skignz accepted onto Atlanta Bridge Community.

It’s exciting times for the skignz team; we are pleased to announce that we have secured a place within the Coca-Cola led Atlanta Bridge Community.


This is amazing news for our innovative geo-location based Augmented Reality platform. skignz Chief Operating Officer says:, Jamie Clarke
"The Bridge Community gives skignz an opportunity to collaborate on a number of levels with some of the biggest companies and Brands on the planet. 

We are humbled and rightly excited about Atlanta is one of the fastest growing technology ecosystems in the US. It is the largest economy in the southeast and home to over 30 Fortune 1000 companies, including the Coca-Cola Company.

The Bridge Company is a unique entrepreneurial community model backed by an exclusive set of large corporates focused on growing communities through corporate start-up collaboration. 

It was founded by Coca Cola and now includes some major businesses such as Cox Enterprises, Coca Cola, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Porsche North America, SunTrust Bank, Capgemini and The Weather Company are just a few who wholeheartedly support and contribute to the Atlanta Bridge Company.

The Bridge Project started in 2014. The success of this fantastic opportunity shows in their figures; with 10 start-ups and five large corporations starting 2014, which enabled 9 pilots and proof-of-concepts. Collectively these start-ups hired 32 employees, increased their revenue monthly by 150% and raised $2.9M in VC funding.

So you can imagine how ecstatic we were when we realised skignz had been chosen as one of the 22 companies to be part of this amazing project that helps companies take a huge step up on the commercial ladder.

We are thrilled with the opportunity to receive tactical, in-depth training from an enterprise perspective including marketing branding, sales and negotiation tailored to our individual needs. The idea behind such training is to accelerate us into our targeted marketplace. We will have access to internal and external mentors from some of the top companies across Atlanta / America / Globe

The Atlanta Bridge Community Model truly cares about the start-ups on the program; their aim is to help them build a global businesses. They ask for no financial investment, equity stakes and all start-ups maintain ownership of their IPR.

So you can see why we are so excited about this amazing opportunity. 

'Above we can see Jamie Clarke, skignz COO, in full-swing engaging with some amazing companies.'

Jamie added... "It's such an exciting opportunity for us to engage, not only with some of the biggest brands in the world, but also embed ourselves into the Tech ecosystem in Atlanta.  The partnership opportunities with the companies who are also part of the Bridge Community is an added bonus."

You can see more from other companies such as, Tech-Up Techwire and PR Web, who are finding this news just as exciting as us.

You can find out more about how you can apply to be part of the Bridge Community.

If you want to find out more about skignz, then please visit our new recently launched website (www.skignz.com) as well as the usual social media channels

skignz proudly partners with The Sports Technology Awards

May 2017, took the skignz UK team to London to partner with this year's Sports Technology Awards (#sta2017) and wow! 

What an A-listed spectacular event it was with some amazing sports personalities attending, such as, Barry McGuigan, Martin Corry, Marlon Devonish, Kelly Sotherton, & Gemma Morris to name but a few.

skignz was thrilled to be asked to be a partner and bring our fresh, unique, engaging industry to the awards evening.

STA Awards Director, Mark Hunter, explained:

'The Sports Technology Awards is a unique celebration of innovation in sports globally, as such, our audience is highly sophisticated so each year we face a challenge of how to impress and engage them in ways they’ve yet to see. We had seen some creative yet practical uses of AR so decided that this should be one of the technologies we embrace this year and the response has been phenomenal.'

Alan Clayton, skignz Partnerships Manager, said: 'It’s exciting to work with prestigious brands like The Sports Technology Awards, especially when we are given the opportunity to demonstrate how practical, yet playful Augmented Reality can be. AR can be dismissed as signs in the sky but they can also be fascinating portals to more information and provide a highly effective and engaging way to inform audiences.'

For skignz, the project started months ago, augmenting the shortlisted companies invitations outside their office environment, which then allowed users to press a link through to the STA registration page. 

100's of individuals within the nominated companies downloaded the app to view the invitation and got a sneak-peek as to whether they was shortlisted or not. Ahead of everyone else who would have found out the next day via the STA website. 

Social media was going crazy with the companies posting images of their invitation outside their office and within the office itself.

Not only is skignz tech useful but it can also be fun, with this year's STA on May the 4th (for those few who don't know Star Wars) it was suggested that skignz be used to augment content around the Star Wars theme. 

