Catchoom Image Recognition Powers Layar Augmented Reality App to Activate Print Materials and Objects with Digital Experiences

BARCELONA, Spain, March 15, 2013 /PRNewswire-iReach/ -- As print publications look for new ways to engage readers in an increasingly digital age, Catchoom and Layar are helping advertisers, publishers and e-commerce use augmented reality (AR) to increase their audiences, boost revenues and build brand awareness with a new level of two-way engagement.

Catchoom's cloud-based image recognition technology is powering Layar, one of the companies at the forefront of the rapidly emerging medium of AR, to connect digital information to the physical world with speed, accuracy and scalability.

Catchoom's image and 3D object recognition helps Layar activate printed materials, such as newspapers magazines, ads, posters or product packaging, by enabling mobile devices to use pictures instead of the keyboard to trigger customized digital content experiences.

With more than 29 million downloads and two million active users per month, Layar app users simply scan interactive print items, such as magazines, newspapers and other items enhanced with Layar, and are instantly connected to videos, web content, offers and other digital experiences. When a user scans an object with the Layar app, Catchoom powers the search for matches among Layar's database of millions of images. Catchoom image recognition clocks the fastest round-trip object recognition time (0.5 seconds), and drops the false positives rate to under one percent.

"The Catchoom technology behind Layar lets smartphone cameras now become a link to digital content by making print content and physical objects interactive," said David Marimon , CEO, Catchoom. "With millions of images to search, Layar would not be able to offer the scalability for search traffic and number of reference images it has today without Catchoom's powerful image recognition. Layar's massive footprint has also given us valuable insight into how people use image recognition so we can continue to learn and grow our technology on a wide scale."

About Catchoom

Catchoom is an award-winning VC-funded spin-off of Telefónica Digital that creates and sells high-performance cloud-based image recognition technology for a wide range of industries, including gaming, advertising, publishing and e-commerce. Catchoom creates unlimited potential for large-scale high-performance platforms and apps that leverage image recognition to effectively increase revenues, amplify brand awareness, improve end-user experience and connect physical objects with the digital world. Catchoom technology is robust, flexible, easy-to-integrate and currently reaches more than three million active users each month. It captures 3D, distant and even partially occluded objects, and presents matches with benchmark accuracy in under a single second. Catchoom continues to win applause in innovation circles. In 2012, it was a finalist at the IBM SmartCamp Kickstart and won Best AR Startup at augmented reality's ARE2012 event in Santa Clara, Calif. Founded in November 2011, Catchoom is based in Barcelona. For more information, visit catchoom.com or follow Catchoom on social media at Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn.

Media Contact: Alexandra Crabb Ink Communications for Catchoom, +1-617-956-2214, alex@theinkstudio.com

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SOURCE Catchoom