AUSTIN, Texas – Following its January debut at the Consumer Electronics Show and a stop last month in Spain for Mobile World Congress, Qualcomm brought its Invisible Museum to South by Southwest Interactive.
The splashy exhibit, on the heart of Austin’s famous party-friendly 6th Street in the Mashable House, was conceived as a way to help a “company with mostly invisible innovations tell its story,” according to Qualcomm.
When you approach the exhibit, you’ll receive a tablet to interact with the installation through. You’ll see white, static objects – a skyscraper for example – that, when viewed through the tablet, come alive.
“As visitors point a tablet at a museum pedestal, the screen will awaken, showing them what previously couldn’t be seen filling the room with bold and bright color,” Qualcomm explained. “Six different pedestals will display six different experiences, each highlighting Qualcomm technologies through augmented reality.”
During SxSW, I took a look at the building, which goes on to showcase smart city technology. Once viewed through the tablet, the formerly stark, static skyscraper is incorporated into a lively cityscape with buildings springing up around it and traffic and wireless network signals, for instance.
The idea is to see Qualcomm’s vision of a smart city, which the company has looked to enable through projects like LinkNYC, in which thousands of old telephone booths in all five boroughs are being converted to Wi-Fi hot spots and kiosks connecting users to city services among other applications.