So characters and ships were seen flying around the Roundhouse and life like size characters being found and photographed within the ceremony room. 

Prizes were offered for the best picture entry on Social Media. 

Back to the serious stuff, with Mark Chapman (Chappers) presenting this year's awards it was down to him to explain how skignz was used and the channels of content that were available during the awards evening. Some channels consisted of AR Table plans, AR Running order and AR menu, all of which were interactive linked to the relevant information. 

The other Channels were Star Wars as previously mentioned and a channel dedicated to the winners, where the content was placed live on the evening and linked through to a video explaining and showing why they were the winner of their award.

The awards were a huge success and our congratulations go to all the winners and the shortlisted companies for getting so close in this prestigious and competitive awards.

If you want to find out more about skignz, then please visit our new recently launched website (www.skignz.com) as well as the usual social media channels

Fuse Annual Leadership Conference - Bringing AR to life with the views of London

We had a very exciting time at Fuse 2016 on 20th October - bringing skignz to life through the wonderful view of London.

Fuse is a leadership conference that began last year. Following the success from the last event, they decided to host their annual conference again. This was an invitation-only event, so imagine our excitement when La Fosse, wanted us to be involved. 

La Fosse are a specialist recruitment company, based in London, who annually have an event / networking / presentation / guest speakers for all of their clients / prospected clients. So it was an honour to work with La Fosse to bring skignz to Fuse 2016, enabling staff and guests to use our interactive digital technology.

skignz fitted perfectly with their mission, which focused on technology leaders and innovative business. This year's event centred around the challenges that digital businesses encounter. The aim of the event was to bring together executives from both international and national blue chip and fast-growing startups to discuss business evolution from the core. 

At skignz, we applaud all 'go-getters' who see potential in our developing digital world, those who won't stop and believe their business is a bigger part of the digital age. So we loved listening to stories from other tech companies who, too, would continue to keep up with our ever-changing digital world.

It was great to incorporate skignz into this powerful event, as we created accounts for all La Fosse staff. All guests were asked to download skignz so they could then find a member of the La Fosse staff, or even find out a little more about them. 

A fantastic personal touch for any event hosts.



This prestige event was held at the top of the Tate Modern Gallery; windows surrounded the top floor from 3 sides, allowing for the most magnificent view. This was a great opportunity for us, as we were able to place AR signs/logos of all the prominent locations in London, such as The Tower of London. 

This meant that not only could guests view the signs and logos of various London icons through their mobile and understand where the famous icon was in relation to the gallery, but skignz allowed them to click on the sign/logo and find out interesting facts about that particular landmark.

This was great fun for us, as it's what we do best; an interactive experience that benefits our users.

AR or Not AR, That is the Question?

Part of the role of skignz the company is to keep abreast of movements and innovations within the technology sector.

There are a thousand and one Blog posts, websites and twitter feeds ploughing information into cyber world.  

At the moment, the rise of Virtual Reality (VR) is big news.  Everything from uses of VR, the hardware required to use it, the costs of hardware, which platform to use and who is the newest ‘kid on the block’.

Augmented Reality (AR) is currently second in the cyber newsstands by comparison.  

Even though AR presents the largest percentage of the ‘Reality’ market in terms of uses, an awful lot of companies are seeing the benefits of including AR in their offering to customers or users.

The latest in this trend is Tinder, who has acquired Humin, a company that works on figuring out the context of social connections.

Cumin’s CEO views Tinder as Augmented Reality because it is all about meeting and connecting and it uses your phone to augment the special information around you, and put it into contact.  

They’re calling it Actionable Information, but… is it really Augmented Reality?

Are they placing ‘Augmented’ content into the real world?

Or are they ‘Augmenting’ information to make connections easier?

In fact, it is actually Actionable Information, NOT Augmented Reality…

Discuss…

And as always for further information on skignz then please visit us on the usual Social Media channels or drop us a line info@skignz.com

SXSW - AR/VR Track...

...we were underwhelmed to say the least!

Before I go any further, it's not SXSW that left us underwhelmed, SXSW was a fantastic experience not only personally but also from a skignz point of view. 

We met with many important and exciting people, providing skignz with some quite exciting opportunities going forward.

That said where the underwhelming feelings come from is that related to the AR/VR track at SXSW, the panels, the presentations and the demo area. 

As most of them were focussed for the Wednesday (Most Interactive related parties closing parties happened on the Monday) it seemed wedged between the Interactive, the Film & Music. 

