So me and my friends were playing around with Siri and I asked “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” And then this happened:

A true OMG moment.

For those who don’t get it, educate your fool self!

To end up our day of Halloween fun, let me tell you about this cool augmented reality thing.

For those of you that don’t know what augmented reality is, jfgi. Kidding. Basically, augmented reality is a child of the smartphone movement – hold up your smart device and the camera detects what it sees and displays it. The augmented reality app will then overlay the image on your device with cool “other stuff” that makes a whole new reality inside the device.

As a writer, I can appreciate the amazing implications this could have, and so apparently did Shirin Yim Bridges, author of Horrible Hauntings: An Augmented Reality Collection of Ghosts and Ghouls. Combined with the illustrations of William Maughan, it is a delightfully creepy children’s book, with page-long tales of some of the most famous ghosts. This includes the Flying Dutchman, Bloody Mary and the Headless Horseman to name a few.

But the book is so much more when used in conjunction with an iOS or Android device. The app designed to go with the book allows you to not only view the ghosts parading out from your book – it even adds a bit of interactivity. You can blow into the microphone to sent The Flying Dutchman’s sails aflutter. You can trace your finger across the screen and watch the Amherst Poltergeist send objects flying. Check out this video for how it works:

It’s a brilliant way to use augmented reality, because it’s not just using it for the sake of it either. It actually works brilliantly with the content since the pages of the book itself are haunted with ghosts that you can only reveal with your special ghost-detecting-machine. Makes you feel a little like a ghostbuster doesn’t it?

I hope to see more books augmented with augmented reality in the future – because it’s just damned cool.

Has anyone else had awesome experiences with augmented reality? Or just think this is damned cool too? Let us know in the comments!

[Buy Horrible Hauntings on Amazon for $14.93 | Via Wired GeekDad]

You’re already half an hour late. You just found your phone in the bottom of your bag and now you’re scrambling around trying to find your keys. Where the hell are they!?

This is a situation that Adelaide guys Reece Formosa and Chris Evans wanted to be in no longer! And so they created Keyfinder.

Basically, it pairs up your iPhone via Bluetooth and then when you lose your keys, you just access the iOS app, press a button and your keys start squealing.

It’s not the first of its kind on the market, but it is the sexiest one I’ve seen. It’s sleek, in many different colours and has a cool UFO-like design. They even made one in pink!

The bad news is, their Pozible crowdfunding project has already expired, so you can’t contribute and get one. The good news is they reached their project goal, which suggests they’re going forward with manufacturing and you can probably order one soon.

So if you’re keen for it, keep eyes out for the Keyfinder over the coming year!

[Keyfinder Pozible]

Poor little Katniss Everdeen thought the iPhone 5 would be a good item to take into the Hunger Games arena. She should know better than that.

The Avengers was a huge hit in the geekdom, I don’t think anyone can deny that. But even the biggest hits need to keep momentum until the sequel. Most movies would post trailers, have posters drawn up, have actors do interviews, but Marvel is one step ahead.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I bring you the Avengers Facebook Game and Apps.

I would love to think that Marvel knows its market, especially when it comes to the movies. I believe the market looks like this (although feel free to debate this):

Knowing that a vast majority of your market is going to be into the latest phones and are going to spend serious time on their computers, I believe it is only logical to bring apps and games out. What better way to keep the hype then to get your fan base involved in the movies.

I have just downloaded the free stuff, so I can’t vouch for the quality of the paid stuff, but for free apps they have tried to keep everything interesting and different.  I’ll do a quick review to give you an idea what’s out there. Please remember I’ve only tried the free stuff, so there may be other more amazing apps out there.

Iron Man: Mark VII – This is an interactive comic book App that details how the different marks (of his suit of armour) came to be.  It really is a great teaser comic, with music, sound effects and actions when you tap on certain things on the screen (tap on: a fleeing crowd of people and they scream, a crowd of machines is obliterated, etc). It’s fantastic for kids because if you tap on the words of the comic then it becomes spoken.

It also gives you a chance to find these Avenger Chips by interacting with the environment, and let me tell you they aren’t easy to find. It was released pre-Avengers, so it was a clever way to get people excited about what the Avengers was.

[App on iTunes (iPad & iPhone) | App on Google Play]

Marvel Kapow! – This is more of an arcade style game where you defeat enemies by using the different Avenger powers. It goes outside the movie and introduces Wolverine, Spiderman and other Avengers.

I believe this is pretty ‘meh’ sort of game, but it would keep you entertained while waiting for a bus or in-between classes.

[iPad free | iPad $2.99 | iPhone free | iPhone $0.99 | Image Credit]

Avengers Alliance – This is not an App but rather a Facebook game. And let me tell you now, I’m so addicted to it. It has a Pokemon battle style but instead of one on one, there are teams. You have some heroes to start out with, but for the most part you are a S.H.I.E.L.D agent.

You have to recruit heroes with points, but that is Facebook for you. You also need S.H.I.E.L.D points, which can be collected through helping friends or converting gold. Once again that is Facebook for you, but what’s great about this game is that you receive one bar of gold every time you level up, so you can always complete missions.

There are stories (even ‘Chapters’) in which you have to play through and for the most part it does feel like a comic. It even has cheesy lines, and for those who have watched the Avengers movie, there is even Shawarma.

TRY THIS GAME! 

[Facebook Game | Avengers Alliance Facebook Page]

[Top Image Credit]

Daylight savings is here! Hurrah! We get an extra hour of sunlight.

For those who work stupid hours, or who sleep right in till the middle of the afternoon, however, using an iOS6 phone as an alarm might prove to be a little bit of an issue. Why, you say? Because Apple’s been messing with time.

Yeah, so they forgot to put in the ’2′ under hours. It’s not like they just labelled it wrong either – if you try and select the first 3, thinking it’ll just think it’s a 2, it’ll just slide right off the number. Perhaps they just don’t like it that we’re calling iOS6 a “number 2″ (with reference to euphemisms for actions done on the toilet).

Ok, I have to be fair and say it actually does make sense. You see, the ‘glitch’ only has to do with daylight savings. That is, because yesterday at 2am, the states of Victoria, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, South Australia and Tasmania  in Australia jumped to 3am to gain us an extra hour of sunlight for the coming summer (woo hoo…footy after work?). This means that for the 7th of October, there really, truly wasn’t a 2am.

Just sucks for you if you wanted to wake up at 2am on 7th of October. It’s an hour that mysteriously doesn’t exist. But let’s not be hasty and say that Apple should start employing Stephen Hawking now – they’re not the ones messing with time. It’s the state or territory governments.

Hear that Aussie governments? Hire Stephen Hawking. Thanks.