Re: Easter egg in the RX-51?
 

"My name is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux, Linux."

Re: Easter egg in the RX-51?
 

I could never figure out why is a digital compass on a GPS enabled phone such a big deal?!

Re: Easter egg in the RX-51?
 

Some people just cannot orientate map without this newfangled thingy ;)

Re: Easter egg in the RX-51?
 

GPS gives you location. Accelerometers give you vertical orientation. However, without compass you have no *horizontal* orientation unless you are moving (e.g. in a car). Why is that big deal ? For two reasons. One, no directions (museum is left here, straight ahead is the palace, right is the park...), you just have a map which you need to figure out. Second, perhaps even more importantly, it is needed for augmented reality applications. Imagine pointing the device at a building and seeing the details about it. Or actually seeing the path you need to take like you had X-ray vision. Or automatic tagging of image contents. Or (personal favorite) pointing at the night sky and seeing constellations, celestial objects with details.

Re: Easter egg in the RX-51?
 

because if you walk slowly most gps sensors don't get the direction in which you are going... no problem in car. but walking, the navigation experience with a compass is really better...

Re: Easter egg in the RX-51?
 

The only use that it might have is that it gives you a sense of direction when you're not moving. In other cases you heavily rely on GPS, if compass has a use in these cases at all.

Re: Easter egg in the RX-51?
 

Compass would be really good, but is also a known battery-sucker (well, at least the last time I tried a digital compass device, when Garmin released the original eTrex series).

Re: Easter egg in the RX-51?
 

I might have not been clear enough (nisam bio dovoljno jasan :) ). You need it for stuff like this

http://www.uwplatt.edu/web/presentat...eality-hud.jpg

Re: Easter egg in the RX-51?
 

I worked with electronic compasses a about two years ago. At that point they were really ***** to use. You had to calibrate it for the spot you were using it if you wanted good results, and even still it might not work properly. I don't know if the situation has improved since then, but I believe that the reason for the bad performance (disturbances in magnetic fields) is still there. So I don't think it's such a big deal even if a compass isn't included.

Re: Easter egg in the RX-51?
 

I reasearch computer vision, and one of the applications of what I've been working with is localization (including orientation) for AR. We also have techniques to merge all this data from GPS, accelerometers, compass, and even bluetooth, wifi and cell antenna readings.

I'm not sure these sensors are good enough to localize the device with precision for some applications. But image processing does it! We only need to make the programs. Maybe I should wish the easter egg is an OpenCV port to make it easier! :)

A laser range finder might be good too.