Sort of an afterthought fitted in to 'pay lip service' to the these 'two areas of tech' despite them being two of the 'the' biggest areas of advance in tech.

Let's consider this in a little more detail. AR/VR may be 'the NKOTB' to the majority, yet both have been around for decades... Then you could argue, if they have been around this long, why give them any consideration at all and if so why now?

Writing this article I realise that my thoughts and questions only bring up more thoughts and questions as I seek to answer each of them. That I now believe is because of the conflicting stories across the media, hype in areas that is unsustainable, the majorities actual understanding of VR and AR and been the difference between the two, not to mention all of the 'fringe' technologies that are reported to be one or the other but are actually neither.

'Breaking down my feelings of being underwhelmed into a few key areas may help you understand where I'm coming from?'

Panel Discussions:

I attended quite a few of these focussed on AR/VR and one or two other panels where it was discussed. I seemed to get the feeling that VR 'was here now' but more focussed on Gaming, Simulation and Sex (Porn). Also most of the panels didn't really reveal anything new, discuss any real 'gritty issues' more a soapbox for individuals to wax lyrical about their own careers and companies they worked for.

Nobody really engaged the other panel members in real debate or even the audience, who's questions seemed 'very pithy' and more about how the person asking the question could get to work with the guys on the panel.

Experiences & Presentations:

Across Austin there were a number of 'VR experiences and demo lounges' all of the ones we saw and engaged with were VR focussed with, if their were any AR ones, we either didn't see them or couldn't find them amongst all the noise and activity of SXSW itself.

Demo Area:

One of the most underwhelming experiences, of SXSW. Imagine walking into a large conference room, with a 15-20 'areas/stalls/stands' (can't describe them exactly as their wasn't an exact offering) littered (best word I can use to describe the layout) around the perimeter.

Each of these 'areas' were populated with a range of people from 1-2 up to 5-10 all wearing VR headsets, small queues of people waiting for their 1-5min experience. 

I have experienced VR and all the progression/regression this has shown over the last 20 years and taking my time to engage with a few different offerings.

It's clear that the tech has improved significantly over the last 2-3 years more so in the previous 17-20 years. The content was engaging and interesting in part and the feelings of motion sickness, latency reduced and rendering/lighting being the biggest improvements that I noticed.

I think the scene before me was extremely odd because you had so many people engaging with a very 'personal/individual' experience, all in the same space, when in reality these people would be using this tech in their own home or place of work on their own. 

It's like watching a 'silent disco', where each person is listening to totally different tracks whilst dancing to them.

So If you picture the room full of people with large headsets on, walking and moving around like it's the first time they had ever wore varifocal lenses listening to a 'silent disco' then you may come close to the surreal view laid out before me.

If you couple this with the queues of people waiting for their turn on each VR Headset, the layout of each brand's demo area and lack of engagement with each other, I hope you could forgive me for being underwhelmed.

Because the VR experience is very personal and singular, the experience around that experience is for me the underwhelming part. Growing up I enjoyed going in those giant hemisphere tents that projected 'a virtual ride on a roller coaster', the small simulators at fairs and theme parks with a small number of people who sit inside an immersive experience.

Even through to my early days in VR in the late 1990's, early Noughties, using the Universities Hemi-Spherion, nothing though prepared me for the SXSW16 VR experience.

Overall approach to VR/AR:

The total lack of an AR presence! This for me was one of the biggest shocks in as much as not only was there no AR presence (other than skignz all around you - you need the skignz app to access the content) but very little was discussed around AR.

Yes, we all understand VR is the buzzword and popular theme at the moment that said 2016 seems to be developing into the year where AR is more widely discussed as VR roles out.

You will see from our other blog posts.... What skignz brought to SXSW and demoed in UK@SXSW Great Britain House, so I won't go over that ground, or try to draw comparisons.

Suffice to say, even skignz could have done more to improve the visitors of SXSW experience, but we cannot do that alone...

And as always for further information on skignz then please visit us on the usual Social Media channels or drop us a line info@skignz.com

skignz Indoors

We know now that skignz is working well in the outdoor world.  Visualising content such as maps, directions or even signage, right there, on your smartphone. 

It got us thinking… There are some really large spaces, which house events like concerts or conferences, but, the difference is, they are Indoors. 

With this in mind we have set about increasing the capability of skignz to work indoors.  

