Google Goggles What This Means For Augmented Reality

Posted by augmentedplanet under General

Now the dust and the wow factor has settle from the Google Goggles announcement a few days back I thought it would be interesting to take a more in-depth look at what this means to the augmented reality industry.

Multi Search Topics

There are demos a plenty of taking photos of book covers to retrieve reviews and online prices. If you are new to augmented reality then it’s actually not that new. SnapTell have both an iPhone and Android application that provides this functionality. Just take a picture of the cover of a DVD, CD, Book, or Video Game and the software uploads the image to the SnapTell server and runs image recognition to compare the picture against likely matches. Once a match is found you get the usual mix of online reviews and cheaper prices.

Recognising a barcode image I would assume is a lot less complex than recognising a book cover since there are less colours and shapes to contend with. Barcode shopping is another feature of Google Goggles and again there are various products available that provide the same functionality, ShopSavvy on the Android or RedLaser on the iPhone are just a few examples. I use RedLaser from time to time to see just how obscure the product range is. GoCat Tuna and Herring cat crunchies is the most obscure product I have managed to have recognised so far. To compete with Goggle’s logo recognition there’s GetFugu for the Android, iPhone and the Blackberry so again nothing new there. Goggles will search on wine bottle logos which as far I as know is unique as I don’t know any other application that does that today, but I’m sure it’s only a small leap from recognising a book cover to recognising a wine label.

You might think that I’m having a dig at Google but far from it, just becuase they are not first does not make the application any less cool. There are some really fantastic features in Google Goggles that make me drool. I’m no art buff but Goggles will enable me to become an art critic and give me relevant information about major pieces of art, all I need to do is sneak a crafty picture when the security guard isn’t looking and Goggles will tell me the name of the picture and the artist. Fantastic if you are walking around a museum but again it’s probably not a huge step in recognising the Mona Lisa or a paperback copy of C++ for dummies, ultimately it’s a blob of shapes and colours that are compared. Nether the less it is a fantastic use of image recognition.

My personal favourite and the piece de resistance of Google Goggles is a feature that must have the CEOs of the various augmented reality browser companies laying awake at night as Google are about to change the way location aware augmented reality browsers work.

The way augmented reality browsers work today is they use LBS to figure out your current location and the compass to see which way you are facing. With that information they can determine what points of interest you might be facing. Most of the time it works pretty well but I’m sure you know that GPS is not accurate, sometimes my tests have been accurate to 30 meters and sometimes it strays to up to a mile. If you are facing a landmark the visual indicator provided by the augmented reality browser may or may not be shown near by the object you are looking to locate. The second problem is there could be a building between you and the point of interest; the application has no way of actually knowing what is in front of you and what you are really looking at.

Google Goggles however uses image recognition on the landmark. If you are standing at Big Ben in London it sends a copy of the image to the database, performs an image match and then tells you precisely what you are looking at, not what might be around you and in that general direction. The accuracy is so good you can sit at home in California and look at your holiday snaps of Big Ben and it will still recognise the landmark. Fantastic when you get back from a trip and wonder just what all those photo’s are actually of.

Google’s strength is obviously search and the vast array of seemingly endless images that have that their disposal. Properly indexed there would seem to be no limit to what can recognise, particularly if they open up the API for developers to produce our own plug-ins. What breed of cat is that? Cat recognition plug-in tells me is a British Short hair and it’s favourite food is fish. That’s a nice car what is it? Car recognition plug-in tells me it’s an Aston Martin DB7, insurance group is a 31 and it has a top speed of 186mph, but I can’t afford it because my bank plug-in is warning me based on my current salary I would have to save for 30 years.

You can’t help think that terminator vision has just got a step closer. Some six or seven months ago we got our first augmented reality browser, now at the end of the year it seems like we are about to take a huge step forward in augmented reality with Google’s arrival. It will be interesting to see how the current crop of augmented reality browser providers respond to the Google play and what is up their sleeve for the future..

