Krstl delivers content and experiences through engaging physical portals called crystals. Crystals can take many interactive physical forms and are embedded in retail, leisure and event spaces including shops, pubs, and exhibitions. Visitors and customers interact with crystals to download content (such as video clips and coupons), receive content from their friends, or take part in a shared application. Visitors interact using their mobile phones over the mobile web (including Wi-Fi) or Bluetooth. Thanks to matter 2 media’s technology, no app is required and Krstl supports the vast majority of mobiles.

Krstl is a new type of social-physical network. Crystals deliver exclusive content from space-owners and their visitors, brands and other information providers, tuned precisely to who their visitors are and where they are in the real world. They enable publishers to target advertisements and content on the basis of the spaces where their audience visits. Unlike other social-physical networks, Krstl gives space-owners a genuine stake in the delivery of content and experiences to their visitors.

As well as a new interaction mechanism between the mobile and the crystal, matter 2 media has developed a suite of loctcha technologies. A loctcha is to a physical space what a captcha is to a website. Some websites make their visitors copy a captcha’s distorted text to prove that they are human and not a bot or other software entity. Similarly, a loctcha proves that someone is really present in your space, and not a person or a program simply claiming that they are there. Loctchas, unlike captchas, are designed to be fun or transparent to the user.

As an example, this video shows the interactive mannequin and colour dome crystals created for a fashion popcorn, a fashion, film and digital media event at the London College of Fashion. In action, the crystal projects swirling content onto its lower hemisphere, which responds as people interact with it. (Many other designs are possible, including our other first prototypes an ambiently glowing “lamp” small enough to sit amongst merchandise in a shop or on a bar or table in a leisure venue, see the home page for examples.)

The UK’s Technology Strategy Board awarded a grant to matter 2 media to develop Krstl.