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Aurasma

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Aurasma
Information
Industry Augmented Reality
Founded 2011
Founder Autonomy Corporation
Notable Personnel Mike Lynch (Aurasma CEO, 2011), Matt Mills, Jennifer Rapp (general manager, 2012), Annie Weinberger (general manager, 2013-2014)
Products Aurasma app, Aurasma Studio, Aurasma SDK, white-label apps
Parent Autonomy Corporation, then HP
Website https://www.aurasma.com (defunct)


Aurasma was an augmented reality platform created by the British enterprise software company Autonomy Corporation and introduced in 2011. Its free smartphone and tablet app recognized printed images and physical objects through the camera and overlaid linked content on them, such as video, animation and 3D graphics; businesses could also put the technology into their own apps through a software development kit (SDK).[1][2] Recognition ran on a version of the pattern-matching technology from Autonomy's IDOL software, so trigger images did not need printed markers or QR codes.[1][3]

Hewlett-Packard (HP) took control of Autonomy in October 2011, and Aurasma was sold under the HP name from then until it closed.[4] It was used for advertising, print publishing, retail, events and education. In March 2018 HP renamed it HP Reveal, and HP later shut down the business and all of HP Reveal's products; the AR news site Auganix dates the closure to February 2020.[5][6][7]

Reviewed 6 October 2026. History, dates, figures, people and products checked against the cited press articles, PR Newswire releases, HP's SEC filing and archived Aurasma and HP Reveal pages. About review dates.

History

Launch under Autonomy (2011)

Autonomy was an enterprise software company that originated at Cambridge University in 1996 and was led by its founder, Mike Lynch.[8][4] In April 2011 Engadget reported that it had built an iPhone app called Aurasma that used a scaled-down version of IDOL's pattern recognizer to match camera images against a large database and play related video. The first public release was planned for May 2011 as an AR advertisement and game for an upcoming film.[1] At that point the aurasma.com website only offered sign-up for a beta program.[9]

Sources give the launch date as May or June 2011. CMSWire put it at May 2011, while Aurasma's own press releases said the platform launched in June 2011.[10][11] An early campaign promoted Paramount's film Super 8. PCWorld reported in June 2011 that the Super 8 app could turn any Super 8 poster in the United States into a video clip from the film; Autonomy called images that had been set up this way "lit up".[3] By late June 2011 the Aurasma website listed Paramount's Super 8 as a featured partner app, with Wally Yachts and the Financial Times as featured partner content.[12]

Autonomy demonstrated a new version, Aurasma 3D-I, at DEMO Fall 2011 in Santa Clara in September 2011, where Matt Mills spoke for Aurasma. VentureBeat described Lynch as the founder of Autonomy and CEO of Aurasma, and reported uses such as replacing newspaper photos with video, playing film previews from posters and showing diagrams on a router's ports.[13][8] IEEE Spectrum wrote that this version tracked 3D motion as well as static scenes, letting users interact with the virtual images; the article's author suggested that image triggers could make QR codes unnecessary on publications, labels and posters.[8] MIT Technology Review reported that the app made a visual "fingerprint" of a scene in real time and could respond to hand and finger movements in front of the camera, and it compared Aurasma with Layar, which had initially relied on GPS positioning.[14] Aurasma later said it won the DEMOgod and People's Choice awards at DEMO 2011.[11]

HP ownership (2011-2018)

HP had already agreed to buy Autonomy when Aurasma appeared at DEMO.[13] On 3 October 2011 HP announced that it had acquired control of Autonomy Corporation plc after holders of 87.34 percent of its issued share capital accepted HP's cash offer of 25.50 pounds sterling per share. Autonomy was to run as a separate HP business unit led by Lynch.[4]

At CES in January 2012 Aurasma introduced a 3D engine for its platform. TechCrunch reported 2 million app downloads and about 500 partners at that time, said the system could recognize about 500,000 objects in its database, and described a Lucozade promotion in which limited-edition bottles designed by musicians, among them Tinie Tempah and Calvin Harris, triggered AR content.[15] In March 2012 Marvel said at SXSW that it would use Aurasma for AR features in its comics, starting with the Avengers vs. X-Men series, as part of its ReEvolution initiative. Readers pointed a phone at a page to see 3D animations, video trailers and other extra material.[16] In May 2012 Aurasma announced that Popular Science would use the platform for its June 2012 cover story; the announcement quoted Jennifer Rapp as Aurasma's general manager.[17]