The video walk-through below well worth a look at some of the features of Google Goggles.

Excellent overview of Google Goggles.

FutureTek – Holographic Phones

Posted by Lester Madden under iphone

I stumbled on a spoof demo yesterday that showed an iPhone displaying a hologram. The idea was you receive a call and just like something out of a Star Wars film you see a hologram of the caller emerge from the screen. Of course it’s not possible but it got me thinking and I did a little bit of digging and found that to some degree you can create a hologram for the iPhone.

The first video is a rather ambitious look at the year 2012 but I think it will be more like 2020 before we see anything like this

iPhone 2012

Next is an interesting take on why it wont be a good idea to answer your holophone.

Finally to prove that there’s an app for just about everything, there is an hologram creator application for the iPhone. The images don’t leap out the screen but it’s still an interesting application.

Polymer Phone

Posted by Lester Madden under Smartphones

Fancy a phone you can roll up and put in your pocket?

Take a look at this

Sticky Light

Posted by Lester Madden under Gadgets

I blogged about Sticky Light yesterday on my other blog AugmentedPlanet, but since its pretty cool I’ll throw it out here as well.

Sky TV to broadcast in 3D from 2010

Posted by Lester Madden under Gadgets, General

Good news, that 42” plasma TV you brought last year is obsolete. Put it on eBay now while you still have the chance of making a bit of money from it.

Symbian UI Brainstorm

Posted by Lester Madden under Symbian

Got a burning idea for what UI you would like to see on Symbian devices in the future?
The best way to get your idea out there is to share it.

Symbian have setup the UI brainstorm website to collect and share your ideas. Visit the site to see the existing submissions, you can also email the UI guys to share your ideas. You never know, the next phone you buy could be running a UI you designed.

http://symbianuibrainstorm.wordpress.com/

New Nokia Devices, E72 & 5530 XpressMusic

Posted by Lester Madden under General, Smartphones, Software

Most of you will know that I love both my Nokia 5800 and my Nokia E71. I’m torn between them in a love triangle, I love the touch screen but I love the flexibility of a keyboard. The N97 will partly end my woes as I’ll have touch screen device with a keyboard. But it will only make me yearn for device with touch, keyboard, and HD screen. (a projector wouldn’t go amiss either) Nether-the-less it will keep me happy for a while.

In the meantime Nokia have announced a few other devices based on S60 5th Edition. (Symbian)
The E72 (click here for a review) which is an updated of the highly successful E71 and the 5530 XpressMusic (click here for a review) which is a 5800 clone.

Nokia E72

Nokia 5530 XpressMusic

The never ending story

Posted by Lester Madden under General, Smartphones

How would you feel about a book that was different every time you read it? Here is an interesting idea for a book based completely on QR Codes and twitter.

Watch Phone For Budding Secret Agents

Posted by Lester Madden under Gadgets, Smartphones

Ever fancied yourself as a secret agent? Of course you have, but to be the next James Bond you need to have the latest gadgets. I’ve said a few times that this year we are going to see a plethora of watch phones come to the market. At MWC  and CTIA there were a number of the mobile heavy weights showing off their latest integrated watch/cell designs.

Augmented Reality Clothing And Face Recognition

Posted by Lester Madden under Augmented Reality, Smartphones

What do your clothes say about you? Well take a tee-shirt, twitter and create an augmented reality mashup they can apparently say quiet a lot. Imaging sitting on a train and anyone being able to see your tweets just by pointing their smartphone at you?

Furture Phones

Posted by Lester Madden under Smartphones

That state of the art smartphone you have sitting on your desk that you’re so proud of, give it a year and it will become a worthless piece of junk that you couldn’t give to a 12 year old. So have you wondered what you’ll be carrying around in a few years?

AR: Virtual Haircut

Posted by Lester Madden under Augmented Reality

Fashion is such an obvious candidate for the augmented reality solutions we’ll use in the future.