Urban Voyage’s Blog

You’ll most likely have seen or experienced the Red and Blue Anaglyph “3D Glasses” of old that gave viewers the perception of 3D. You may also remember how well or not that they worked and the excitement of experiencing entertainment in a new way.

Zareh, Rich & Anita experience "3D" at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA

Growing up in New Zealand I recall a big promotion that KFC ran in conjunction with a TV Movie (the B-Grade 1954 horror mystery Gorilla at Large) that when you purchased a certain KFC meal you received a pair of “3-D Viewing Glasses”. The hype seemed to extend across the entire country with the glasses being a “must-have” item. The hype quickly faded when the movie was broadcast and the quality of the 3D experience was less than stunning. Similar experiences has been repeated around the world when hyped technology (aka Fads) that fail to deliver are promoted as the next big thing.

More recently DreamWorks Animation pulled off perhaps the biggest media-advertising event in history by broadcasting a 3D trailer for Monsters vs. Aliens during Super Bowl Sunday. Around 150 Million 3D glasses were given away for free at Pepsi/SoBe Life Water displays at 28,000 locations around the United States. The promotion used Intel’s InTru 3D and ColourCode 3-D technologies (reported to be far superior than the old Anaglyph system). The campaign involved “tens of millions of dollars”.

What we have been seeing for a while now has been the evolution of 3D technology, being lead by the Games & Entertainment Industry, moving closer and closer to use of 3D in everyday life. It’s now possible to watch 3D TV without wearing any external devices (such as glasses) and it’s not long before many Hollywood films will be released in 3D. Hundreds of Millions of dollars is being invested across all areas of business, entertainment and life to leverage the power of 3D – enriching our lives, making entertainment more compelling and enhancing customer’s experiences of our brands, products and services.

On Friday Microsoft released information about “Project Natal” and the collective jaws dropped when Don Mattrick & Steven Spielberg presented a demo of a game that has no external “game controllers” other than yourself. If there were any barriers left for people to interact with technology, they have just smashed them. The applications outside of gaming are as wide as they are compelling. Click here for more information about Project Natal.

So what separates technology fads from technology developments that provide real value? It’s the opinion of Urban Voyage that ultimately the market will decide what it needs and wants. We don’t need a touch-screen interface to use a cell phone do we? We don’t need to have 3D to enjoy a good movie do we? We don’t need 3D for our project, do we? Well maybe and maybe not. And yet on mass there have been 6.9 Million iPhones sold world-wide, a group of Hollywood Studios are investing US$1 Billion to upgrade 20,000 North American movie theatres to digital projector systems and Superyachts (dreams) are being sold before a single frame has been laid.

The risk of not embracing new solutions is that you risk having to play a serious game of catch up when your competitors race ahead because they have. 3D is moving more and more into our everyday lives making interaction with information easier, more compelling and fun.

Can you afford to be left behind?