Augmented Reality Greeting Cards Deliver Personalized Messages

What's This?

By Luisa Rollenhagen2013-07-29 02:00:38 UTC

Although it's always nice to receive a thoughtful greeting card, they're not exactly the most innovative medium.

A new Kickstarter from Artiphany is attempting to change this by developing Augmented Reality greeting cards which feature customizable 3D video messages.

The project, called Gizmo greeting cards, features Gizmo the robot, who materializes to wish the receiver a happy birthday, a happy holiday or a happy Valentine's Day.

The cards come with a selection of stickers, and when the appropriate code is scanned, Gizmo appears and delivers the corresponding message.

Gizmo, like other augmented reality devices, requires a smartphone or tablet as well as a corresponding app in order to experience the animation. The greeting cards rely on a third-party app called DAQRI to scan for and play back the appropriate animations.

Artiphany's Kickstarter campaign is attempting to fund the final AR animations, as well as cover the cost for T-shirts, customizable cards and 3D models of the Gizmo robot for Kickstarter backers.

Although greeting cards may seem a bit outdated, the industry is still worth as much as $8 billion a year.

Therefore augmented reality, which has been gaining a significant amount of traction in concepts such as children's coloring books and even auto repairs, may actually work well when paired with greeting cards.

As of now, campaign has secured a little more than $3,000 of its $20,000 goal, with 26 days to go.

What do you think of this campaign? Watch the video above and let us know in the comments.

Image: Artiphany

Topics: Apps and Software, Augmented Reality, Dev & Design, paper, kickstarter, Newsy, Tech, Work & Play