Inspiration
While we were in the Virtual Reality discussion room during the hackathon, we only heard people talk about the possible games they wanted to build for the HoloLens, but we believe it is not just a gaming console. It is much more. With Microsoft’s vision of integrating the HoloLens into our daily lives, we decided to take this immersive experience to the next level and truly use the potential of the device to change the way we view the world around us.
What it does
Codenea uses QR codes to enable people and organizations to convey information to the users in the world of Augmented Reality. By scanning the QR code on various platforms such as a billboard or even an individual it provides information such as advertisements or linkedin bios of people to the user while interlinking the various Microsoft Services from the xbox to bing advertisements, to bring to the user a highly personalized Augmented Reality experience.
How I built it
The technology uses the HoloLens clicker, voice recognition and gesture control to enable the user to choose the information they want to know more about from the options provided. We built the app using Unity, Azure Web Services (Node.js), and Azure DocumentDB (MongoDB). We built a functioning website where companies can enter their customized ads for different demographics (students vs professionals for now). Each user signs up on the website with their LinkedIn account, and when they scan a QR code later on, the HoloLens sends all the ad information provided by the company who made the QR code with the user’s LinkedIn information, and the web server returns the best ad for that user from that company. The same QR code displays different products for different people, and each person sees what they would like best.
Challenges I ran into
The biggest problem we faced with the HoloLense was one hour before the submission deadline. We were informed that the HoloLense was not capable of scanning QR codes, so we had to go around the problem and find a way to enable the scanning process, which had not been done till now, in less than an hour. With very little experience in Unity, and too little time, we really had to push through that hour, to find the solution.
Accomplishments that I'm proud of
We worked with AR for the first time, and built a backend that works really well. The way the server combines the company’s available ads with what’s available on the user’s LinkedIn page is very efficient and useful, and we have a website that allows companies to easily enter new ad campaigns.
What I learned
We learnt a lot about programming in Unity and the importance of taking a planned approach to tackling the problem. We spent a lot of time learning about the existing technology used in the HoloLense and how we can utilize it. It was amazing to work closely with the mentors and the Microsoft team and learn about a technology that will shape the way we live in our future and possibly play a role in advancing that technology.
What's next for Codenea
We would love to take the project forward, and use more data we can get from every user to create a more integrated and individualistic experience and start working with the industries we show in our demonstrations to make this idea a reality. We would also like to integrate even more advanced AR and HoloLens capabilities.
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