We do love ourselves some AR (augmented reality) apps around here, so devs, just add AR to your app to get featured here. Just kidding, but it doesn't hurt. Case in point is this nifty little app called Heads Up Compass. It uses the camera's live feed and overlays the compass headings in cardinal points and direction on top, allowing you to scan the horizon for Tusken Raiders. Or maybe...
We mentioned the Geo Augmented Reality Toolkit (GART) it back in September. The toolkit was designed by some folks at Microsoft and aims to make it extremely simple for developers to make augmented reality apps for Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. As we wrote back in September: "The best part about these tools, once again, is Microsoft's emphasis on simplicity. With as little as six-lines of...
We're pretty stoked about Mango for many reasons, but a big one is the ability to use augmented reality. LG has already done a great job of doing this last year but their apps are only for their phones. Now with Mango and the upcoming AR Starter Kit, third party developers will get access to all the tools to enable them to create some killer apps. The best part about these tools, once...
Microsoft has posted a new job opening for a Software Development Engineer in testing for Windows Phone 7. In the brief we see "DISRUPT THE MARKET" being used, indicating some potential big plans for the platform for end-users. This could possibly have something to do with Skype? Or is it to do with the US army trailing smartphones for deployment? We could take this even further and...
Good news everyone! Microsoft has signed a licensing agreement with GeoVector Corporation, a company who actually held the original trademark on "Augmented Reality". The deal is to bring GeoVector patented "Augmented Reality, pointing-based local search and other aspects of spatially aware mobile computing" to what else, but Windows Phones. The deal is non-exclusive, meaning our rivals...
Say what you want about LG but their custom Windows Phone software is hands down the best of all the OEMs today. Between offering $30 worth of apps for free (including the amazing Weave) and their homemade stuff like Voice to Text, ScanSearch and Metro Scanner (and a bunch of other tools, like panoramic camera), they really offer quite the one-two punch to HTC and Samsung. ScanSearch...
While we believe Microsoft themselves will enable the APIs to access the camera for third party apps, rooting the device as seen days ago allows developers to do it now. In turn, so called augmented reality apps are possible, if one can sideload an app written in native code on their device. In the case above, Clarity Consulting threw together this demo app written Silverlight to show...
Evidently in those LG E900 videos that came out today, a new app was spotted on the device called 'ScanSearch'. 'ScanSearch' is developed by Korean Software Company OlaWorks and is basically a Google Goggles app but looking even more advanced. It allows you to scan just about anything commercial (store logos, books, CDs, etc.) and then fetch more information on the interwebs. Besides...
Recently at TechEd 10, Brandon Watson and Peter Torr discussed Windows Phone 7 development on Channel 9. You can watch the whole thing here, though suffice to say it's not the most exciting video nor does it shed too much more new info.However, it was noted by Mobility Digest that there won't be any Gyroscope support for WP7, at least not right now. The new iPhone 4 has an electronic...
So called augmented reality programs (see How Stuff Works), which mix the boring real world with the awesome digital, have made their big mobile debut in 2009 (see Layar for Android or the much more useful Google Goggles). Unfortunately, Windows phones have largely been left out of the mix, though that is starting to change and we hope we see a big push with Windows Phone 7. Zenitum, a...