Patrizio di Marco, Gucci’s President and CEO, said: “This multi-year Immersive Retail Experience initiative underlines our belief in the growing importance of creating highly impactful and sharable brand experiences across all of Gucci’s platforms and touch points by taking advantage of rapid advances in digital technology. The all round sensory experience that a customer will now feel when approaching and entering our Montenapoleone store will create an unprecedented level of engagement.”

Commenting on the creative content opportunities presented by the Immersive Retail Experience Frida Giannini said, “As Creative Director this provides a wonderful new digital canvas upon which we can present incredibly rich and powerful content to inspire our customers.”

The OOOii Real Time servers that have been developed to drive all of the displays have been designed to be massively scalable to allow for immersive experiences throughout the store.  The technologies that are being installed not only allow ultra-high resolution 4k and 5k imagery to be displayed across the numerous high-resolution Planar displays, but in a second phase will also give a customer the ability to interact with the content in intuitive ways.  Pause, rewind and search for specific content by making simple hand gestures in front of the displays.  Then, if a customer likes a certain product they will be able to receive an image on their mobile device allowing them to consult with friends and later send a notification to their usual sales assistant in order for an item to be reserved. The film Minority Report was the visualization of these natural interaction models. Gucci’s Retail Immersive Experience initiative will represent the first actualization of some of these concepts.

Kent Demaine, Founder and CEO of OOOii, said, “For years Hollywood has perfected the art of merging virtual content into the physical world where the two appear to coexist.  For Gucci, we have moved these techniques onto a scalable architecture so that this process can happen in real time.  The ultimate goal is to allow consumers to explore the world of Gucci in effortless and highly engaging ways, while simultaneously allowing the brand to learn from this participation thereby informing the creation and presentation of future content.”

“Gucci is leading the way in creating interactive retail environments which combine its aspirational fashion content with technology inspired by science fiction films,” said Jennifer Davis, Vice President, Planar Systems. “Our unique display solutions, combined with OOOii’s innovation and Gucci’s vision, has created a partnership that is inventing a new premium retail experience.”

In a second phase, planned for 2012, additional functionalities will be introduced which will enable customers to interact with the digital content they are viewing across multiple displays using motions that are natural and intuitive.

OOOii is seeking talented realtime programmers of all disciplines to build the next generation of interactive realtime 3D experiences. We are looking for stand-out applicants across a wide range of experience for disciplines including: generalist, graphics, content pipeline, file system and streaming, networking, product UI, and/or tools UI. OOOii’s flagship product will power large displays placed in public lobbies such as movie theaters and shopping malls. Successful candidates will have a entrepreneurial passion for working in a close-knit team under high-level goals to fill in the blanks and produce well-constructed, scalable and efficient code that is able to address the needs of many different realtime content sources and varied interactive experiences.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Develop code and tools for a next-gen distributed renderer for near-photo real and high-aesthetic non-photo real visuals

• Grow with the team in the understanding of next-gen, post-SLI, post-DirectX rendering and learn how to best utilize massive GPU compute power for non-graphics applications such as data capture and interactivity

• Collaborate with team on-site in downtown Hollywood, just under the famous sign

• Tackle unfamiliar problems and invent new solutions through research and experimentation

• Meet a variety of customer requirements, rendering styles and work respectfully and creatively with Hollywood’s top properties

• Jump into unfamiliar code – middleware, partner or internal – and effectively refactor, fix bugs, receive stewardship and generally take ownership of making any given subsystem work

• Foster an entrepreneurial and creative spirit for customers and our internal design team as a product design emerges

EXPERIENCE:

• C++ as primary language

• Undergraduate degree or equivalent industry experience

• Talk intelligently and critically in your field of expertise

• Thorough awareness of movies, video games, what works and what doesn’t

• Prior experience with industry leading game engines such as UE3, CryEngine, idTech and/or proprietary 1st Party engines would be a plus

• Shipped a significant product (i.e. a game, movie using an algorithm, a tool, an iPhone/Android app etc.)

PREFERRED SKILLS:

• Ability to accurately and realistically break down complex tasks into smaller points of achievement

• Ability to complete tasks in a predictable manner with a high degree of quality

• Excellent written and verbal communication skills to contribute to the creative process as well as take direction from creative directors and leads

• Competence with Perforce and Visual Studio a must for all but entry-level programmers

• Demo reel or web page of personal work a big plus

The OOOii Real Time servers that have been developed to drive all of the displays have been designed to be massively scalable to allow for immersive experiences throughout the store. The technologies that are being installed not only allow ultra-high resolution 4k and 5k imagery to be displayed across the numerous high-resolution Planar displays, but in a second phase will also give a customer the ability to interact with the content in intuitive ways.

This XL event will bring some great national and international speakers to the stage; Dave August of OOOii will talk about his use of Flash in JJ Abram’s Star Trek, as well as his creative input to movies such as Fast & Furious. Tobias Mannewitz of Karakter will be there and with work on projects for Spellbound, EA Games and SCEE this promises to be a session not to miss! Anita and Geoff from Champagne Valentine will amongst other great things talk about an interactive music video they created for Placebo.  Adobe will give you insights in their products and tooling with such international renowned speakers / evangelists as Serge Jespers, Jason Levine and Paul Burnett. If that’s not enough, Niko Stumpo of Hanazuki will be talking about the studio’s new work together with Mark Barzinski of Barzinski and Jean Jean. Dirk Groten of Layar fame will be talking about the Layar platform, something I’m looking forward to find out more about. Last but hopefully not least, I was honored to get an invitation to speak, and I will be talking about my latest forays into realtime flash.

Evelyn Salt, a trusted and loyal CIA operative, goes on the run when a Russian defector convinces her superiors that she’s a double agent sent to assassinate the President of the United States. As the intense manhunt heats up, Salt uses all her skills as a covert operative to elude capture and uncovers a secret so powerful it could change the course of world history. Angelina Jolie stars in this action-packed thriller that will keep you guessing until the end.

The Festival is also the only truly global meeting place for advertisers, advertising and communication professionals. Over 8,000 delegates from 90 countries attend seven days of workshops, exhibitions, screenings, master classes and high-profile seminars by industry leaders such as Sir Martin Sorrell, Bob Greenberg, Maurice Lévy, David Droga, Mark Tutssel and Tham Khai Meng, as well as people like Mark Zuckerberg, Ben Stiller, Yoko Ono, Kofi Annan, Steve Ballmer, Biz Stone and Bob Geldof.

The networking and learning opportunity of the year, Cannes Lions is the must-attend event for anyone involved in brand communication.