Au revoir, Android!

It's time to say goodbye to our original idea of SO for our project. Due to expensive device, problems with camera applications, and above us, the ease of all windows mobile world with lots of devices, support from Microsoft and all that stuff at 1-click via the net...

So, goodbye Android and Hello Windows Mobile.

Now it's time to start with design and so on.

First of all, what application do we have to use?
We're students working on a uni project, so.. we need a student license. Easy - we thought-. But nevertheless, it's been a long way to finally get our Visual Studio 2008.

After some emails with our Uni director and some teachers, some web search looking for solution (and other stuff not related) and several attempts, we got nothing. We've been trying to obtain the Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition through beautiful website http://www.dreamspark.com/ but always got stucked while trying to verify our Uni and that 'PAPI' server.

But at least, after some more emails to the UBU (University of BUrgos) we finally got it. 3.5 GB of application ready to work.

We're back!

Hello everybody!

We're back! Yes it's true, and this time is for a long time 'cause we've begun with all stuff of our project... Really, I'm not kidding.

Yesterday, we have our very first true day of working in Valladolid with our tutor. A hard-working day consisted in:

• Clarifying ideas.
• Meeting with Microsoft' people to ask for help and also a device to start working.
• Install programs.
• Acquire some information thanks to huge Google search through all day.
• Very first program using Android.

So, we continue with the same doubt.. We've to choose between Microsoft's Windows Mobile of Google's Android.

Let's take some notes...

• Days: 1
• Hours: 7:30
• Km: 290
• Chewing gums: 8 :)

Bye!

Sorry!

We're back! Sorry for this long-time absence... Perhaps you're waiting just a "We were too busy" but, this time, we have to confess: there's no excuse. We've being a bit lazy.

In the last 3 weeks we have no progress with out project and there were no special news to post here. Maybe because we haven't search them, or just because they weren't.

We've got in touch with some companies to supply us a SCM, and also we're trying to get a mobile device to start working. We have an offer to work with Windows Mobile, but we're waiting answers from different OS companies.

This is a short entry to all those who continue visiting us although there were no activity in the last weeks. Thanks mates! and again sorry!

1 month: Thank you so much!

One month's gone... and to celebrate it... that incredible peak!


Wow!!! 294 visits from meneame in just one day.

Thanks for this. We're glad of being visited by so many people from this. We've received visits from several cities of Spain and also from so different countries all around the world: USA, Mexico, Argentina, UK, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and so on... We hope you enjoy our blog and of course, you've learned a little.

We want to see all of you surfing our web and leaving comments to make this blog a good way to have fun, enjoy and share ideas all together, so we'll work hard for make it possible.

ARQuake project

Some days ago we talked about the difference between augmented and virtual reality showing images of a special shoot 'em up.

These images are from the ARQuake project, an AR project from the School of Computer and Information Science of the University of South Australia. It was the very first attempt to create a videogame for real world. Here are one of the videos they made and the links to the others.

More videos:
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=n781KHm230s
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=MDYv_uLmkE
http://es.youtube.com/watch?v=Qb5rACCUC1g

A good question would be... ¿Can I play? :)
mmmm, don't think so... because of its difficulty and cost. We need a head mounted display, a laptop, a head tracker, and, obviously, a GPS system to obtain our position. We can see in the first image that we're facing to a complex system. So, we've to continue waiting for news from them.

I wanna play ARQuake, and you?

Now Android is Open Source!

Making good on a promise it made at the very beginning, Google has announced today that the source code underpinning its Android platform for mobile devices is available for free to anyone who wants to play with it.

The code is being provided through the newly-announced Android Open Source Project. Theoretically, the move should position Android to benefit from a fairly democratic, and it'll also give anyone the chance to build a smartphone of their own without shelling out a dime in licensing fees.

We're really looking forward to seeing Android pop up on a whole bunch of devices for which it was never intended.

Download it nooooooooooooow.

Mobility Show 2008

We bring you a special event for those interested in new technologies, mobile phones, PDA's, Windows Mobile, HTC and things like that... The Mobility Show held in Valladolid (Spain), in Boecillo's technology park from 9.30 to 18.30.

There you could assist to several conferences of Microsoft, Telefónica y HTC. The theme of these mobility-oriented conferences will be Windows Mobile 6.0, Movilforum, Exchange 2007 or the new HTC Diamond...

More information, here:
http://www.micmovilidad.com/mobilityshow
http://msevents.microsoft.com/CUI/EventDetail.aspx?EventID=1032390517&Culture=es-ES

We'll see you there!

Android Kill Switch Discovered

Do you remember when someone said that Apple had the right to basically disable applications when they felt that they were malicious or did not match up to a database of apps listed in a repository of those on a blacklist...

Well, so Google had the right too!!!!!

When it happened with Apple, it was discovered by a developer but Google has been more candid and they are not hiding it, like Apple did.

Is Google becoming evil after all? I don't think so... but they are making some questionable steps...

Handango touches Android

They are not new in the business, they know how to make money with mobile applications that’s why they have released the first "Un-Official Android market" to compete with the Google Android Market. Handando will allow developers to offer apps for free, a one-time purchase price, or a number of different subscription terms.

But why would we want to download application to our PC and then transfer to the mobile if we are going to have the Google Android Market in the directly in it...

A-B-C of Augmented Reality (II): vs. Virtual Reality

First of all, sorry. We were busy these days. We'd no time to update the blog.
We've to organize us in a better way. Now, let's continue talking about AR.

Some days ago we talked about the main idea that represents the augmented reality (AR) technology.

We all have heard about virtual reality and maybe some of you can't distinguish the difference between them. Well, here comes a simple explanation.

Virtual reality (VR) is a technology based in non-real images in a computer-generated environment. VR allows us to interact in a artificial world which replace the real world where we live. The keyword is replace. While AR adds new information to the real one, VR shows the user new information over the real one.

That VR could be generated through different devices such as googles, helmets, gloves or any type of special devices that captures the position and movement of the body, while it's moving in a virtual environment. We can see it in the next video.

Using googles and thanks to sensors, the character can move and interact in this kind of VR videogame. We see there's nothing from the real world visible in the environment.

Now, we can saw a similar videogame but using AR. In this image, we can see that gloves, helmets and others sensors are necessary to obtain the AR vision, but the result is different: the user can see the real world and interact with both the virtual and real images.

These images are from the ARQuake project, an AR project from the School of Computer and Information Science of the University of South Australia.

We'll talk about this special project in a few days. Since that, have fun and learn, learn!

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