Once upon a time, entertainment and advertising were two separate lands. Each land was dynamic, and cool, in its own way, but their denizens rarely commingled. In yet another land, the geeks of technology toiled in isolation on tasks both obscure and unfriendly. And then the winds of innovation blew through. Everything changed.

Today, a new creative map is taking shape, as the barriers between these businesses fall away, spurred by a swarm of adventurers and explorers… For companies and consumers, actors and artists, marketers and musicians, there is no turning back. On the contrary, this is the wave of tomorrow.

Fast Company, December 2011

I simply wanted to call out Fast Company for being one of the first to acknowledge the highly significant metamorphosis transpiring within the global business landscape: the collision of tech, culture & commerce. I frequently introduce myself as a catalyst for convergence, largely due to my multifaceted professional background. Years in the entertainment, technology and advertising spaces have lead me to one realization: nothing can bolster the three of these disparate industries more than their fusion.

So thank you, Fast Company, for so eloquently echoing my credo.

A little peek at the 4-canvas projection-mapping installation we developed last week… It was the fruit of 3 sleepless nights and a whole lot of energy drink.

Our brief was to take corporate storytelling to the next level. I think we gave PowerPoint a run for its money.

One of my core responsibilities at Tocquigny (and more specifically within Tocquigny Labs) is to immerse myself in emerging technologies, with the key objective of identifying their respective applicabilities within our space. When something is launched, for instance Google+, it is my task to become the resident expert, with the capability of answering a wide gamut of business and technical questions from both internal stakeholders and clients. Like a scientist, I must see beyond the buzz-ridden Mashable articles and “Trending Topics”, and actually submerge myself in the technology. This all leads up to the key function of Labs: adding relevance & context. I get to put on my creative cap and architect innovative applications of the technology specific to our diversified client-base and their short- and long-term needs.

We have a roadmap of technologies in queue, but this week’s was one we had been waiting to test out for quite some time: the Kinect motion-sensing input device (created by Microsoft). Released in conjunction with the XBox 360, it didn’t take long for technologists to see the Kinect’s applicability beyond gaming. The infrared device brings John Underkoffler’s visionary gesture-control interface from Minority Report to life.

This $150 consumer-facing infrared camera has introduced natural user interfaces (through gesture- and voice-control) to the masses. Offered many different names by the tech-crowd (computer vision, NUI, gesture-control, feature-recognition, spatial navigation, et al), the Kinect represents what many feel is the future of physical computing. 

This week, we took the Kinect for a lengthy test-drive. Most notably, we used the device to capture full-body movements and converted them into commands that were fed into a piece of music composition software. Illustrated by the above photo, a person can control a digital symphony simply by moving any joint in their body. Sounds like a toy, right? A pretty practical toy… After all, this experiment was the catalyst for dozens of ideas pertinent to our future-facing clientele.

Watch out VCs, Kickstarter is picking up steam.

Thanks to the digital crowd-funding platform, in mere months, an iPhone accessory went from being a garage prototype to spawning $169,200+ of liquid capital and 2,600 pre-orders. The above 3-minute video was all it took to convince thousands to offer up a chunk of their paychecks to an eager entrepreneur. But enough about the power of Kickstarter. You can read articles and articles about the revolutionary platform on TechCrunch.

What I am more excited about is this recently-funded technology project. As the long-tail gets longer, it seems that we’re starting to see a trend in rapid technology consumerization. Hardware and software that was initially developed for the enterprise is now being compacted, manufactured and distributed to the consumer audience. The B2B and B2C markets are converging!

The GoPano Micro is a sub-$100 alternative to a ~$50,000 technology that I’ve been focusing a whole lot of my time on for the past two years — 360° Video Capture. A simple camera adaptor for the iPhone 4 allows anyone to create full-motion interactive panoramic videos. Can you imagine the future of UGC with this technology? Realtors will create virtual video tours; families will re-live vacations like never before; crimes will be increasingly solved by forensic video evidence; filmmakers will release audience-controllable feature films. Hell, I predict that YouTube will support interactive 360° video by 2013.

We’re living in the age of the paradigm shift. Entrepreneurs are in control. Immersive storytelling is no longer an artform. A simple video can spawn thousands of micro-investments.

There’s no better a time to be a part of the action.

One of my favorite consumer-grade immersion technologies of today is the stitched photo panorama. With higher resolution cameras, gyroscopes and internet connectivity built into a growing number of mobile handsets, I predict a whole lot of movement in this arena.

When I first got my hands on Occipital’s 360 Panorama app for iOS, I knew it was revolutionary (albeit a bit of a toy for the early-adopter set). Last week’s launch of Microsoft’s Photosynth app proved the value the auto-stitching technology could bring to the masses — hinting to me that this space is just about to blow up.

Unfortunately, there are still many issues with both platforms (image fidelity, color correction, brightness/contrast, blurriness), but that’s to be expected with revolutionary technology.

As a test, here are panoramas created with each of the apps (taken with my iPhone 4 at different times), both at Tocquigny’s weekly All-Hands-On-Deck meeting:

Photosynth

360 Panorama

Head Tracking for iPad: Glasses-Free 3D Display

Thanks to the innovative folks at Engineering Human-Computer Interaction Research Group, it looks like glasses-free 3D is closer to becoming a reality — especially as they built the prototype using the new consumer electronics standard, Apple’s iPad 2. (I’d say that any technology that sells an estimated 2.6 million units in two weeks is, or will soon become, a standard). I’ve been working on a few projects that take advantage of the unique properties of the device’s front- and rear-facing cameras, but this particular hack is a true game-changer.

More information can be found at PC Magazine.