This week's print edition of American magazine, The New Yorker, features a cover that 'comes to life' through the use of an app.
The illustrated weekly, owned by publisher Cond'e Nast, has incorporated augmented reality (AR) technology into its 'Innovators' issue to show the possibilities of technology and print integration.
The cover was designed by illustrator Christoph Niemann and technology giant Qualcomm sponsored the special edition. To experience the AR cover, subscribers will have to download the Uncovr app, from the App Store or Google Play Store.
Once in the app, holding the device camera over the front and back cover, and a number of AR ads inside the magazine, will reveal a different virtual perspective of the illustrations.
"The idea or an augmented or virtual reality is inherent in any drawing - it's almost the definition of drawing," says Niemann, in a New Yorker article explaining the cover.
"If you create world on paper, you create a window. Usually you break the surface with your mind, but you always have the feeling of: What if you could step into that world or if something could come out if it?"
The front cover features a detailed yellow and black animated Manhattan cityscape, with moving elevators and trains. Moving the app around the city that has 'grown' from the page reveals all angles, allowing the viewer to peak 'behind' illustrations.
"So between the front and the back cover, and the experience created by the app, I like that we could show essentially two different angles on the same world," Niemann continued. "Like stepping through a mirror."
This is the first time The New Yorker has made use of AR. Other magazines have made similar attempts. In 2009, Esquire magazine released an AR edition where augmented images were accessible through a computer's Webcam.
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