Flyar by YDreams

In September 2009, YDreams released Flyar, a screensaver, Twitter visualization app that used Augmented Reality and gesture interaction to enable users to see themselves in real time, inside a pc screen and interact with virtual digital contents that were actually their incoming tweets. Flyar was downloaded and enjoyed by thousands of curious followers over the past year. As of July 21, 2010 we suspended the download of Flyar and released a Closed-Beta version of our proprietary platform, code-named YVision that is being tested by applicants who registered to give it a go. We hope users enjoy the Closed-Beta version of YVision as much as they did Flyar! Below we leave you with some FAQs about Flyar in case you’d like to know how it worked:
What is Flyar? Flyar is a free Twitter visualization application that uses Augmented Reality and gesture interaction. You can set it as your screensaver or just play around with it. It uses your webcam to create an augmented video image, enabling you to visualize incoming tweets (from your account or a general feed) in a twitteresque setting that you can interact with. Note: Flyar only runs on Windows XP, Vista and Windows 7. See the FAQ for more information. What do I need to do? You just need to download and execute the file. It will check your system for some pre-requisites: NET Framework 3.5 SP1, updated DirectX drivers, Visual C++ 2005 and 2008 Redistributable SP1. These can be found in most recent versions of Windows Vista, but if you don’t have them already they are also provided on installation. After installing you can jump right into the application or take a look at the settings. You can choose between viewing the Public Timeline, a particular word or hashtag search (e.g.: #followfriday) or your own account. You can also fine tune your render and webcam settings (btw, most people will most likely prefer having the camera on mirror mode).		Check out the images and video. How does it work? Flyar uses your webcam to create an augmented reality image where birds fly or hang around tree branches and fly towards you to deliver tweets. The birds represent incoming tweets, and their color represents different types of messages: blue for normal messages, green for replies and red for direct messages. When a bird is standing on a branch it means you have a new message. With just a tap you can “call” him and he’ll fly to your side to deliver the tweet (only one bird at a time). You can also interact with the birds by disrupting their flight patterns, or affect the falling leaves. The flock of birds flying around tells you how many messages you have waiting to be read. Why did you create this? We developed Flyar to test some aspects of our Augmented Reality composition framework (YVision), and decided to share it with the community. If you want to learn more about YDreams and our AR work, go to www.ydreams.com.