Re: Maemo & augmented reality
 

There is already some cool ocr stuff going on on maemo:
http://www.joaquimrocha.com/2009/10/...maemo-preview/
(check out the video)

Thanks for the find, Capt'n Corrupt!

Re: Maemo & augmented reality
 

Hahaha.. No need to thank me, all I did was link to it (but thanks anyway)! The big win goes to Joaquim and his/her outstanding work! Kudos!

I agree that this is a very cool peice of tech. I'd love to 'scan' a page of text by taking a picture of it, and having it in a usable digital form (convert to HTML, for example, and view it in browser).

}:^)~

Re: Maemo & augmented reality
 

Well, finder's fee (?) ya'know. Would thank Joaquim too if I could. :)

Re: Maemo & augmented reality
 

Indeed. Or do this (the bold text).

Re: Maemo & augmented reality
 

N910/N1000 sales...

While i think there are some great things that can be done with Augmented Reality, we're "not there" yet. A friend of mine with little computer science background was all fired up about AR back in 2000 and i told him it was a great idea, but that by the time it could be easily done, it would no longer be his own baby.

Seems that is true.

Edit: Oops. Anyway, what i meant to say is that the lack of a compass isn't too huge considering the N900 is still just a stepping stone, and by the time AR is mainstream in ways that are really useful, new maemo devices will be out.

Re: Maemo & augmented reality
 

Well, you can do AR without a compass. Check the link in post #24 for instance. I don't think that is unreasonable at all, at least on a demo level.

Re: Maemo & augmented reality
 

That's not augmented reality; that's a camera app combined with an OCR app combined with a language API. It is an interesting convergence app, but not AR.

Augmented Reality would be if you could view the scene through the display and the text of the signs would all be translated and overlaid on the actual signs. As i said before, by the time AR is mainstream in ways that are really useful, we'll be past the N900. Doing what i just described in real time and displaying it in a useful way is just "not there yet".

It's "interesting" how you repeatedly cite yourself.

Re: Maemo & augmented reality
 

That is what I was talking about but...
...you are most certainly right. My point was rather obsolete since when it "is there" we will probably have compasses in the maemo devices anyway. I just meant many people are equating AR with the need for a compass, which is a misnomer.
Do I repeatedly do that? Haven't realized, thanks for pointing it out... If I do it is neither meant to bang my own drum, insinuate that what I say is the truth nor offend anyone. My apologies if it comes over that way and I will try to tone it down. I just do it because I remember what I have written, feel it is suitable in the context and don't want to repeat myself.

Re: Maemo & augmented reality
 

Ok, i see what you were saying.

One thing that has come to mind while browsing the download options here and writing that previous post is that AR, as the apex of convergence of both hardware and software design has incredible potential, but equally incredible barriers. Think about all the little apps that are just great at one thing--there are quite a few. Then, as the functionality becomes more complex and there are more combinations of ways to do things, it's harder and harder to put together an app to do things in a slick and user-friendly way.

By the time you are capturing video, doing OCR and object recognition on the stream, manipulating the data, creating virtual objects to correspond with it, positioning those objects in the 3D space of the video image, and projecting the image in a way the user can interact with, and providing a useful UI to do so, there are multiples of world-class functionality all going on in a real-time, seamless way. That's a lot of complexity for any one developer or team to tackle.

All of that digression is a way of saying that we can start the Maemo AR revolution in stages, even right now, by building up the blocks and refining them. When the hardware is there, the optimized components can be integrated.

Make your apps modular! :)

Re: Maemo & augmented reality
 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMoesX4POfk

Already, AR is getting to the point where it's already useful.