Version 2.0 arrived in March 2013 after 18 months of development. It added better image recognition and faster image tracking, social "share" and "like" functions, a simpler way to find and view AR content, and a cloud-based platform that could scale for publishing 2D and 3D content.[10] Version 2.5, announced in October 2013, moved resource-intensive image matching from users' devices to the cloud.[18] In March 2014 HP general manager Annie Weinberger told PCWorld that Aurasma had 40,000 customers, double the figure of six months earlier. PCWorld reported annual subscriptions of 5,000 to 90,000 US dollars, depending on use, and said the coming Aurasma 3 would bring a refreshed SDK, a rules engine for delivering content by location and other conditions, Twitter and Facebook sharing, and a developer portal for tracking usage.[19]

By March 2016 the product was marketed as HP Aurasma. HP said at the time that more than 200,000 companies were creating AR experiences with it, and sold it in three forms: the Aurasma app, white-label apps carrying a customer's name, icon and splash screen, and the Aurasma SDK. That update also added campaign templates to the cloud-based studio and an analytics scorecard for clicks, views and engagement.[2] HP's Aurasma website in late 2017 described campaigns for Disney's Hollywood Studios, Argos, Budweiser and Best Western.[20]

HP Reveal and closure (2018-2020)

The Aurasma website was unchanged on 3 March 2018. By 16 March 2018 it had been replaced with a notice saying that, "as part of our rebranding effort, Aurasma is now HP Reveal", and that existing Auras, assets and mobile apps would keep working; the notice pointed to a new site at hpreveal.com.[5] In 2019 HP described HP Reveal as "a new Extended Reality Platform from HP" for adding interactivity to printed content. Alongside the AR studio it listed Link, a brand-protection product for giving each printed object a unique identity and tracking it.[21] The HP Reveal Studio landing page said the platform had over 1 million monthly active users and was used by educators as well as brands.[22]

HP later replaced the studio site with a notice that, "after two years of helping people discover and share augmented reality experiences", it was "shutting down the business and all of HP Reveal's products".[6] Auganix reports that HP shut the service down in February 2020.[7]

Products

Product Description
Aurasma app (later HP Reveal app) Free app for iOS and Android devices that recognized trigger images and objects and played the linked overlays, called "Auras".[11][22]
Aurasma Studio (later HP Reveal Studio) Web-based drag-and-drop tool for building, managing and tracking AR campaigns, with analytics.[2][22]
Aurasma SDK Kit for adding Aurasma image recognition, a camera viewfinder, photo capture and social sharing to new or existing apps.[2]
White-label apps Custom-branded versions of the Aurasma app, built by Aurasma's services team.[2]
HP Reveal Link Brand-protection and tracking product that gave each printed object a unique identity, listed on HP Reveal's 2019 website.[21]

Reported adoption

The figures below are those reported at the time, mostly by Aurasma or HP; they measure different things (downloads, users, partners, customers) and are not directly comparable.

Date Reported figure Source
January 2012 2 million app downloads; about 500 partners TechCrunch[15]
June 2012 More than 6,000 partners; 4 million downloads in over 100 countries Aurasma press release[11]
March 2013 5 million downloads CMSWire[10]
July 2013 More than 20,000 customers; 6 million monthly active users Aurasma announcement[23]
March 2014 40,000 customers; more than 6 million downloads PCWorld, quoting HP[19]
March 2016 More than 200,000 companies creating AR experiences HP, via App Developer Magazine[2]
April 2019 Over 1 million monthly active users HP Reveal Studio website[22]

