Tottenham Hotspur's new kit gets augmented reality treatment

Aurasma - helping Spurs to virtually win
Aurasma - helping Spurs to virtually win

Tottenham Hotspur has announced that its new shirts will come brandishing some augmented reality love, thanks to sponsor Autonomy.

Software firm Autonomy has decided to forgo its name on the footie kit and instead add its new augmented reality platform Aurasma as the brand.

Aurasma is currently available on smartphones and offers up animation and the like in the real world. Its technology is similar to that of Layar – one of the first mobile apps to use augmented reality as a service rather than gimmick.

Spurs of the moment

Speaking about the new kit sponsor, Daniel Levy, Chairman, Tottenham Hotspur, said: "We are pleased to be supporting Autonomy and its revolutionary Aurasma platform. Autonomy continues to push the boundaries of new technology and with Aurasma we are seeing the future of augmented reality and mobile technology."

And it's not just a clever name – Spurs has hinted that we will see some augmented reality technology integrated into the kit, but hasn't quite revealed what this will entail.

The use of new digital technologies in footie kits is not unusual. The 2008 England away kit was given a QR code on its label and this has been implemented on to many more shirts.

Maybe the AR tech will put a digital version of Luka Modric on the pitch, given that a move to Chelsea could be on the cards.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.