"Fashionista" App Lets Consumers Use their Webcams to Try on Clothes "Virtually"

Interactive marketing company, Zugara, and RichRelevance, a company that specializes in personalization and product-recommendation tools for ecommerce sites, on Monday announced the launch of a new, augmented reality-driven "social shopping" application, called "Fashionista," that they describe as combining "the benefits of the fitting room with the convenience of online shopping and the power of the social Web." The app, which is initially being offered by fashion retailer, Tobi.com, is billed by the companies as combining:

• augmented reality
• motion capture
• real-time personalization
  

in order to create a "more social and intuitive" way to shop for clothes on the Web.


How It Works
Consumers can try on articles of clothing "virtually": the technology works with a Webcam and a printable marker that is held by the consumer to overlay clothes on the consumer's real-time video image. Via the printed marker, the app automatically detects where the consumer is standing in a room and adjusts the clothes they are trying on accordingly. The consumer can then change outfits by utilizing the app's motion capture technology to select a new piece of clothing from a personalized wardrobe without having to return to their keyboard and mouse, the companies say.

Here's the Social Aspect of It
Consumers can also take pictures of themselves wearing outfits they like by motioning over the camera icon within the Fashionista interface and they can then email those pictures to friends or upload them directly to Facebook, where they are published in their profile. their friends will then see the image in their news and live feeds and be able to comment on it.

THE MOON HAS WATER

This just in...
There is a "significant" amount of water on the moon. And it's azure.


Ok. Thanks





*Image from http://scienceblogs.com/seed/2009/09/the_buzz_our_watery_moon.php

Media and Social Psychology

I can't believe my last post was Oct 29. Time slips by pretty quickly. I'm now in my next class on the way to my doctorate. This class is so interesting. It's PSY 764B "Media and Social Psychology."

We have just read Marshall McLuhan's book "The Medium is the Massage" which is a thin and strange little book but full of complex yet somehow (after I read it twice) simple and logical thought. I highly recommend it.

We are now reading our prof's (Karen Dill) book called "When Fantasy Becomes Reality." I think it is well written - exactly like how Karen sounds in person, very bubbly and enthusiastic about social psychology and the media. Her specialty is video game violence. One of the things that stuck with me while I was reading her book is that some violent video game players lose levels of empathy - they might be the least likely to respond to an accident victim's plea for help, etc.

I was talking to my co-worker Matt about this. He plays a lot of video games (per him) and wondered outloud if there were any "gateway" characters that lead up to the hard core violent characters that some people play as. I don't have an answer to that but will definitely ask Karen.

My knowledge of video games is limited to Pong. I was a poor Pong player (slowest level).

*Image from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pong