

Game Changing Android Application - omarseyal
http://www.enkin.net/
If Android manages to clear the porting obstacles that await it as it's distributed over more than one reference device, and if it manages to deliver a high bar of quality (at least as high as the SDK has shown so far), it could really change the way we live/work.  Those are some big ifs ... but some exciting ones nonetheless.
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dkokelley
Very cool. The "life mode" is the incredible part. Here's a thought about
where this could go: Imagine if multiple Android users could have their
locations published live to the other devices. You could look through the life
view screen and track the location of your contacts through walls or other
obstructions.

(Edit: I saw the end of the video and it looks like they're already one step
ahead of me with the live location broadcasting).

Parents who want to keep track of their children at Disneyland could spot them
through a crowd of people without calling them and getting them to describe
where they are. Maybe this could be useful in search and rescue missions. The
ELT (Emergency Location Transmitter) on downed aircraft could be equipped to
broadcast in this way, to make it easier for teams trying to find the
aircraft.

Something about this reminds me of FPS video games, where the "Objective" is
marked on your screen so that you can see where you need to go even though it
happens to be on the other side of the map.

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yters
Could this make real life FPS? I haven't read the article, but I've been
trying to think of a feasible way to make a real life multiplayer FPS that
also virtual players could interact with. I think that'd be pretty sweet!

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dkokelley
It's really just the video from what I saw. The demonstration looked a little
choppy but as it progressed and smoothed out I could definitely see a game
being created out of this (at least it's feasible).

I doubt you would want to do this on your phone, but similar technology on a
smaller scale used in a laser tag or paint ball game would be really
interesting. You could set objectives and see where your team is at, and then
mark locations for other team members (meet me at waypoint X).

I'm sure the military is already way ahead of us on this, but the live camera
view is new to me.

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yters
I have read about special forces training with something like this. It'd be
really cool though if it can be replicated with cheap off the shelf tech.

Do you know how hackable cellphone transmitters and receivers tends to be? I
really see the cellphone as the portal into a virtual/physical life hybrid. If
there was a cheap, popular cellphone with hackable hardware, then this could
be a reality right now. If it was also the hub for a personal network, then
you could plug all sorts of interesting gadgets into the mix.

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dkokelley
I know that phones tend to be very hackable, I just don't think that people
would use them (especially if they're priced anywhere near comparable
smartphones/iphones) for games where they could break.

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dmix
Interesting technology.

Side note those two are the definition of geeks. But if that tech works out
they will be some wealthy geeks.

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Hexstream
Or the definition of the _stereotype_ of a geek... I like to think not every
geek is like them... and me ;P

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acgourley
It's cool, but lets keep a few things in mind:

1) When navigating a 2d plane, or looking for things in a 2d plane, an
overhead view is just as practical. Although you could argue this lets you see
data points farther ahead of you, a good overhead view implementation could do
the same thing.

2) This would be nice viewing differences in elevation. Finding your car in a
parking garage for instance. However, GPS has an elevation error rate about 3
times larger than its horizontal rate. (Also most gps's don't work well in
things like parking garages). This means you'll only be able to detect the
elevation of something within ~30 meters on most phones.

Mostly I see this being fun, but not anymore useful than other, more
traditional ways of looking at maps. It might prove helpful to people with
exceptionally poor spacial thinking (if thats the term you use to describe
people who can't read maps, I'm not sure).

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mlinsey
If you're good at getting your bearings, yes. But having witnessed myself and
others struggle to figure out "wait, which way is which according to this
map?" for a little bit before getting our internal compass aligned with the
map's orientation, it would be much simpler to literally _point your camera at
something_ and have it tell you what's in that direction. Depending on how
precise the tags are, they would also be useful just to provide information
about various interesting objects in the area, particularly if you can see
tags that everyone puts on real-world objects.

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phaedrus
Yes! This is exactly why the live view is so useful.

I did a land nav course in the Marine Corps; we had compasses we used to sight
landmarks so we could triangular our location. To do this you held up the
compass and looked through a slit. I'd call that analog navigation: The live
view of Enkin is the same concept in digital form.

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krschultz
Sailors do it that way too, its called a hockey puck compass, you site through
it at a landmark and triangulate your position on a chart after you get a few
bearings on a few different spots. Now most people just use GPS but the idea
is the same.

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michaelneale
Wow. And who said you can't do great things with java.

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suboptimal
Java was the Ruby of its day (even though they're almost the same age!).

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michaelneale
yes I was being tongue in cheek, forgot the smiley.

I thought ruby is quite a bit older.

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suboptimal
Hey mn,

Java used to be "Oak," and according to our good friend Wikipedia it was
created in "June 1991." I thought it was later but guess not. It had the whole
set-top box history, and would eventually run our fridges and toasters in the
21st century.

Seriously though, do you remember when Java was released? It was fun! And
definitely considered the "hip" language at the time, much like Ruby is now.

I think it's interesting that so many in the Java camp have jumped ship to
Ruby, because what is said about Ruby now, was said about Java then.

But they're still nearly the same age, so the ten-year spread in their
respective heydays is sort of amusing. It's like Roger Moore supplanting
Connery as Bond ten years later, despite the fact he's older. ;)

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michaelneale
I didn't know that about Roger Moore - well you learn something every day ;)

I read the book by patrick naughton on the history of Oak etc, quite an
interesting read.

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D_T
I hope the guys who made the video get to check out labs.live.com/photosynth/

Photosynth would allow Androids screen to display actual pictures of the
situation when zooming in using the satellite view (not live view). The
various people in live view could also add images to locations not already
documented by photosyth's database.

Someday,

D T

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wave
You can read interview with them:

<http://tinyurl.com/4p4tg2>

In other note: notice the robotic dinosaur in middle bottom of the video
(30sec)

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elai
This is bloody AWESOME! Although they could develop the application for the
iPhone right now, since it has all the required hardware inside. I'm worried
about GPS accuracy although.

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frankus
Reminds me of that scene from Fight Club where he's in the condo with the
little IKEA names and prices floating next to the furniture and accessories in
the room.

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menloparkbum
this is pretty cool, but I remember seeing something very similar to this
being demoed in Japan about 8 years ago.

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comatose_kid
Very cool, but I wonder how usability will be impacted when the number of
tagged things increases a lot.

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cbarning
This reminds me of Metroid Prime.

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kleevr
mmm.. annotated reality

Well I'm sold, time to get a tricorder.