XR work

Aurasma was a mobile AR platform based on image recognition. Instead of fiducial markers or barcodes, it recognized the printed page, poster, package or object, which let publishers and advertisers add AR to existing designs. Customers published content to the shared Aurasma app or built it into their own apps through the SDK.[3][8][2] Customers named by the company and in press coverage included Universal Music Group, Marvel Entertainment, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Popular Science, the University of Illinois, GQ, DreamWorks Animation, Bon Jovi and Vanity Fair.[11][14][23] In 2014 HP said schools, publishers, film marketers and makers of training material were using the platform.[19]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Christopher Trout (2011-04-09). "Aurasma's AR iPhone app to turn everyday objects into multimedia triggers (video)". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/2011-04-09-aurasmas-ar-iphone-app-to-turn-everyday-objects-into-multimedia.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 Richard Harris (2016-03-16). "Aurasma Augmented Reality Marketing Platform Updates Released by HP". App Developer Magazine. https://appdevelopermagazine.com/3748/2016/3/16/Aurasma-Augmented-Reality-Marketing-Platform-Updates-Released-by-HP/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 David Daw (2011-06-10). "Futuristic Super 8 Ads Remind Us of Minority Report". PCWorld. https://www.pcworld.com/article/485293/futuristic_super_8_ads_remind_us_of_minority_report.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 "HP Acquires Control of Autonomy Corporation plc". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (EDGAR), Form 8-K exhibit 99.1. Hewlett-Packard Company. 2011-10-03. https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/47217/000110465911054593/a11-27333_1ex99d1.htm. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Aurasma is now HP Reveal". Aurasma (archived by the Internet Archive, 16 March 2018). HP. 2018-03-16. https://web.archive.org/web/20180316054303/https://www.aurasma.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 "HP Reveal". HP Reveal Studio (archived by the Internet Archive, 12 May 2020). HP. 2020-05-12. https://web.archive.org/web/20200512092858/https://studio.hpreveal.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Aurasma". Auganix. https://www.auganix.org/hud/aurasma/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Tekla S. Perry (2011-09-16). "DemoFall 2011: An App for Augmenting Reality". IEEE Spectrum. https://spectrum.ieee.org/demofall-2011-an-app-for-augmenting-reality. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  9. ↑ "Aurasma". Aurasma (archived by the Internet Archive, 11 April 2011). 2011-04-11. https://web.archive.org/web/20110411040454/http://www.aurasma.com:80/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 David Roe (2013-03-08). "HP's Autonomy Upgrades Augmented Reality Aurasma App for Social Sharing, Improved Image Recognition". CMSWire. https://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/hps-autonomy-upgrades-augmented-reality-aurasma-app-for-social-sharing-improved-image-recognition-019963.php. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 "Aurasma Turns One - Celebrates with 6,000 Partners and 4 Million Downloads". PR Newswire. Aurasma. 2012-06-29. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/aurasma-turns-one---celebrates-with-6000-partners-and-4-million-downloads-160817835.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  12. ↑ "Aurasma". Aurasma (archived by the Internet Archive, 25 June 2011). 2011-06-25. https://web.archive.org/web/20110625112026/http://www.aurasma.com:80/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Dylan Tweney (2011-09-14). "Demo: Practical augmented reality hits the iPad and smartphones with Aurasma". VentureBeat. https://venturebeat.com/business/aurasma-augmented-reality. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Tom Simonite (2011-09-15). "Augmented Reality Meets Gesture Recognition". MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2011/09/15/191290/augmented-reality-meets-gesture-recognition/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Mike Butcher (2012-01-10). "Aurasma launches augmented reality 3D engine at CES". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2012/01/10/aurasma-launches-augmented-reality-3d-engine-at-ces-3. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  16. ↑ Josh Constine (2012-03-11). "Marvel and Aurasma Show Off New Line Of Augmented Reality Comics". TechCrunch. https://techcrunch.com/2012/03/11/marvel-augmented-reality. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  17. ↑ "Popular Science is First Consumer Magazine to Deploy Aurasma's Augmented Reality Technology, Bringing June Cover Story to Life". PR Newswire. Aurasma. 2012-05-23. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/popular-science-is-first-consumer-magazine-to-deploy-aurasmas-augmented-reality-technology-bringing-june-cover-story-to-life-153042655.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  18. ↑ David Roe (2013-10-23). "HP Autonomy Pushes Aurasma's Augmented Reality To The Cloud". CMSWire. https://www.cmswire.com/cms/customer-experience/hp-autonomy-pushes-aurasmas-augmented-reality-to-the-cloud-022917.php. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Joab Jackson (2014-03-11). "HP gains traction with augmented reality service". PCWorld. https://www.pcworld.com/article/444297/hp-gains-traction-with-augmented-reality-service.html. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  20. ↑ "Home". Aurasma (archived by the Internet Archive, 30 December 2017). HP. 2017-12-30. https://web.archive.org/web/20171230041842/https://www.aurasma.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 "HP Reveal". HP Reveal (archived by the Internet Archive, 26 March 2019). HP. 2019-03-26. https://web.archive.org/web/20190326090036/https://www.hpreveal.com/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 22.3 "HP Reveal - Landing Page". HP Reveal Studio (archived by the Internet Archive, 20 April 2019). HP. 2019-04-20. https://web.archive.org/web/20190420165403/https://studio.hpreveal.com/landing. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "HP Autonomy's Aurasma Crosses 20,000 Customer Milestone, Surpasses 6 Million Users". WhatTheyThink. 2013-07-11. https://whattheythink.com/news/64430-hp-autonomys-aurasma-crosses-20000-customer-milestone-surpasses-6-million-users/. Retrieved 2026-10-06.
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