With its commitment to stay on the leading edge of technology, and so many of its clients wanting the very latest in mobile and tablet applications, Interdirect is working on an innovative idea that enables the real world to collide with the virtual, bringing a little bit of magic to your ordinary logo, product packaging, poster etc. Free applications such as Blippar enable you to view interactive content by using your camera to hover over a static image, bringing your brand to life; and Interdirect is working with technologies that will enable it to embed these facilities within its clients' own applications.

Augmented Reality is emerging technology that will enable Interdirect to take its clients' ideas and turn them into a creative, fun and interactive experience. By holding up your phone or tablet (must have a camera) you will receive an instant response - whether a web link, video, audio, coupon or even a 3D product experience, game, or even a cookery book!

Nicholas Mann, founder and managing director of Interdirect says: “This new technology enables Interdirect to develop interactive experiences like no other, and is a natural successor to the QR code. I am very excited about the scope of augmented reality – the possibilities are endless!"

Interdirect loves big ideas, and they don’t come much bigger than those of José Mariano López-Urdiales, who plans to allow us all to glimpse the curve of the earth from a balloon.

“The first people who described the earth as a blue ball were not in rockets,” the Spanish entrepreneur says. “They were flying in balloons.”

José is offering what he calls the “near-space” experience of viewing the planet and the space beyond it from 36 km (22 miles) above the earth. He hopes to have the first passengers aloft in the near-space vehicle called a “bloon” by the middle of this decade.

Toyota may have just unveiled a concept capable of occupying your kids on that long car journey – well for five minutes anyway!

Interdirect loves these virtual windows which give you the ability to look out from your sitting room onto anywhere in the world.

Basic kits might be out of everyday reach for the moment (starting price is expected to be $3000) and ironically only marginally less than visiting the Golden Gate Bridge with your child in tow, but it’s still an exciting window on the future of technology in the home and its endless possibilities.

Cannes has always been one of the most glamorous hotspots on the Riviera – home of celebrity, style and sublime shopping, it’s the perfect setting for MAPIC - the leading commercial real estate orientated trade show. MAPIC enables retailers, investors, retail estate professionals and local authorities to discover what the market has to offer and create and also develop the connections which are essential to the business of retail real estate.

Interdirect was invited to attend as partners of AIR Design – the way-finding specialist which Interdirect has worked alongside for both St David’s Cardiff – the hugely successful re-developed shopping centre in Cardiff, and Corvin - a newly opened shopping centre located in the outskirts of Budapest.

The Exhibition was a great success and Interdirect made many valuable connections with important contacts  throughout the retail sector, based not just in the UK and Europe, but across the globe.

So as my earlier post explained, as part of London design week there was an installation of LED robot Arms in Trafalgar Square, entitled Outrace, which wrote messages across the night sky.

Anyone could submit a message, either in person at Trafalgar Square or from around the world via the website. Those that were selected were beamed across the sky and filmed and this film was then stored on the website, as a permanent record of the event.

As luck would have it I managed to get this message through before the end of the project last week...