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Thursday, August 11, 2016
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
NEWS

420 Maynard St.

Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327

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LARA MOEHLMAN

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The Michigan Daily (ISSN 0745-967) is 
published every Thursday during the 
spring and summer terms by students 
at the University of Michigan. One copy 
is available free of charge to all readers. 
Additional copies may be picked up at the 
Daily’s office for $2. Subscriptions for fall 
term, starting in September, via U.S. mail 
are $110. Winter term (January through 
April) is $115, yearlong (September 
through April) is $195. University affiliates 
are subject to a reduced subscription rate. 
On-campus subscriptions for fall term 
are $35. Subscriptions must be prepaid. 
The Michigan Daily is a member of The 
Associated Press and The Associated 
Collegiate Press. 

Dingell calls 
for renewed 
conservation 
legislation 

Local startup’s game helps 
children cope with treatment

See RESTORATION, Page 8

GOVERNMENT
BUSINESS

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LAZY DAY

App utilizes 

augmented reality 
to turn books into 
digital adventures

By BAILEY TUCZAK

For the Daily

With Pokemon Go’s explosive 

popularity, augmented reality 
has recently been brought to 
the forefront of news. However, 
Niantic — the company that 
produced Pokemon Go — is 
neither the first nor the only 
company to successfully market 
the technology. A local startup 
company, ALTality, is exploring 
ways to utilize augmented reality 
to aid patients in the hospital 
setting.

Augmented 
reality 
is 
an 

enhanced 
version 
of 
reality 

produced by technology’s adding 
of a digital layer to the real, 
physical world. Ann Arbor based 
tech startup ALTality’s first 
product, Spellbound, is a mobile 

app used in hospitals to distract 
children from scary or painful 
moments by turning books into 
engrossing 
multidimensional 

adventures by using the camera 
on a smartphone or a tablet.

“Basically, you hold up your 

phone screen to a children’s book 
and the pictures on the pages 
come to 3D life and move around 
like a Pokemon moving around 
on your screen,” Bob Miller, 
spokesperson of the Michigan 
Economic 
Development 

Corporation, said.

Miller said some of the game’s 

benefits 
include 
increasing 

compliance with treatment and 
reducing trauma for the children.

Christina 
York, 
CEO 
and 

co-founder of ALTality, said both 
parents and children have had 
incredibly positive responses to 
Spellbound. The game, currently 
helping 
the 
University 
of 

Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s 
Hospital patients every day, 
started out as an idea that came 
to her while reading in bed one 
night. York, an avid reader, said 
the idea came to her after having 

to pull out her iPad to search 
for the difference between two 
boats described in her book.

“Why can’t I just hold the 

device up to the book and have it 
recognize what I’m looking at?” 
York said.

York then participated in 

the Detroit Startup Weekend 
with her idea for ALTality, then 
called MagicBook. York was 
able to build a team, pitch the 
idea and win the competition. 
York’s team then collaborated 
with Ann Arbor SPARK, a 
local organization dedicated to 
economic development whose 
bootcamp helped launch the 
company to its current standing 
today. 

When asked about the effect 

of Pokemon Go has had on her 
company, 
York 
was 
almost 

entirely positive.

“Pokemon 
Go 
is 
helping 

augmented reality in general 
because it exposes it in a way 
that is fun and non-threatening 
and cool,” she said. “It helps 
people envision the possibilities 
of the technology.”

York said that, while the 

game helps kids get up and 
moving, which is important 
for 
being 
healthy 
for 

treatment, it is not without 
problems.

“The downside is that the 

game has patients wandering 
into 
areas 
they 
aren’t 

supposed to be in,” York said.

While the company has 

already made its mark, with 
its pilot project having 25 
life specialists — pediatric 
specialists who help children 
cope 
with 
their 
illnesses 

— 
utilize 
Spellbound 
to 

help their patients at Mott, 
ALTality plans to further 
expand within the hospital 
network.

The company has had many 

requests to develop a platform 
to help adults and veterans 
cope with their sometimes 
frightening 
visits 
to 
the 

hospital. Whether it bepost-
traumatic stress disorder or 
the loss of a limb, York said, 
augmented reality can be an 
incredible mechanism to help 

At Ann Arbor press 

conference, U.S. 

Representative touts 

benefits of grants

By KEVIN LINDER

Daily Staff Reporter

Local leaders gathered at the 

Washtenaw Food Hub in Ann 
Arbor Charter Township for a press 
conference to discuss the need to 
reauthorize the Great Lakes Fish 
and Wildlife Restoration Act.

Last 
month, 
Congresswomen 

Debbie Dingell (D–Mich.), Candice 
Miller (R–Mich.) and Darin LaHood 
(R–Ill.) introduced the bill for 
reauthorization. The act, which was 
first introduced in 1998 to provide 
assistance to local groups and 
designed to encourage conservation 
and restoration projects, has not 
been reauthorized since 2006.

The bill was submitted by a 

partnership 
of 
organizations 

including the Michigan Department 
of Natural Resources, The Great 
Lakes Fishery Commission and 
nonprofit group Ducks Unlimited.

All three of the aforementioned 

groups 
had 
representatives 

attend the event and speak on the 
importance of the legislation to 
work that they do.

The Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife 

Restoration Act of 2016 authorizes 
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 
to provide financial support to 
states and organizations to develop 
and execute proposals to conserve, 
restore and manage fish and wildlife 
populations and their habitats.

Since 1998, the GLFWRA has 

provided more than $24.4 million 
dollars in federal funding to 157 
research and restoration projects.

According to a press release 

from Dingell’s office, the bill would 
authorize 
$6 
million 
annually 

through 
2021 
to 
implement 

restoration 
projects 
and 
FWS 

activities related to the Great Lakes 

See REALITY, Page 9

