AR, AVATAR & ART + COPY / ROUND UP

Next week, MIG (Mobile Interactive Group) will be hosting a Digital Media and Interactive Lunch at London's Oxo Tower restaurant. In attendance will be senior executives from Orange to Oxfam, and from Barclaycard to the BBC. Why? Because it's important, goddammit.

Check out our piece on the battle of the operating systems in issue 21 of Contagious Magazine, which we're putting together actually AS WE TYPE. Need it? Of course you do. Email harry@contagiousmagazine.com  to join the revolution.

You might remember Toshiba launching a chair into space recently from the desert in America. Well, the footage from that projectile has made its way back to earth and has been mashed together to form 'Space Chair', the brand's latest TV commercial through Grey, London. Watch the biodegradable chair and its specially built camera rig's graceful and surreal journey to the edge of space and back at http://bit.ly/1hflUf.

Matt McDowell, marketing director at Toshiba UK, comments: 'Our aim was to create a new advertising campaign that would bring to life Toshiba's brand philosophy of leading innovation. We chose to send a chair on the journey as it is central to the user's experience of Toshiba's products; whether they are watching TV or using a laptop.'

AKQA, London has been celebrating the 8x optical zoom of Panasonic's new Lumix ZX-1 camera. The '8X Life' campaign saw oversize photo ops created in cities around the UK, with everyday objects like pigeons, traffic cones and benches multiplied in scale and placed in cities around the UK. Post your snaps to www.facebook.com/8xlife. A great fusion of real world and distributed media from an agency known for complex digital strategies.

Digital marketing experts the Barbarian Group and production company Psyop, New York, have unveiled Esquire Magazine's first Augmented Reality cover, featuring Robert Downey Jr. Psyop designed, shot and animated all of the AR features for the cover, as well as two features inside the magazine, and the Barbarian Group took the 3D animations and programmed them into an AR interface. Magical. The Barbarian Group also worked with Lexus to launch an AR experience for the automotive brand's advert in the magazine. Check out a video at www.esquire.com/the-side/augmented-reality

We've been getting excited about the release of James Cameron's Avatar film, and were intrigued to see a demo of the computer game appear on Germany's Coke Zero site (via www.rockpapershotgun.com). Head to www.cokezero.de and get the epic 1.6GB download going before November 30th. http://bit.ly/4aXigI 

A continuation of Chupa Chups' bizarre 'Life Less Serious' campaign sees Chuck, the Muppet-style lollipop-loving puppet return in a series of cheeky films. BBH Asia Pacific also worked on an interactive website, allowing people to remix videos of Chuck, paying homage to the 850,000 YouTube parodies of Chuck's original TV commercials. Look out for the commercials, Laundromat and Bungee running around the world. www.chupachuck.com

And in events: anyone in LA without a ticket for our Next Generation Content event on 1st Dec, featuring Susan Bonds of 42 Entertainment and Eric Rodenbeck of Stamen as well as Contagious and Trailer Park should sign up for one now, before the FREE tickets disappear. www.nextgenerationcontent.eventbrite.com  

In London, the 'What Now?' event from Show and Tell will consider surviving and thriving in a rapidly changing industry. The evening will start at 7.30pm on 24th November in The Tabernacle, Notting Hill. The open mic discussion will feature speakers such as Ben McOwen Wilson, director of online and interactive at ITV, Rory Aitken, MD of Between the Eyes and Paul Banham, digital creative director at JWT. Tickets cost £25 and are available at www.showandtellfilms.com

The much anticipated Art and Copy makes it to the UK on the 27th November thanks to a D&AD preview: http://dandad.typepad.com/dandad/2009/11/art-copy.html  

The UK's Royal Navy recruitment has turned to iPhone apps and a Facebook widget to select and attract top engineering talents. Marvellous, London, created the challenge to put recruits through their paces over five missions, each based on real Navy training tasks, using the iPhone's touch screen and accelerometer. When the missions conclude, a video is played back revealing the impact that various decisions had in completing the task. Download the app from http://bit.ly/ZbmVn  

Japanese mobile network KDDI is encouraging people to get walking around the streets of Japan. In the style of Nike+, users are being encouraged to walk with their mobile for five minutes a day or 350 meters, measuring progress via a pedometer. The website and mobile sites rank the most dedicated users, who can also attend events in Tokyo and Osaka http://au-ss.jp/pc/5min/#/king Via www.japantrends.com