Moderator Monique van Dusseldorp opened the session by telling the audience that the Netherlands are especially good in things like Virtual Reality, Machine vision, Creativity and Technology. What leads us to the first presentation by MediaMonks.
MediaMonks is a creative digital production company and leader in VR projects. Chris Byrne, Global Partnership Monk at MediaMonks, presented their latest 360 VR experience for Etihad Airways. This next-level experience goes above and beyond your imagination, and lets you follow actress Nicole Kidman through the cabins of an Etihad A380, the world’s largest and most luxurious airliner.
Filming in VR is a lot more difficult compared to linear production. The production process took more than 5 months to complete, much longer than a TV production (2 -3.5 months). With a VR production you have to do a lot more work in the post-production, in this case it was much more intense when it came to stitching and compositing.
Why use VR?
In the case of the Etihad project, it allows you to be in a time or a space where you normally could not be. It transports you somewhere, like in a plain, where you probably never could have been. VR also allows you to walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. If you are present in another world, you will get a deeper level of empathy, is the big idea behind this VR campaign.
4 things to think creatively about VR
With their Erihad VR commercial Mediamonks showed the four most important lessons to be really creative with VR:
Video:
Presentation MediaMonks @ NEXT16 from iMMovator on Vimeo.
Info.nl is a creative technology agency dedicated to crafting relevant digital products. Melanie Gorka works as a Digital Design Lead at Info.nl. Technology is fundamentally changing the demands that users are asking for but also the way that things are being build.
At Info.nl they realize that a lot of companies don’t know how to deal with the digital changes happening today. The state of the web has changed a lot in the last few years. In 2005 you were dealing with just 4 different components but companies nowadays are dealing with a lot more technology platforms.
So how would you, as a company who needs to master a new digital transformation, get started in building something new? At Info.nl they know how to create digital strategies for companies so they’re be able to create and to be creative. Info.nl was approached by Graydon, a 100-year old company in the Netherlands, to create a platform that allows them to spinoff and innovate while still remaining their legacy system. Info.nl created a user friendly decision model system that takes the data from Graydon, which allows people to ask for particular information. Melanie: “You need to think beyond user experience by creating experiences for people that enable them to do better with their lives and to have better experiences.”
The lab department of Info.nl conducts a lot of research around the Internet of Things. “The possibility that objects in our lives can be smart and learn things about us, teach us things and allow us to be more efficient is really amazing.” There is a lot of complexity and a lot of components in the Internet of Things. Info.nl has been working with these platforms for a long time and has quite a good idea what the needs are to connecting the offline and online interactions. Info.nl created a platform called connectable.io, which allows you to use sensors.
Video:
Presentation Info.nl @ NEXT16 from iMMovator on Vimeo.
3DUniversum – 3Dscanning made easy
3DUniversum is a start-up company founded in 2014 in Amsterdam by Theo Gevers and Sezer Karaoglu. Sezer: “What you see on your mobile phone or tablet are 2D images. But we live in a 3D world” 3DUniversum invented a low-cost software solution for real-time 3D mobile scanning and recognition.
The innovative technology allows users to scan, view and interact with 3D world objects and scenes around us such as objects, humans and environments. This creates a universe of possibilities to solve real-world problems with a completely new way of thinking. 3DUniversum focusses on 5 different markets Eyewear, healthcare, real estate, home decoration and fashion.
Eyewear: with the 3D scanner people can scan their heads for optimal eyewear placement and digital fitting.
Healthcare: the elderly population in the world is increasing. Healthcare is one of the major concerns. Imagine that elderly people do not need to go to a hospital but can scan their wounds at home which will be sent directly to a doctor. Based on the 3D scans doctors can indicate the terms of the curing process.
Real estate: another big market 3Duniversum focusses on is real estate. Sezer: “How many times you book a hotel room and you are disappointed?” Sites like Booking.com would like to provide trustable services. With a 3D model of the room you can see the size of the room, you have virtually visited the environment. This reduces an amount of dissatisfaction of the users.
Home decoration: also for the home deco market 3D scanning offers great possibilities. Imagine you would like to buy furniture online, for example at Ikea. You can scan your living room, go to the Ikea site, drag and drop it into your virtual 3D room and actually see the furniture in your own living room before you buy it.
Fashion: When you order something online, you can’t try it on. Most of the items we order don’t fit because it is the wrong size and we have to send it back. With 3D scanning you can scan yourself and order the right size so you don’t have to return the item. “Imagine that you walk in a store, let yourself be 3D scanned and see directly which items will fits you best”.
The mission of 3DUniversum is to become the global technology leader in advanced 3D scanning, analysis and printing technologies for the consumer and SME market.
Video:
Presentation 3D Universum @ NEXT16 from iMMovator on Vimeo.
Interview:
Interview Sezer Karaoglu (3DUniversum) @ NEXT16 from iMMovator on Vimeo.
John Ashley Burgoyne is a music data scientist working for The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision on music projects. For one of these projects he collaborates with the Top2000. The Top2000 is a contest on the radio every year about the 20 best songs ever made. Last year 6 million people voted for what they think are the 20 best songs of all time. Between Christmas and New Year’s Eve the 2000 songs are broadcast on the radio. Ashley: “There is a lot of stability in the list, it has not changed too much over time. You can be pretty sure Bohemian Rhapsody from Queen will be in the top 3.”
Hooked on music. What makes a song catchy?
For Ashley, as a musicologist, the data behind the list is very interesting. He wanted to find out what makes music catchy and the difference between a summer hit you will forget next year and a song which will make it to the Top2000 list. He and his team designed a music experiment in the form of a game called: Hooked on Music. People hear a fragment of music, at the moment people recognized the piece of music the sound mutes for 4 seconds and they had to follow along the silence in their head. The game was played 100.000 times in the Netherlands. They’ve collected all the data and the songs that are easiest to recognize where not the most favorite songs from the Top2000 list, but songs like Wannabe from the Spice Girls and Think from Aretha Franklin. Ashley explains: “Why is this interesting for a sound archive? It’s fun to know how to write the next Top2000 hits but also to help users access the archive material.”
Revive: the dating website for archives and artists
The second project focusses more on today’s music. The site is called Revive and is subscribed as a dating website for archives and artists. Electronic musicians are always looking for music to sample, but it’s better if there is a story behind it. On the other hand, you have archives like the Sound and Vision who are often desperate to have their material re-used in a creative way. So they came up with the idea to curate a selection of their archive, invite some artists who can work with this material and give them a challenge: Can you make an album using only the audio material they are given by Sound and Vision archive? The answer is yes. There have been two albums released for the Revive project. The project received a lot of international press and commercial collaborations.
With these kind of projects Sound and Visions hopes that it will change the perception of archive from an old dusty place to a live source of new material that is fun and interesting.
Video:
Presentation Beeld en Geluid @ NEXT16 from iMMovator on Vimeo.
Interview:
Interview John Ashley Burgoyne (Sound and Vision) @ NEXT16 from iMMovator on Vimeo.
About NEXT
NEXT Conference is the event for those who actively participate in shaping the digital transformation. Once a year about 1,300 digital minds come together to learn about the latest trends and make their company fit for the future. Creative Holland participated in the Conference Program, organized a Dutch Digital Impact session and was the host of the closing network event.
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