Group items tagged

Foursquare

Foursquare

games – so there is quite a lot of R&D looking at the multi-player aspects of AR gaming such as this La

Widgets are installable Web applications that use technologies such as JavaScript and HTML. Many handsets support widgets running on their home screens, where they are easily visible and accessible. Despite the lack of standards, widgets provide a convenient way to deliver simple, connected applications, especially those involving real-time data updates (such as weather forecasts, e-mail notifications, marketing, blogs and information feeds). Because widgets exploit well-understood tools and technologies, they have lower entry barriers than complex native applications, and thus can be a good first step to assess the demand for an application on a specific platform before undertaking expensive native development.

App stores will be the primary (and, in some cases, the only) way to distribute applications to smartphones and other mobile devices. App stores also provide a range of business support functions, such as payment processing, that assist smaller organizations. Gartner believes that app stores will play many roles in an organization's B2C and B2E strategies. They will be a distribution channel for mobile applications and a commercial channel to sell applications and content (especially in international markets), and they will provide new options for application sourcing. Many applications will exploit ecosystem cloud services.

LONG BEACH, California (AFP) — US university researchers have created a portable "sixth sense" device powered by commercial products that can seamlessly channel Internet information into daily routines.The device created by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientists can turn any surface into a touch-screen for computing, controlled by simple hand gestures.The gadget can even take photographs if a user frames a scene with his or her hands, or project a watch face with the proper time on a wrist if the user makes a circle there with a finger.The MIT wizards cobbled a Web camera, a battery-powered projector and a mobile telephone into a gizmo that can be worn like jewelry. Signals from the camera and projector are relayed to smart phones with Internet connections."Other than letting some of you live out your fantasy of looking as cool as Tom Cruise in 'Minority Report' it can really let you connect as a sixth sense device with whatever is in front of you," said MIT researcher Patty Maes.Maes used a Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference stage in Southern California on Wednesday to unveil the futuristic gadget made from store-bought components costing about 300 dollars (US).The device can recognize items on store shelves, retrieving and projecting information about products or even providing quick signals to let users know which choices suit their tastes.The gadget can look at an airplane ticket and let the user know whether the flight is on time, or recognize books in a book store and then project reviews or author information from the Internet onto blank pages.The gizmo can recognize articles in newspapers, retrieve the latest related stories or video from the Internet and play them on pages.

Augmented reality, a capability that has been around for decades, is shifting from what was once seen as a gimmick to a bonafide game-changer.

Various forms of augmented reality, starting with early head-mounted displays, have been around for more than 30 years. Over that time, increased bandwidth and smart phone adoption, as well as a proliferation of AR browser applications, have helped AR evolve from a family of cool gadgets on the periphery of graphics and visualization technologies to an increasingly central player in the technology landscape.

Augmented reality (AR) refers to the addition of a computer-assisted contextual layer of information over the real world, creating a reality that is enhanced or augmented.