

GraffitiGeo shows first augmented reality app for restaurant recommendations - jmtame
http://graffitigeo.posterous.com/graffitigeo-presents-first-augmented-reality

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dylanz
Oh no... now along with the bluetooth people talking to themselves, you'll
have a bunch of people scanning slowly around with their iphones out.

But seriously, this is awesome. Great work!

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ynniv
Maybe AR is new to you, but AR isn't new to me (I worked with video overlay AR
in college in 2002), and I fail to see why anyone should care about these
mobile phone AR systems. Cell phones have poor video quality and frame rate
leading to a mediocre video overlay system at best. Combine that with the
screen space wasted on a street level perspective, and a shaky hand, and you
have an application that sucks all around. Regardless, I have to watch people
pat these developers on the back as if it were difficult to combine a GPS
signal with accelerometer and compass readings and project some boxes into a
3D scene.

Please take this with a grain of salt: nobody cares. Users want an easy to
read, easy to navigate map, with good review data. The built in Maps
application nails the first two (it even uses the compass), and does an okay
job on the last one. You should be concentrating on what isn't already done
well.

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Shooter
I agree, but didn't want to be a complete downer since these guys no doubt
worked hard on the app and are emotionally invested. (I'm also a hyper-
critical person, so I try to censor myself. My wife would have divorced me
already otherwise.)

Maybe this first iteration is really just a starting point for them, and they
will rethink their approach? Releasing something is more than most people do.
I think some of the praise they're receiving is because people respect their
effort and their GENERAL conceptual direction.

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ynniv
I certainly don't want to judge based on a first cut, but I don't see any of
the fundamental problems solved. AR has been around a long time, and has never
been as everyday popular as first impressions have suggested. Show me
usability improvements, a compelling subject matter, or at least a superior
implementation given the hardware limitations. I see none of that here, just
another echo of flashy AR demos
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=670645>). To me, this is the result of
web programmers hearing about augmented reality for the first time, or
realizing that the iPhone is the first everyday computing device capable of
AR, and hacking something together over the course of a couple months.

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Shooter
Agreed.

Like I said, I'm just in a 12-Step "Debbie Downer" program, so I'm trying to
be more positive. Baby steps ;-)

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mrshoe
It's cool that people are pulling this off, but I can't help but wonder if
they're asking the wrong question: "can we?" instead of "should we?"

Maybe this is just meant as a proof of concept. In that case, it's great. But
if it's meant to be a useful way to find restaurants and get reviews, I think
there are much better interfaces for that. Including existing apps.

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siong1987
It is not about restaurants. Imagine this scenario:

When you are walking on a street, you pull out our app and look around you.
Now, you know everything about that street.

It is a totally different experience if you are trying to find this kind of
information on a 2d map. It is like google street view vs google map.

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stener
Imho 2d google map is superior interface for finding information. I don't need
to move with my phone around to get information etc. Was it your need to be
able to recognize buildings based on street-view, because you can not read it
from map? Technically impressive, thumbs up.

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slackerIII
I love seeing these AR apps, but being able to integrate with some kind of
lightweight head mounted display will make them vastly more interesting.
Anybody know what the state of the art on those things are yet?

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njharman
AR has been done for ages with head mounted displays (lightweight is mostly a
factor of time+money the AR rigs or 80's were not light but the ones from
2000's are)

Google "Wearable Computing", "Professor Steve Mann", "MIT's Media Lab".
<http://www.eyetap.org/>

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chrischen
Can someone explain how this works? Do they use the GPS + compass to detect
what you're looking at or do they actually analyze the image data. I'm
thinking it's the former.

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kogir
Probably GPS + Compass + Accelerometer. You need to be able to detect the
angle of the phone as well (looking up, level, or down).

The iPhone doesn't have the processing power to do meaningful real-time image
recognition.

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javanix
I would agree with you - but the 'infobox' (for lack of a better term) stays
stationary over the same point of the building for the whole thing. I can't
imagine the computations to keep it that centered based simply on the
orientation of the phone would be either accurate enough or much faster than
basic block/rectangle image processing.

After all, Google street-view does some simple image processing like that in-
browser using JavaScript, and I'd imagine native iPhone code performance would
approach that level of power.

~~~
kogir
With the accelerometer you can detect gravity (true down) and your angle
relative to it. Then model the earth as a plane and keep the label a constant
distance above the ground.

Seems like they did a good job of it though. It's really slick.

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seshagiric
Awesome. I hope it works fast though I wont mind hanging on it for couple of
minutes if the results are good.

How is the location accuracy - one can potentially focus on some thing a 100
yds away. So would it still identify the correct restaurant or will it list n
options.

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njharman
ok, Is vidwo upside down just for me? If not, wtf?

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snprbob86
Upside down for me too. Seriously weird.

This is with Movie Player on the latest Ubuntu.

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acgourley
All these AR apps get a lot of buzz/press but in the end they use unsupported
APIs and won't get approved. Worth the PR perhaps.

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dzlobin
Awesome, especially if it has alot of reliable reviews. It would be great to
just stand on the street and look around you for a good place to eat instead
of browsing through yelp or zagat reviews. Great job guys!

~~~
jmtame
we currently collect data from both our own iphone users going around and
voting up on places, and from large and credible third party recommendation
sites. you can get a heatmap representation here and see if it passes your own
test: <http://graffitigeo.com/heat>

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jexe
Not exactly the first - Zagat released one a couple months ago:
[http://www.zagat.com/Discuss/ForumPosts.aspx?SNP=NFZE&TI...](http://www.zagat.com/Discuss/ForumPosts.aspx?SNP=NFZE&TID=12606)

Albeit a slightly different variety of AR (using the compass and GPS, but no
camera. Still fun). Perhaps there are others?

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breck
awesome. have you tried it in san fran yet? i walk .5 a mile to the bart all
the time and it would be cool to see if there are some good restaurants i'm
missing.

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PStamatiou
reminds me of this <http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10266380-1.html>

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khangtoh
Cool demo but again. Will people adopt this technology? Who knows.

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henryl
What happened to the Sekai Camera from Tonchidot? Just vaporware?

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jprim
i love this so much esp in busy cities. very cool guys!

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billclerico
so freaking cool. congrats guys.

