

Augmented Reality Virtual Keyboard using HTML 5 - bpung
http://nicklothian.com/blog/2009/11/18/augmented-reality-virtual-keyboard-using-html-5-video/

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ujjwalg
If you watch the end of this video
[http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potenti...](http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_technology.html)
which was posted on HN a couple of days back, you will see a lot of things
that he proposes which can completely change how we interact.

He not only gives an example of virtual keyboard, he also gives example of a
paper can be converted into a touch screen with a motion sensor.

Highly recommended video.

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mcav
I didn't know you could download MP4 videos of TED talks! (links below the
video)

[http://video.ted.com/talks/podcast/PranavMistry_2009I_480.mp...](http://video.ted.com/talks/podcast/PranavMistry_2009I_480.mp4)

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bpung
With quite a few Augmented Reality iPhone apps currently in development, along
with creative new approaches such as this use of HTML 5 video, I see Augmented
Reality as a frontier with a great deal of space for startups to flourish.

~~~
nl
Thanks

Personally, I'm becoming convinced of two things:

1) Sci-Fi AR is much, much closer than people think. Obviously iPhone/Androids
apps are a good first step, but Minority Report style UI's within 2 years
wouldn't surprise me.

2) AR is going to be HUGE. I think there is a distinct possibility that AR
could be bigger than the web. It feels odd saying that.

The one thing holding it back is the lack of the AR equivalent of HTML/HTTP.
At the moment everything is proprietary. Hopefully, HTML5+Extensions (eg
<http://www.w3.org/2009/05/DeviceAPICharter>) will get there soon.

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PanMan
I'm confused. It doesn't seem there's a way to read the webcam from HTML5,
right? Did he just upload a video? Or am I missing something here?

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nl
The demo is using a recorded video in the left view, with JS processing on the
right. When he (I) was developing it, I used VLC to stream the webcam to the
page.

If you view-source, I've got a link to the documentation on how I did that:
"To use this with a webcam instead of a saved video you'll need to stream your
webcam via the same domain this is running from.
[http://nicklothian.com/blog/2009/11/17/using-a-webcam-
with-h...](http://nicklothian.com/blog/2009/11/17/using-a-webcam-with-
html-5-via-vlc/) has some docs on this."

