ...

How to increase sales in the XXI century: the experience of Russian companies

Let's talk about how to increase sales in the XXI century. To impress a potential customer-viewer, user, gamer, or buyer-you don't need to make a large-scale presentation. You do not need to spend money on renting premises and equipment. There is no point in hiring staff for the event. There is absolutely no need to involve logistics. All you need is to order an augmented reality app. It is possible to increase sales of a product or service, increase traffic and popularity of a place almost immediately. This is shown by the experience of large companies. Today we will tell you about this experience in detail. Task 1: increase sales of Flugel Beer Solution: live label The Flugel Beer brand is known for its original design labels. But now it is also known for augmented reality. Competitors were left far behind when the horned devil depicted on the label spoke to customers. Yes, we didn't just make a two-dimensional animation that runs on a marker on the label. We voiced it — and the beer found its soul.   [caption id="attachment_1409" align="alignnone" width="640"] AR-label for Flugel Beer[/caption] The customer drinks beer, and leaves a bottle with a miracle label as a souvenir. Now it serves as an unobtrusive advertisement. This helps to significantly increase sales and highlight the brand in the market. Task 2: promote new device on the market and increase sales Solution: exact holographic copy in AR Only a holographic copy can be better than a real unit. At least, if you need to demonstrate it to all potential customers. This task was set by Qiagen, a world leader in molecular diagnostics and biological research. The cost of her new device is described by a seven-digit number. Increasing the unit's sales is almost as difficult a task as it is. [caption id="attachment_1410" align="alignnone" width="560"] Qiagen[/caption] ARVAR developed a mobile app with augmented reality, which recreated the device in all its details. Arvar modellers and designers made a photographic copy of the unit inside and out, drawing every detail. The result is a realistic 3D presentation with the effect of real placement. The whole world learned about the device, and sales of Qiagen went up. Task 3: increase real estate sales The solution: the apartment in the apartment Finnish construction company Valeo has ordered a presentation of its new apartments in ARVAR. To improve Valo's sales, we created two virtual models — life-size and miniature. Augmented reality, as it were, took out images from the catalog and expanded them in volume, in all three dimensions. [caption id="attachment_1411" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Apartments in augmented reality[/caption] An exact holographic model with kitchen counters, tables, chairs, chandeliers, decoration — stood up to its full height in fairly large rooms. And the miniature fit everywhere: customers twisted and turned it as they liked and figured out the layout. Visibility and memorability have seriously increased the interest in Valo apartments. Augmented reality has helped the company establish and increase sales. Task 4: increase sales of stores in the shopping complex The solution: Panda-Navigator The Kitay-Gorod shopping and entertainment complex has gathered more than five hundred shops, restaurants and other retail areas in one building. How not to get lost in such a territory? That's right — you need to use navigation in augmented reality. To increase the sales of the complex and its popularity, Kitay-Gorod ordered a three-dimensional dynamic model of the Panda guide from us. [caption id="attachment_1412" align="alignnone" width="1400"] AR Panda in Chinatown[/caption] Arvar modellers, designers, and programmers have created a navigation app that includes this cute panda bear from a marker on the floor. Along with the Panda, a list of stores pops up on the screen. Just click the name and the Panda will lead you to the right place. This app has become an extra reason for residents of St. Petersburg to visit the shopping complex. With its introduction, Kitay-Gorod sales have become even higher. Demonstration in augmented reality makes any product stand out. This is a demonstration, a spectacle, and a mini-attraction in one package. Order augmented reality today to increase the sales — leave your competitors behind. ...

AR technologies in advertising: alcohol is on air again

The alcohol producers were a little discouraged when their ad was taken off television. The elaborate images and concepts went to the trash can. Label design and audio ads in grocery stores were all they could count on. Until recently. The world is changing, sometimes for the better. AR technologies - augmented reality technologies - came to the aid of manufacturers. Now alcohol is on the air again - only not on TV, but on a smartphone. An idle customer just needs to point the camera at the label and he will see a colorful video presentation. She will talk about the drink and present it from the advantageous side. The user is curious. Having seen augmented reality once, he will continue to choose a product with a smartphone in his hands. And very soon alcohol will disappear from his field of vision without augmented reality. Therefore, if you want to stay on the air for a long time, you need to be in the context of time. Order augmented reality for your brand. The world knows many examples of successful promotion using augmented reality. And this is still a new, unusual, untapped advertising market. It is an almost uninhabited island, an unoccupied territory, a wide field for creativity and fertile soil for earning money. How AR technologies are driving sales It all starts with a regular label. To activate augmented reality on it, you need only two things: Marker - it is embedded in the image on the label. Moreover, there is no visual difference between a regular label and a labeled one.  Augmented reality app on your phone or tablet. One program recognizes many markers: the user does not have to install his AR application for each new label. Augmented reality isn't just a sight to behold. Reviving, the image acquires movement, volume, voice. This is an opportunity to create a vivid, memorable environment in continuation of the corporate identity. When a consumer buys beer with an AR label, he buys something more. Sometimes it is a beautiful and colorful scene or a small cartoon. Sometimes - a whole video course about the history and serving of the drink. It can also be a series of enchanting volumetric drawings and animations illustrating the production process. There is always one drink. Pictures can be anything. And other things being equal, the consumer always chooses the one who is brighter, more interesting and bolder about himself. ...