So whether people are attending conferences, going to concerts, or even on holiday in large hotels or on a cruise ship, we can provide skignz to them in the same, visually stimulating way.

Our technology allows us to use existing indoor equipment to pinpoint user location, and provide them with seamless quality augmented reality information.  We are working with some of our key retail clients to provide people with that experience.
  

Imagine you are in your favourite store, and you want to find out what the offers of the day are. Open up skignz and scan the indoor area.  

You can see that the best offer is in the homewares section and it’s 30% off any furniture bought today! No more rummaging around looking for a bargain! 

No more bustling through the crowds trying to find the best saving! It’s there, in front of you, and you can go directly to it and buy it.  Now, isn’t that easier?

OK, so you have been to the shops, you are now on a night out.  You’ve decided to go see your favourite band at the local arena.  

But where are the toilets? Where is the bar area?  More importantly, how do you get hold of that piece of memorabilia that you promised yourself..?

All available through the skignz view on your smartphone.  How about even being able to download the live set directly through your phone by pressing on the skignz on view above the stage?

All of these things are currently being worked on with our partner list, which it seems is growing by the day! We will keep you posted about all of our developments, as we continue to grow..

Remember.. We are putting the world's information around you… Outdoors and now, Indoors!

And as always for further information on skignz then please visit us on the usual Social Media channels or drop us a line info@skignz.com

File size of the skignz App

The question we are proposing is 'Is Big beautiful or do the best things coming small packages?’

We ask this question because we have recently compiled some data about the file sizes of App on people's  smartphones and tablets.

Why did we do this?

One of our iPhones needed the software updating on it. We are sure you have come across this where IOS puts little red dot on your 'Settings App'. You go in and it says there is a new version of IOS and please download it now…

As you may have experienced, when you go to download this update it says you don’t have enough memory space! Either you have far too many Photos, videos or songs on your handset or a large number of apps. In some cases it’s not really any of the above.

Why don’t you have any memory left then? surely 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB memory are just that, space for 'your stuff'? 

However it's increasingly likely with every IOS update that the OS on your phone or tablet eats away at that available memory space, thus restricting what you can have or do with your device.

As we cannot do anything about Photos, Videos and Songs on your phone/tablet, this led us to looking closely at the size of apps we have on there. Focussing on the more common apps that people use around Social Media, search, messaging and more relevant to skignz, other major AR Apps.

The results were startling to say the least! All of the big apps like Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Chrome, twitter etc… were around 75mB to 100mB in size. Then they slowly decreased in size with the likes of Instagram, We Chat, WhatsApp etc… right down to the AR based apps such as Blippar, Layar and Wikitude who were all a more sensible 15mB to 20mB.

File Size (Mb)

App's

We at skignz feel over the coming years there will be a move towards 'less apps' on your phone,  leaving more space for immediate storage or as connections improve more access to the cloud of your information.

With all of the above in mind, we then come to skignz. 

With its huge potential to benefit just about every person on the planet either professionally or personally, the verticals it can deliver 'visualised data' in a more meaningful and helpful manner, you would expect it to be leaning towards the higher end of the size of Apps, maybe a bit bigger than the other more established 'image recognition based AR apps.

skignz is only 1mB in file size… yes you read that right, your eyes are not deceiving you….

ONE megabyte. 

This file size this makes skignz one of the smallest 'file size footprints' available, yet has the ability to 'visualise' most if not all of the 'data' of the other apps in a more engaging and interactive way, especially the collection data normally presented on a map interface.

This goes right back to Si Brown's quote in 2013/14 that skignz helps you to stop looking at your phone… and start looking through it…

Next time when you are backing up your Phone or tablet, take a look at how much memory your apps are taking up… surely there is room for the little cute/light and small skignz app. 

It will open you up to a whole new world of information

And as always for further information on skignz then please visit us on the usual Social Media channels or drop us a line info@skignz.com

Which global tech companies could partner with skignz?

At skignz we always think of how we can assist others and how we can create new developments through skignz. Well by having a think we decided that we could work with a lot of technology partners.  

Creating a joint venture between two firms can have a lot of benefits to both sides. It can double the amount of engagement with customers and audience and create more attention to the new joint business venture created.

A few benefits of creating a joint venture are: 

- It can allow your business to grow further and faster
- It can increase productivity whilst generating greater profits for each
- It allows open access to new markets
- It allows greater access to resources such as staff, technology and finance.

