Pune : Imagine a creepy dinosaur coming to life or a nicely dressed fairy dancing on your table or a cute little puppy playing with you. With the aim of ‘bringing the virtual into reality’, Pune-based publishing house Media Next Info processors Pvt. Ltd. has launched interactive Augmented Reality (AR) coloring books for kids, for the first time in India.
Augmented Reality is the real time view of a physical environment which is enhanced by computer-generated content and effects such as sound and video. The technology, which is widely used in the field of defence and medicine, was first used in books for kids by Russian firm ‘Laboratory 24 LLC’. The firm is recognized as the first publisher of Augmented Reality books for kids under the brand name ‘Devar Kids’. MediaNext has acquired sole publishing and distribution rights for Devar Books in India.
In the first phase, MediaNext has launched two titles viz. Live Coloring Book: Live Heroes (priced at Rs. 399/-) and 3D Coloring Game: Speed of Sound (priced at Rs. 499/-). The AR coloring books are pretty easy to understand. A kid has to color the pictures with any medium, download Devar Kids app on the smartphone and see the pictures come alive. Kids can tease the character, play with them and even take photos with them. 3D Coloring Game brings colored cars into reality and with a click of a button one can start a racing game.
“At a time when kids are getting addicted to video games and social media, augmented reality has the power to bring them back to books. It can act as a tool to bridge the gap between video games and books,” said Abhay Kulkarni, Managing Director of MediaNext. The augmented reality books will certainly help kids to improve their learning ability and add an interactive element to the books, he further added.
In near future, MediaNext plans to launch around 19 AR books based on various themes under the brand name of ‘Menakabooks’. The recently launched books are exclusively available on leading e-Commerce portal Amazon.in. Amazon has kicked off a promotional campaign for AR Books starting 13th June 2016.
