Hasta La Gadget!

What, you thought Home was the only project in the pipeline for these guys? The mobile UI experts at Sweden’s TAT are in the house at MWC this week showing off a couple other nifty developments that are keeping them busy these days: a dual-screen UI concept utilizing TI’s next-gen hardware, and an app that makes good on a concept it had demoed before. First up, they’ve been using a TI Blaze to demonstrate their vision of a phone with two displays, likely in a slider configuration (in fact, they showed a Droid to represent how they think the form factor could work) with a screen where you’d normally expect they physical QWERTY keyboard to be. It’s slick and wicked smooth on the brutally powerful OMAP4 core, but realistically, this is something unusual enough so that we’d need to play with a unit for a good, long while before drawing any usability conclusions. TAT believes we could see devices with this kind of setup by years’ end, but we don’t know what carriers, manufacturer, or time frames would be involved at this point.

Next up, Recognizr is the realization of the Augmented ID concept it showed off last year that lets you tag your face (it sounds weird, but it’s quite literally true) with icons representing services that you use, each of which exposes information about you that you want others to know; then, other users with the system can put you in their viewfinder and see the same icons. It’s not flawless — in fact, TAT readily admits that they probably need better camera tech before it can be commercialized, and they had quite a few issues during our demo time — but it’s a clever concept that’s better watched on video than explained, which is convenient considering that we’ve got videos of both of these goodies in action after the break. Check ’em out, won’t you?

Continue reading Hands-on with TAT’s dual-screen phone concept and augmented reality app

Hands-on with TAT’s dual-screen phone concept and augmented reality app originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Ladies and rockers alike enjoy spending time testing different makeup, but their tag-along boyfriends? Not so much. Luckily for Japanese couples, cosmetic giant Shiseido has finally rolled out its Digital Cosmetic Mirrors in Tokyo malls to help speed things up. The machine is able to recommend products for the user’s skin type, while allowing them to view it applied via an augmented reality effect. When all is done, the machine prints out a shopping list along with before and after mugshots to make you spend more money feel good about your selections. Good luck with matching the picture though — the cosmetics aren’t going to apply themselves. Video demonstration after the break.

Continue reading Augmented reality mirror picks makeup for the ladies (video)

Augmented reality mirror picks makeup for the ladies (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Feb 2010 10:13:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Years from now, you will remember where you were when you first heard about Adidas’s Original Augmented Reality Pack line of sneakers. This line consists of five different pairs of shoes, each in one bold color, ranging from $64.99 (yellow) to $94.99 (red). They’re standard wearable sneakers, but with a little extra: each one has a code on its tongue. Show this code to your webcam to call up the 3D Adidas Originals Neighborhood through your browser.

At this point, your shoes are now game controllers, as your Webcam translates your shoes’ movements into the virtual world. Walk the neighborhood and choose one of three games to play. A Star Wars storm trooper game, where you use your shoes to aim and fire paintball balloons, will launch February 10. Two more games, a skateboarding game and a DJ Hero-style game, will follow this spring.

The line of shoes is available online at Eastbay.com (search “Adidas augmented reality”) or at Champs stores. Here’s a video to show you more about the augmented experience.

There’s little sense in resisting the obvious: Google is slowly but surely taking over your life, but rather than get indignant and discombobulated, we’d suggest letting go and appreciating how much easier things are with the folks in Mountain View squarely in control. Take Google Goggles, for instance, which aims to convert cameraphone images into useful search results on its own Android platform. Up until now, we’ve been shown stock demos and videos of it running on conventional handsets, but seeing the Goggles hard at work on Sony Ericsson’s not-yet-released Xperia X10 is another thing entirely. Hop on past the break for the frames you’re craving, but don’t bank on this making the wait for said phone any simpler to stomach.

Continue reading Google Goggles gets video demo on Sony Ericsson Xperia X10

Google Goggles gets video demo on Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 29 Dec 2009 07:51:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Shoppers passing by Shinjuku’s Isetan department store cannot have failed to notice the two festive fairy tale-themed window displays. People standing in front of the display see their own image on the TV screen behind the glass, but with all sorts of colorful additions – green trees, animal faces, candles…The augmented reality animation superimposes around the person’s face and moves in real-time with them.

Called, in glorious Jinglish ‘How to Make a Wonder Christmas’, on the homepage there are also down-loadable screensavers, widgets (below) and even mobile phone graphics: follow the story on the interactive website (below right) to get the QR code to download the latter.

Continuing Japan’s love of all things Scandinavian, the illustrations are by Finnish designer Klaus Haapaniemi. Head to Shinjuku to try it out first hand, but only until December 25th. Spot the hordes of kids in front of the window and wait your turn!