Indistinguishable from magic?

Posted on 2010-10-22 by M. Eric Carr

At work today, I emailed in a request for maintenance to check the thermostat. A short while later, a maintenance guy walked in, pointed a small box at one of our filing cabinets, pressed a button, and the box produced a small red dot on the filing cabinet. The maintenance guy looked at the device, nodded, and walked off.

I didn’t think much of it (we use infrared thermometers all the time, and a metal filing cabinet would be a good indicator of the ambient room temperature) — until I realized just how bizarre that scene, unexplained, would have seemed to someone from only twenty or thirty years ago. What was that man doing? What was the box? Why did he point a light — maybe a laser? — at our filing cabinet?

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
–Arthur C. Clarke

Posted in Drexel, Toys | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Who ya gonna call?

Posted on 2010-10-21 by M. Eric Carr

Augmented Reality just keeps getting cooler. Recently, I downloaded an Android game called SpecTrek; it’s impressively well done. Since most Android phones (including my Epic 4G) have an accelerometer, compass, GPS, and camera, they have all the information they need to know not only where they are, but in which direction they are pointed. This allows CG objects to be inserted into the camera view window in real time — and suddenly, you’re surrounded by ghosts.

Spooky!

 

From there, the idea is both simple and awesome: move around, hunting down the ghosts. Point the phone at them to “scan” them (to determine what type they are), then move within 50m or so (this varies with game settings and level) to get close enough to capture them. If a ghost is in an inaccessible area (like inside a building or floating over an interstate highway), there’s a “ghost horn” to shoo away nearby ghosts into another area where they can be captured.

The game has a few GPS issues right now (which the developer emailed me back right away about, and is working on) — but even with a few glitches, it’s one of those rare games that make you think about gaming in new ways. I definitely recommend it to anyone with an Android phone with accelerometer/compass/camera/GPS. Search the Android Market for “SpecTrek” and try out the Lite version. The full version is only about US$3 — a bargain. The best part is that it’s fun enough that you don’t realize you’re getting exercise. (Just watch out for that tree; the ghosts can float through them, but you can’t!)

Posted in Android, Digital, Games, GPS, Toys | Leave a comment

Virtual Actual Reality

Posted on 2010-09-25 by M. Eric Carr

Most people have heard of “Virtual Reality” by now — and most probably associate it with demonstrations they’ve seen, where the user can move through a computer-generated 3D world — much like being inside a video game.

Increasingly, though, computer technology is being used to enhance reality — not just replace it. The field of “augmented reality” — where the view is mostly natural with a few CG enhancements — is becoming more and more prevalent. When it’s done right, as the NFL has done with on-field graphics, it can be hard to tell just what is real and what is CG…

Augmented Reality Shock? ("Bound and Gagged", 2010-09-25)

The man (father?) in this cartoon appears annoyed that the boy didn’t understand that the first-down line is a figment of the NFL computers’ imagination. Given a little thought, this makes sense — there is no realistic way to erase and repaint the line on the field so quickly, so it must be CG. But for a small child who had only seen football games on TV (and given his age, always with the CG additions), it’s a relatively easy mistake to make. If the graphics had been a bit more subtle (perhaps a corporate logo digitally painted onto the field?), it could well be mistaken for real field coloration.

The lines between reality, augmented reality, and VR get harder to distinguish each year. How long before they disappear altogether?

Posted in Current Events, Digital, Digital Citizenship, Internet | Leave a comment

Samsung Epic 4G GPS walking test

Posted on 2010-09-18 by M. Eric Carr

Recently, there has been some concern that Samsung’s new Galaxy S phones may have fairly serious GPS implementation issues. From the comments I’ve seen online, this does appear to be the case with the earlier Galaxy S phones (I don’t have any of those, so can’t confirm that). The problem was rumored to have been fixed on the new Epic 4G phone, though — but mixed results have been posted online.

Since I use my phone’s GPS for many tasks, I decided to try an independent walking test of the GPS accuracy on the Epic 4G. I found a long, straight stretch of sidewalk and used Google Earth to determine the latitude and longitude of the endpoints (roughly 333m apart). With the latitude and longitude of these points recorded, I walked from one point to the other and back along the line (with an accuracy of maybe 10cm or so), recording the track. For each recorded point, I took the measured longitude, calculated the expected latitude value, and noted the absolute difference between this value and the actual measured latitude for that point. The mean error in latitude was ~3.0087m, with a standard deviation of ~2.003m. The worst-case point was ~8.579m off.

Here is a visual track for the test; green and blue represent the measured tracks, while red represents the actual path walked:

Linear walking test - Epic 4G (click for larger)

Here is a histogram of the absolute calculated error in latitude:

GPS error histogram (click for larger)

The reported position accuracy was exactly 30.0m for the entire test, strongly suggesting (in fact, all but proving) that this figure is hardcoded. Fortunately, actual accuracy appears to be much better than that.

Posted in Digital, Digital Citizenship, GPS, Toys | 4 Comments