SiliconFilter » augmented reality http://siliconfilter.com Thu, 10 Jan 2013 19:18:05 +0000 en-US hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.5.1 Google Goggles Now Solves Sudoku Puzzles http://siliconfilter.com/google-goggles-now-solves-sudoko-puzzles/ http://siliconfilter.com/google-goggles-now-solves-sudoko-puzzles/#comments Mon, 10 Jan 2011 19:02:09 +0000 Frederic Lardinois http://siliconfilter.com/?p=2620 Google Goggles is one of the most fascinating products to come out of Google’s labs for quite some time and the company continues to improve the product regularly. Today, Google is introducing a major update Goggles which features improved barcode scanning and the ability to take pictures of ads in magazines and get search results about the product and brand.

Sudoku Solver, Faster Barcode Scanner and Smarter Recognition of Print Ads

If you are still suffering from an unhealthy addiction to Sudoku, Goggles will now also help you to solve these puzzles (though this feels like cheating to us). Just snap a picture of the puzzle and Goggles will provide you with the right answers.

The new barcode scanner (Android only for now) is, according to Google, faster than the old version and it should take the app less than a second to latch on to a code and scan it. Scanning a print ad on Android and the iPhone should now automatically bring up relevant search results. For now, this only works for ads printed in “major U.S. magazines” and only for magazines published after August 2010.

The new barcode scanning algorithm is currently only available in the Android version of Goggles. Ad recognition and the Sudoku solver are available in both the Android and iPhone version.

]]> http://siliconfilter.com/google-goggles-now-solves-sudoko-puzzles/feed/ 0 After a Year of Hype, Augmented Reality Finally Gets Useful http://siliconfilter.com/after-a-year-of-hype-augmented-reality-finally-gets-useful-word-lense-wikitude-drive/ http://siliconfilter.com/after-a-year-of-hype-augmented-reality-finally-gets-useful-word-lense-wikitude-drive/#comments Mon, 20 Dec 2010 22:27:32 +0000 Frederic Lardinois http://siliconfilter.com/?p=2270 Augemented reality was one of the most overused buzzwords of the year, but for the most part, the applications we saw weren’t really augmenting reality. Instead, like Layar and others, they take a phone’s camera picture, GPS coordinates and compass heading and provide users with an overlay of nearby sights and shops. For some apps – especially stargazing apps like Star Walk – this is fine, but for most use cases, it’s not really useful.  Another type of augmented reality (AR) app that’s hot right now uses paper markers and replaces them with 3D animation on your phone’s screen – even Hallmark is getting in this business now, but it’s more of a gimmick than a useful application of AR. The real promise of AR reaches far beyond this, however.

According to a new report by Forrester analyst Thomas Husson, AR is indeed ready to become more than just a gimmick. Husson thinks that “in the years to come, it will be a disruptive technology changing the way consumers interact with their environments. It will bridge the real and digital worlds, enabling new ways to engage with customers via advanced digital interactivity. Because mobile AR makes the most of unique mobile attributes, it will help in transforming mobile phones as the new remote control of our personal daily lives.” Indeed, the first apps that get close to this vision are now making their way to users’ phones.

Word Lens

Last week, we got our first glimpse at what real augmented reality can look like. Word Lens takes the live video from your iPhone’s camera and automatically translates any text it sees. Right now, you can only buy Word Lens’ English/Spanish and Spanish/English translations as in-app purchases, but more languages will soon arrive as well.

Using this app is an eye-opener. Not only do you get the translation, but Word Lens actually replaces the text in the live video with the translation. That’s something we haven’t seen before and that gives me great hope for the next generation of AR apps that will interact with the actual images from your phone and not just the GPS and compass.

Wikitude Drive

Another app that pushes AR further is Wikitude Drive, which was just released for Android in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The app should come to other platforms and locations soon.

At its core, Wikitude Drive is a turn-by-turn navigation app, but unlike similar apps, it can display live video in the background. Thanks to this, you never really take your eyes off the road as you drive down the street and the AR mode shows you exactly where you need to go. The app doesn’t interact directly with the camera images, but it clearly shows an area where current apps can be extended with AR views that provide lots of additional value.

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