This new alternate reality game / iPhone app combo from MINI in Sweden is very cool indeed.

The game challenges you to hunt, catch and escape with a virtual MINI in Stockholm using an iPhone app and your own two legs. The catch is, you have to get within 50m of the virtual MINI to hit "Take The MINI Now" in the app before escaping as fast as possible, because anyone else who gets within 50m of you can instantly take the virtual MINI back! If you are the person holding the virtual MINI after 7 days of 24/7 gaming, you’ll win a real MINI Countryman.

Probably, in my position, I shouldn't say that it sounds cool, but it actually does, so to stick to my editorial line, I have to post about it. In February Adidas will launch five sneakers that will activate a virtual world through augmented reality.

As explained on Wired, all users have to do is go to the Adidas site and hold up their sneaker, which has a code embedded in its tongue, in front of their computer webcam. A virtual world then pops out in front of them and they can navigate it using their sneaker as a controller.

It is surely a marketing gimmick, and the world in a sneaker reminds me of Onitsuka Tiger but, still, it's a pretty cool initiative that will generate some buzz online, at least among us, geek bloggers :-)

This week you might have heard already of Esquire's Augmented Reality issue. The video below explains the action. Basically the print magazine gets interactive: when you point the QR code to your webcam a world of additional multimedia content is unveiled.

There has been quite a lot of buzz around the initiative. In my opinion the idea is pretty cool, if not only because it got a lot of people talking about it and buying the magazine to discover it. I see it more as an advertising campaign rather than an enhanced editorial plan. I think the money invested in producing all the interactive content isn't something the Esquire can afford investing every month, and probably it won't even be worth it. Also, the aspect that really amazes me is the great job they've done building content with celebrities. This is the real added value of the initiative and possible the hardest thing to replicate

Another post about augmented reality: the benchmark in terms of quality of execution and concept still remains AKQA's Priority Email, but this Wrigley's website is worth having a look, as it introduces additional elements of interactivity.

Basically the 5 Mixer allows you to scratch like a DJ 5 QR codes symbols in front of your webcam in order to create your club music mix. As explained by Augmented Times, there are three markers representing gum flavors, each linked to a certain track, and one master marker to rule them all. The markers' distance from the master marker and their relative angles determine the volume and effects for each track.

In the US Best Buy has just launched Best Buy in 3D, an augmented reality application that allows users to see in 3D the products advertised on the retailer weekly publication.

I don't have a webcam (as you can see from the brilliant message below) so I cannot test it and appreciate its features. However I find augmented reality shopping very cool for an ecommerce website, where you have to do your best to make people "feel" and "touch" the product. If there is not e-commerce module attached, and the consumers in the end has to visit a store to purchase the good, then I'm not so sure an AR application real value is worth the effort (both for the retailer and for the consumer).

This one is a one of us and is a good excuse for talking about something else, so we're pretty happy that could release it in the end. The new product from Rexona in Mexico is called Rexona Energizing, it's supposed to energize you every time you use it, being this the teaser used for the beginning of the campaign:

So we got in an energetic mood and decided to team with Carlos Ulloa and his new company to create EnergyLab, a brief story about how so much energy was contained inside that bottle.

Lately there's been a lot of talking about Augmented Reality, even Martina dropped some thoughts about that a couple of weeks ago, which i agree almost completely, being the most of these AR things going on right now pure eye-candy; i also even remember Dare's Flo Heiss writing something funny about this a while ago.

So, maybe, that's why when you find something that uses the technology adding usefulness to the user experience it stands out that much, like in this app developed by AKQA for United States Postal Service.

Are looking for more cool interactive ideas? Check the archives