There are a lot more benefits to creating joint ventures however let us now give you a few examples of companies we have been considering who skignz could create a joint venture with and show the benefits as to how it could benefit them through partnering with skignz. 

1. Google – skignz has had some great ideas about how we could work with Google Maps. Every pin on a Google map could be turned into a skign. It wouldn't just be something more attractive to look at it would mean that there is more for people to interact with through augmented reality. We could augment the planet overnight.

2. Apple – The past 10 – 15 years Apple under Steve Jobs have revolutionised many different markets with new ideas they have always brought about. However what could their next big idea be? We think that the next one could be ‘navigation without maps’. Brought to every Apple device people could navigate through skignz via Apple. 
Have you also read out blog post article on Apple post Steve Jobs?

3. Facebook – Think of your Facebook profile but in a skign above your head … like the sound of that? However only your friends can still see it who you allow just as your profile is online. You can interact in a different way no matter where you are. You can use it to find your friends at a concert or festival, allow you to let them know where a party is at and help them find where you are. 

4. Twitter – How great would it be to pull your tweets into a skignz above your head that only your followers can see? You can use the skign to interact with all live conversations going on around you. 


5. LinkedIn – Similar to Facebook you could pull your LinkedIn profile into a skign above your head. However this could be used using your professional/work based networking profile that only your own personal network could see – just as they see your profile online. You can use it to engage with different people at business networking events or even so companies could use it to help guests attending corporate events. 


6. Match.com – Do you find online dating a task or a bit of a long process? Well skignz could make it that little bit easier for you. Have you ever tried talking to someone but you can tell that they clearly are not a match for you? If skignz were to partner with Match.com it could allow users to pull their dating profile into a skign above their heads. Now how would this help you … well when you are close to others who are a match – say around 85% or above then skignz will provide you with an alert. This way you cannot only know there is a potential match close by to you, you can know who it is exactly and if they press accept then you can go straight over and introduce yourself. Speed up the long wait of online dating and get to know that person sooner rather than later. 

7. Microsoft – Through working on their cloud platform and Founder Bill Gates having a big passion for helping those less fortunate, skignz could team up with big data and charities to help manage and monitor all of their assets across their world countries or those that require disaster relief. As skignz is Carbon neutral and does not affect the environment, it can be used to help many good causes.

8. Military & Governments - Again as it is Microsoft, this is a secure way to track assets, reduces chances of friendly fire, monitor targets and more but all in a visual way. Take existing data and visually tag what you want to see, when and anywhere you wish on the planet.

9. Cisco – skignz creating a joint venture with Cisco would open up a lot of opportunities to themselves. skignz could help to visually tag their equipment when installed into large infrastructure projects. It would allow a platform to be created allowing technology to provide a pre hand viewing process before any agreed projects. 

10. Garmin/TOM TOM – skignz would take TOM TOM into the new age through using augmented reality. What better way to update the navigation system than through skignz allowing users to view a more attractive and easier straight head on mapping system through their satellite navigation systems and mobile devices (if integrated). Through using the skignz platform satellite navigation would be overlaid on real landscape rather than a computer generated one. It would bring real life navigation to you through your satellite navigation system.  

11. Amazon – Through joining together Amazon and skignz, we could bring a whole new tracking system to amazon themselves. skignz would be able to track Amazon’s drones and keep track of their customer orders, knowing where they are and when to then being able to keep the customer updated accurately. Its beneficial for Amazon themselves to be able to track their drones through an easier augmented reality system and beneficial to the customers themselves proving improved customer service to Amazon’s loyal people! 

12. Zoopla/Rightmove – Working with Zoopla/Rightmove skignz could help them to create a new way of promoting and advertising their available properties in a more easy, fun and convenient way. Through augmented reality, people in search of a house can go onto the skignz/Zoopla/Rightmove app and scan across houses in an area to see easily through their mobile device which are available and how much for. It allows a simpler and quicker form of contact between the company and the customer and speeds up the process of house hunting.

There are a lot more technology partners that skignz could create a joint venture with however we did want to give you just a few examples of how good the technology could become for skignz and other companies to work together to help create the next generation of technology!

What do you think of our ideas? Please feel free to leave you comments below. 

If you would like to know more about skignz then please visit our website at http://www.skignz.com and don't forget to check us out on any or all of our Social Media Channels.