Aurasma Invites Tech City Community to Get Creative

Aurasma, the world's leading visual browser platform, is delighted to announce it is working with the UK Government and the Tech City community to help enable a series of ground-breaking applications.

The Tech City corridor stretches between Silicon Roundabout (Old Street) and the Olympic Park (Shoreditch area). Originally a small cluster of start-ups, Tech City has grown to become the capital's leading destination for digital, creative and high-tech companies. The UK Government actively support the area's development.

At the Tech City event at the Trampery today, the Prime Minister David Cameron said, "I've just seen Aurasma in action and it's clear this app is about to change the way we see and interact with information. It's fantastic that a technology like Aurasma, developed right here in the UK by Autonomy, is now being made freely available to all the innovative and creative companies that make up Tech City. It's collaboration like this that makes Tech City such a magnet for talent and investment."

Available as a free app or as a free kernel for app developers, Aurasma uses advanced image and pattern recognition to recognise and understand images and objects in the real world, blending them with rich interactive content such as videos and animations called "Auras".

Tech City companies are now invited use Aurasma's free Developer Studio to create Auras and experiment to see what can be created around the area's locations, landmarks and buildings. Local companies already involved include the Trampery, Moo.com and SongKick.

Watch the Trampery's Aura here:

Creating an Aura with Aurasma's Developer Studio is just as easy as using a conventional website's Content Management System. Once logged into the Developer Studio, a trigger image, for example a logo or photograph of a building, is uploaded and associated with a particular video or animation. A website URL is then added as the destination whenever viewers click on the Aura. Whenever users of the app point their mobile device at the trigger image, the Aura appears, embedded in their real-world view.

Becoming a partner is completely free. Tech City companies wishing to use Aurasma's free Developer Studio to create their own content for the Tech City app should email partner@aurasma.com

Eric Van der Kleij, CEO of the Tech City Investment Organisation, said: "Tech City is an important initiative, acting both as a catalyst in the London tech community and as a magnet attracting visitors to the area. We're delighted to partner with innovative companies such as Aurasma to create an extra dimension to the Tech City experience."

Mike Lynch, CEO of Autonomy, said: "Tech City highlights all the creative companies located from Silicon Roundabout to the Olympic Park. In showcasing the brilliant talent we have here in the UK, it seems absolutely right that Aurasma – developed in this country by Autonomy - has been chosen as an enabling technology by Tech City."

Notes for Picture Editors

The Trampery logo accompanying this press release is Aurasma-enabled. If reproduced in print newspapers or magazines, any reader who downloads the free Tech City app onto their mobile device will be able to "unlock" the printed image and watch it come to digital life. It even works from a computer screen. Avoid cropping or altering the aspect ratio of the image as then it may no longer work as a trigger image.

Links to Editors

Tech City (App store): http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/tech-city/id477134713?mt=8

Aurasma (App Store): http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/aurasma-lite/id432526396?mt=8

Aurasma (Android Marketplace): http://bit.ly/tHibPU

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http://www.youtube.com/user/AurasmaLite

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via autonomy.com