Books that come alive with augmented reality available at Big Bad Wolf | ABS-CBN

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Books that come alive with augmented reality available at Big Bad Wolf

Books that come alive with augmented reality available at Big Bad Wolf

Jeeves de Veyra

 | 

Updated Feb 27, 2019 11:53 AM PHT

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MANILA -- Augmented reality (AR) is one of the latest tech buzzwords being used in everything from design to gaming -- and now even books.

US-based Little Hippo Books has integrated AR technology to bring an immersive quality to stories for today’s parents and children.

Albert Haug, owner and president of Little Hippo Books, visited the Philippines upon the invitation of Big Bad Wolf sale founders Andrew Yap and Jacqueline Ng to check out the vibrant book scene in Manila.

Little Hippo's titles are among the featured books brought over to the World Trade Center for this much-awaited sale.

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The books can be read as a regular book without AR. The magic happens after downloading the Magic Hippo app from Google Play or Apple's App Store. The app uses the device’s camera to scan for markers on the book cover and the inside pages. It then uses the book’s surface to project characters, props, and places that can be viewed through the phone supplemented with sound effects and music.

With this technology, stories can literally leap off the page.

Little Hippo Books started out as a children's book publishing house. But at one point, Haug started to look for something different.

"When this technology became available, we acknowledged that augmented reality is the future. So we combined our regular business, which is book publishing with this technology for the future and created the augmented reality books using the two elements," explained Haug.

So far, there are six books available. Haug started with children’s storybooks: "Little Red Riding Hood," "Goldilocks and the Three Bears," "The Three Little Pigs," and "The Velveteen Rabbit."

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Little Hippo Books also came up with titles for beginning education.

"We went one step further and developed educational titles like ABC and 123. The retention for the child of learning how to count, learning the ABC, becomes important with augmented reality because the child remembers more than just reading," Haug explained.

"The response from the parents was overwhelming. There are a lot of different studies when it comes to augmented reality and children's books. When you just read the book, the child will just remember a small amount. When the child plays and interacts with the title, it's not just the parent reading to you, but it's also the child playing with the character. So the child is much more connected to the book than just the reading aspect," he added.

Haug is excited for the technology, especially with a recently signed partnership with The Walt Disney Co.

"You'll see more titles with Disney going in the direction of education. With Disney, you'll see the brand name recognition already and between the brand name recognition combined with the learning elements, you'll see Mickey teaching children ABCs and 123s. So that will be the next generation of titles, and the response for that in the United States is overwhelming," Haug said.

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The AR Little Hippo Books are available at the Big Bad Wolf Sale, which is running at at the World Trade Center until March 4. The sale is open 24 hours.

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