Total Immersion teams with int13 for smartphone augmented reality

Sci-fi fans out there might recall the early episode of Red Dwarf (Better Than Life, I think it was), in which the crew dabble with an augmented reality experience called Total Immersion Video games.

As with so much science fiction, it seems the boys from the Dwarf predicted that augmented reality specialist Total Immersion would indeed be getting into the games industry.

The company has just announced a partnership with French smartphone developer int13 to integrate their respective technologies into an embedded augmented reality application system for Symbian and Windows Mobile devices.

"At int13, we recognise the value of augmented reality as an engaging new way to interact with consumers," says Stéphane Cocquereaumont, MD at int13.

"Our aim is to develop games and augmented reality applications that make the most of what smartphones have to offer. With this distribution partnership, we look to benefit from Total Immersion's premier market position as the company brings our combined technology to a global audience."

This new mobile framework based on Total Immersion's D'Fusion platform will also add support for iPhone and Android, bringing the real-time, interactive, 3D augmentation system to users through a variety of video and web browser implementations.

"This is a win-win for both companies, and for consumers," concludes Bruno Uzzan, CEO at Total Immersion. "int13 has developed one of the most dynamic augmented reality libraries for mobile phones. With this agreement, Total Immersion enters the booming smartphone application space, marketing a compelling augmented reality experience on mobile devices."