Hasta La Gadget!

Sure, Mountain View slowly infused Maps with Zagat content after acquiring the brand, but now it’s revamped the outfit’s mobile apps on Android and iOS, along with its website, to boot. As you’d expect, users can wield the apps and website to find venues with searches and map-based browsing, and catch up on news and videos from the service’s editors. In this fresh incarnation, Google’s lifted a registration requirement that was previously necessary to peruse reviews online. Schmidt and Co.’s redesigned experience only covers restaurants and nightlife in nine cities, but will include hotels, shopping and other points of interest in a total of 50 US cities over the coming months. In the meantime, Zagat promises its existing ratings and reviews for spots in those markets will soon be available on the web. Hit the bordering source links below to grab the reimagined applications.

Filed under: Cellphones, Software, Mobile, Google

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Source: Google, Google Play, iTunes

Archenemies for decades, video games and exercise are about to unite. Atlas is a cheap, new “walk-around” virtual reality system that uses markers you put on the ground to track your movements as you play with an Oculus Rift headset. Protagonist is Kickstarting Atlas to get real-space VR into the hands of developers, so they can build games that ditch joysticks and actually let you run-and-gun.

Here’s how startup Protagonist’s Atlas system works. First you find an open space. If you’ve got a huge living room it could work, but you’re better off in a garage, on a basketball court or in a warehouse. Then you lay out the location markers. You can print them at home, but Protagonist plans to give out vinyl ones that stick to the floor so they don’t get displaced. Then you strap on your Oculus Rift VR goggles, an optional Razer Hydra-equipped gun or sword, and the Atlas chest mount for your iPhone.

Fire up the Oculus and Atlas iPhone app, and step into the future. The patent-pending Atlas positioning system maps the markers and uses your phone’s accelerometer and gyroscopes to know where your are. Play with Atlas and when you walk forward your in-game avatar walks forward, too. Chasing aliens or exploring dungeons could become an alternative to going to the gym.

“I’ve wanted a Holodeck since I was a kid,” says Atlas inventor and Protagonist founder Aaron Rasmussen. He’s no stranger to making sci-fi dreams come true. Back in college, Rasmussen was the first person to make an optical-tracking sentry gun. He stitched together an automatic BB gun and a video camera with some home-made machine-vision software to make a weapon worthy of defending your fort. “The military came to my dorm room. I thought that only happened in movies,” he tells me. Since then he’s built and sold a robotic machine tool company called USMechatronics, created the Blood Energy potion drink sold in IV bags, and most recently sold a ghost detector that connects to your iPhone. (It’s detected zero ghosts to date.)

Real-space VR systems have been around for well over a decade but have been reserved for big research institutions. That’s because there weren’t wide-field-of-view head displays with low-latency, head-orientation tracking for under $50,000, and the positioning systems were clumsy and cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lucky for Rasmussen, the Oculus Rift took care of the first problem, freeing him up to reimagine real-space positioning. Unlike the Virtuix Omni VR treadmill, Atlas not only lets you walk, but also run, jump, crouch and move around like you do in real life.

Right now Rasmussen is the only one working on Atlas full-time out of the four-person team, but that will change if it meets its $125,000 Kickstarter goal to manufacture the chest mounts and refine the software. The plan is to get the system and Unity integration assets to developers so they can start building first-person shooters, fantasy epics, and educational exploration games. “Someone should do Jurassic Park,” Rasmussen says.

I’m pretty excited about meatspace/virtual reality hybrid games and their potential to help us avert a Wall-E future where we just get fatter and fatter watching our screens. The technology will take some time to trickle down, but Atlas could eventually become a distinct industry parallel to console gaming.

“We’re really living in Year Zero of virtual reality,” Rasmussen giddily tells me. “We’re going to to see more wearable technology become consumer products. As developers work on games, we’ll work on a consumer version that kids can get under their Christmas tree. My vision for the system is something you and some friends bring to a racquetball court, play a high-intensity game for an hour, and get a workout.”

Kickstart Atlas if you want your games to make you sweat

Right now Google Glass sits at the apogee of geeky, wearable technology.  Last month, interviewing a Glass-wearing Robert Scoble, Newsnight’s Jeremy Paxman memorably debunked it in his opening question as “that thing on your head. ” Getting non-techie people to view Glass as anything other than ludicrously geeky is going to be an uphill fight for Google.

Arguably, though, even more of a blocker to Glass adoption is people viewing the technology as the epitome of creepy, thanks to its built-in camera. Sure a digital eye sited at eye-level lets you share a nice view of that mountain you can see from your hotel window. But in more everyday scenarios, it also lets you video your fellow humans as they go about their business, and that privacy intrusion is inevitably going to cause some friction. Throw in the whole NSA PRISM surveillance fallout and stuff like this is inevitable.

Add to that, even though Google has banned (even more creepy) facial-recognition apps on Glass’s Mirror API, it’s possible to envisage a workaround that leverages Google’s Hangouts feature — which shares real-time field of vision — to get around the bar. Marco Vanossi, co-founder of GeoPapyrus, pointed out this workaround to TechCrunch — and demonstrates how it can be made to work in this video, creating a Hangout with a robot assistant called Dexter that then analyses what the Glass wearer can see.

“You can share your camera view through a Google Hangout and the content in it (people, objects, places, barcodes, qrcodes) can be analyzed and identified,” he tells TechCrunch. “As a result, information can be overlaid on top of it and shown back on your screen. This means that the Hangout app, built and distributed by Google on every Glass device, could be used to violate its own privacy rules.”

All of which suggests there may be room for an eyeless Glass-style product that preserves privacy by being receive-only — and therefore can’t be accused of spying. Enter GlassUp. GlassUp is a prototype pair of augmented reality specs that does not include a camera. It’s currently seeking funds to start manufacturing on Indiegogo. The glasses are designed to allow the wearer to receive text-based messages and updates overlaid over the central portion of their field of vision — so while they intrude on the wearer’s vision, they can’t be accused of intruding on the privacy of the people around them.

GlassUp’s creators envisage a typical use-case being a pedestrian or a motorbike rider wanting to navigate handsfree and without having to stop every few yards to consult a map/smartphone. Or a tourist wanting to get info about the historical landmarks they are seeing pushed to their eye-line as they explore a new city. Other imagined use-cases include for cooks or warehouse workers needing info as they work.

The device is basically a second screen output for a smartphone, connecting via Bluetooth, that’s worn as a heads-up display. It has a monochrome projector to display text updates, helping to extend the battery life of the device. The creators say they intend to release some apps themselves, but also plan to release an API for Android, iOS and Windows Phone to allow developers to extend its functionality.

Having intentionally stripped back the hardware of GlassUp to remove privacy concerns its creators have also shrunk the cost. The price tag for the device starts at $299 — considerably cheaper than the Google Glass Explorer’s hefty price tag of $1,500.

GlassUp’s creators are hoping to raise $150,000 on Indiegogo and have so far managed to reach just over half their goal, with 11 days left on the campaign. However, an update on their crowdfunding page notes that they will deliver products even if they fail to achieve their funding goal — thanks to unnamed investor backers. GlassUp is due to go on sale from February next year.

TechCrunch’s Steve O’Hear contributed to this story

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