ROLLING STONE South Africa is embracing Augmented Reality (AR). Say what? The September issue uses the nifty Layar app available to allow readers real time access to watch cover artist, Arno Carsten’s new music video, Two Dogs as well as preview our interview with him. Readers are also able to share the story with friends on Facebook and Twitter.
This interactive cover is a first for ROLLING STONE South Africa, who partnered with Jarvis, a startup Augmented Reality Creative Agency based in Cape Town, and Layarstudio Cape Town based AR developer and affiliate of Layar international.
“It is great to be working with an iconic brand like ROLLING STONE,” says Faiek Ceres, director of Jarvis. “To see one of our icons embracing technology like Augmented Reality gives us hope that Jarvis is on the right track. We would like to see more and more Augmented Reality becoming available in South Africa.”
ROLLING STONE’s own technology evangelist and tech editor, Bradley Shaw, says that the first time he saw the technology at a Qualcomm hosted event in San Diego California back in 2010 he couldn’t wait for the commercial deployment of this type of technology in South Africa. “Qualcomm have been pioneers of Augmented Reality and having seen how AR can be used in education, healthcare and other industries is certainly something we will see in the future. I also believe that this has great opportunities for ROLLING STONE to offer something different of advertisers in South Africa. Imagine being able to load an entire catalogue onto a single ad? Well you can now with this AR technology.”
