VidCard

Inspiration

We learned about the HP LinkReader and how it creates an imperceptible watermark on images that someone can retrieve information from using the LinkReader app, and wanted to use it to combine traditional print messaging with digital content. We thought it'd be cool to send physical postcards that have videos embedded into them, and people can update the videos so the recipient of the postcard can scan the same postcard and get new videos.

How it works

The app takes an image, either from the camera or the camera roll, and a video URL (.mp4, YouTube URL, etc.) and the app utilizes the HP LinkReader API to create a watermarked image that can be scanned to retrieve the video. The watermarked image can then be printed out straight from the app. You also have a profile that shows all the watermarked images you have created, so you can either print or share the images again.

Challenges I ran into

The HP LinkReader SDK for iOS was developed and released the night before the hackathon, and it was missing a lot of the functionality that they had in their API, so we ended up not being able to use it. Also, the Internet quality at the hackathon space was not great, so it was extremely difficult to test if the problems I had calling the APIs were due to issues with code or because of connectivity issues.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

This was the first hackathon that my team has ever participated in, and we not only managed to complete our app within 30 hours, but we also won a sponsor challenge.

Built With

• crittercism
• hp-linkreader
• objective-c
• parse