Wonderscope Storytelling App Aims to Immerse Kids By Using Apple’s ARKit
Ready to explore the extraordinary stories around the ordinary places? Wonderscope, the app built by Within’s immersive storytelling skills want to transform the way that kids interact with technology.
Building on their commitment to expand the potential of storytelling through technology, Within today announced the release of Wonderscope, a new children’s iOS app that uses the power of augmented reality to transform ordinary spaces into extraordinary stories. The free app, marks Within’s first AR offering, creates narrative-driven experiences that change the way kids engage with mobile devices by encouraging movement, reading aloud and interactive play.
Within CEO Chris Milk commented about his app, saying,
Millions of kids use screens as much or more than adults, and they often do it alone. With AR, we see an opportunity to change that dynamic. Rather than disappearing into our devices and shutting out the world, Wonderscope promotes a new kind of screen-positive experience, one that opens you up to everything and everyone around you.
With an amazing mobile technology by using Apple’s ARKit, Wonderscope initially featured by Apple at the 2017 Worldwide Developer Conference, Wonderscope is now available on all AR-enabled iOS devices.
Featuring stories that respond to a child’s movement and voice—including lines of dialogue that are highlighted as a child reads them aloud—Wonderscope showcases AR’s unique potential to elevate early childhood learning. This is accomplished thanks to Within’s custom-built voice-recognition system, which is quickly able to detect key passages in each story without an internet connection. The system is based on machine learning and uses different language models on each device.
Also, the Look At feature by Within approximates the experience of eye contact with characters while developing the emotional connection and sense of participation in the story.
Wonderscope uses “spatial-storytelling” to transform an iPhone or iPad from a screen to a magical lens. Using Wonderscope, kids don’t look into their devices, they look through them, combining the real world with one of make-believe.
Within’s Executive Producer of Original Content, Samantha Storr also commented,
As a parent, I’m excited to release an app that builds confidence through reading. We’re utilizing augmented reality to let kids interact with aspirational characters, while actively playing and talking. Our stories tap into children’s natural inclination to learn by doing, and they get the added joy of helping characters along unique journeys.
Within’s COO, Colin Decker added,
Wonderscope allows kids to engage on a deeper level and feel valued as they play an active character in the story. We are only beginning to explore the new ways that technology can be used to support growth, development and confidence in young audiences.
The Storymaker streams extraordinary content creation for developers. To achieve their vision of spatial-storytelling, Within created Storymaker, a development tool that allows storytellers to work without getting stuck re-creating core technology. Storymaker helps reduce cost while ensuring top-notch interaction, voice integration, and much more. Within will continue working with some of the best artists, animators and storytellers to advance the Wonderscope platform and the Storymaker tool.
With Wonderscope, helpful and healthy screen time for kids may be possible for the first time.
