Amnesia Razorfish today announced the launch of Amnesia Connect – a software breakthrough, which allows instant and seamless sharing and transfer of any content such as photos, music or embedded apps between multiple handheld devices using a Microsoft Surface table using a single gesture.
Launched today, Amnesia Razorfish Connect can be viewed at: http://vimeo.com/18859503 and there is more information on the software at: www.amnesiarazorfish.com.au/
Amnesia Razorfish Connect has been developed entirely in-house at Amnesia Razorfish by the creative and emerging technology teams.
Following months of research and development, Amnesia Razorfish has replaced the typical ‘send and receive’ interface with a more natural ‘gesture-based’ interface. A smartphone owner can now move their content freely between two devices by simply dragging content off their phone onto a Microsoft Surface Table and back onto another device instantly.
Amnesia Razorfish Founder and Executive Creative Director Iain McDonald said: “The previous barriers which stood in the way of getting content on or off your phone have been completely removed with this software.
“In the past device integration like this has been mainly confined to Hollywood movies or smoke and mirror demos, so we set ourselves the challenge of making it real.
“It took a while to crack, but the result speaks for itself – all the buttons are gone and sharing content is now completely instinctive. In a world where smartphones are becoming omnipresent, this kind of software opens another world of ideas for brands.”
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The smartphone user can transfer new free or commercial content from the table by dragging it directly to their phone with a single swipe – then before full transfer takes place, a preview instantly visible as a live motion tracked ‘lens preview’ through the phone display – similar to an X-ray through to the table.
For example, in less than a few seconds a photo can be taken on one device and dragged effortlessly onto the Surface table and then directly onto another device running on Amnesia Connect software.
“The new software promises a range of new possibilities for the retail and hospitality industries in particular. In the near future we envisage a Smartphone user being to complete commercial transactions for both physical and digital content,” McDonald said.
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The Amnesia Connect software works with all Apple IOS devices and is being further developed to work seamlessly with Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry Smartphones.
Amnesia Razorfish Connect utilises a range of technologies including Wi-Fi, proximity detection, unique ID and phone accelerometer, depending on the type of phone and location.
For in-store transactions, NFC (Near-Field-Communications) has been proposed as one of several possibilities for payment transactions, although a pre-authenticated user account with credit card details could also be used.
Amnesia Connect has also been developed to work with the new Microsoft Surface 2.0 table, that was announced at the 2011 International Consumer Electronics Show.
Amnesia Razorfish Managing Director Michael Buckley said that Amnesia Connect is available immediately for the agency’s clients to utilise in projects and added existing clients that had seen the application were ‘very excited’.
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PS: Ask questions in the comments below – we will do our best to answer them!
For further information, please contact:
Hannah Furness
Access Public Relations
T: 02 9279 4100
M: 0409 348 250
E: hannah at accesspr.com.au
About Amnesia Razorfish
Amnesia Razorfish is Australia’s full-service digital agency, headquartered in Sydney. It is part of the world’s largest digital agency Razorfish, owned by the Paris-based Publicis Groupe. Amnesia Razorfish lives and breathes digital and provides a range of services from strategic digital ideas, media, creative, technology, social media, analytics, innovative solutions and more. Boasting over 25 awards in the last four years, Amnesia Razorfish has a demonstrated commitment to creating experiences that build business. Australian clients include, AAMI, World Vision, Pepsi, Microsoft, Disney, Aussie Home Loans, Ancestry, Expedia, Carnival Australia, Channel Nine and Hotels.com. Amnesia Razorfish is a member of negotiating group VivaKi Exchange.
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Congrats looks great -Quick question, is the software dependent upon having a Microsoft surface or can it be used between any smartphone, ipad and a PC or Mac laptop for example that is running the software. Be great to be able to use across your laptop as well – Thanks
Bux and Amnesia team
Caught this launch on B&T News.
Freakin’ mind blowing. Well done! I’ll be sharing with everyone here at HOST as the type of work we should be doing. I can see so many instore applications for this sort of thing for retail. I hope this wins you many, many awards. Any client’s using it that we can go and see in action? Any practical applications?
Love it!
does the user have to hand-shake the bluetooth connection to the table before it works?
Just to answer the technical questions.
@David: In theory yes, but at the moment it’s designed to run on a Surface table – otherwise we wouldn’t be able to track the position of the mobile devices to achieve this seamless sharing effect. Without that this effect it would work on a laptop as well.
@Mark: No, it’s based on an open Wifi that the Surface table provides. The user only has to join this Wifi network and is ready to go. But we’re already looking into ways how to eliminate this step as well.
Ah ok, so where does the bluetooth fit into the picture?
Great work, but very specialized. iPhones abound as do a growing wave of iPads, but the wonder of the Surface table has yet to be common place – how many readers of this blog has seen one in the real world? Doing the same tricks between an iPhone and an iPad or a laptop without a table would be good. The bump app achieves the same result but not in quite as sexy a way.
Loving this, but wanted to say, looking to the future the new surface screen (demoed last week) has been developed in conjunction with Samsung. This must open the possibility of cheaper screens that have duel functionally built into the new Samsung TV’s, and coming soon?
Very cool implementation and simple UI. I’d love to know more about how you’re doing the location tracking without tags. Are you planning to bring this to MIX ’11 by any chance?
When/Where can I get the software? I’d love to see it in action!
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Amazing. Well done Heiko & Amnesia Razorfish.
-Brett R
This looks incredible! Great work.
I like this project, it makes sharing images and other digital content really smooth. However, it looks like if the reason for using the table, and the App, was to access that digital content. If you imagine the table on a shop, then costumers could sort of “grab” goodies left on the table. The goodies could be a catalog, images, wallpapers, videos, etc. A different scenario would be having the table at home, at a coffee shop, or a restaurant, and use the table/App to share content between friends. My point is: those are very limited scenarios and it’s not clear for whom it makes sense to invest the 5.000 GBP the Surface 2.0 costs.
I have been playing with a similar idea, and I believe one of the best scenarios would be to use the surface as an extension of the UI of the phone; that is, to use the whole surface as the input to your phone. You can see more about the idea and the first prototype here:
blog.jhincapie.com/projects/phonevortex/
/JDHR