Time Magazine Takes Readers on an Augmented Reality Tour of Amazon Rainforest

Prior to this year, Time primarily relied on image markers in the magazine to trigger its special augmented reality features

In 2019, though, the venerable media entity has embraced the markerless tracking provided by ARKit and ARCore via the new Time Immersive app, and a new feature on the Amazon rainforest stands in as its latest example of AR storytelling.

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Available via an update to the Time Immersive iOS and Android apps, "Inside the Amazon: the Dying Forest" presents the story of indigenous tribes and their struggle to halt the encroachment of illegal logging with narration by environmental issues celebrity Jane Goodall.

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

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The foundations of the experience are its 3D maps, sourced from drone footage and 3D photogrammetry, which display the area's landscapes, lumberyards, and villages. Users can touch various hotspots to reveal photos and video in their camera view.

The Amazon AR experience serves as the sequel to the Apollo 11 feature, the premiere experience for the new Time Immersive app.

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

Tommy Palladino/Next Reality

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Increasingly, traditional print publications have been forced to innovate as technology has made their paper publications all but obsolete. In response, the media industry has adapted to the web, but augmented reality has given journalists a more immersive means to tell their stories digitally.

The New York Times, USA Today, and Time have all led the way in this respect, and their implementations of AR storytelling should continue to prove influential to the rest of the media universe.

Cover image via Tommy Palladino/Next Reality