Mobile | Library Bazaar

Archive for the 'Mobile' category

Hoppala, augmented reality for everyone!

Jul 16 2010 Published by Fiacre under Augmented Reality, Mobile, Present, Technology

Hoppala, a partner of the Dutch company Layar, have just launched their new product Augmentation. Augmentation is a tool that allows someone with no technical expertise to create augmented reality experiences using images, audio, video and 3D multimedia content, as explained in the interview with Marc Rene Gardeya, Hoppala’s CEO and founder.

Why should non-technical people use your tools, next to the fact that it’s easy?
With HOPPALA! Augmentation non-technical people can concentrate on their strengths and just be creative. That’s why HOPPALA! Augmentation provides all the multimedia features supported by Layar, e.g. audio, video and 3D. Finally there is no more technical hurdle in the way. Everybody can create an account and start experimenting immediately. And it’s free!

What do you expect of augmentation in terms of layers created by non-technical people?
HOPPALA! Augmentation opens up the augmented reality community to a much wider audience and encourages engagement of creatives from different industries. I’m very excited to see creatives contributing a very new spin. Opening doors for non-techs will certainly enrich and speed up the overall content creation progress. HOPPALA! Augmentation is the incubator for a whole lot of new ideas in Augmented Reality.

Hoppala provides a valuable entry point for libraries to begin experimenting with the technology in a meaningful way, so lets see what we can do!

2 responses so far

Serving the dominant device, part 2

Jul 14 2010 Published by Fiacre under Information, Mobile, Present, Technology

After posting yesterday about the issues surrounding mobile phones and smartphones, I saw the following story on ReadWriteWeb.

HP Labs India have developed a method, called SiteonMobile, that allows any mobile phone user to surf the Web using either SMS text message or voice commands.

The cloud-based technology is designed to broaden access [to] the Worldwide Web to those whose only “connected” device is a mobile phone without a built-in Web browser – as is the case in most of the developing world.

SiteonMobile requires a website publisher to Web-enable their site’s content using something called “tasklets.” These widget-like tools encompass the steps one would perform on a website to complete a particular task. For example, a publisher could create a “tasklet” for booking airline tickets or getting a daily horoscope. (The Web via SMS can be fun, too, right?) Designing these tasklets requires “little or no programming experience,” says Sudhir Dixit, director of HP Labs India.

Once the tasklets have been created, users can send a text message to a particular number to get the information they desire returned to their mobile phone, thanks to these tasklets which reside in HP’s cloud. Or they can dial another number to receive voice-based information via an interactive voice response (IVR) service.

Currently the service is invitation only, but appears to be an excellent response to some of the issues caused by the move to mobile.

Comments are off for this post

Serving the dominant device

Jul 13 2010 Published by Fiacre under EBooks, Future, Mobile, Present

In the push to develop mobile applications for our libraries, should librarians be paying more attention to the technological differences between mobile and smartphones, especially with low smartphone penetration in Canada?

As explained by Mac Slocum of O’Reilly TOC,

Comparing a basic mobile phone to a spiffy new smartphone is like comparing a circa-1993 desktop computer to a Macbook Pro. They’re related in a basic sense, but the discrepancies are immense.

Comments are off for this post

DIY augmented reality…almost

Jul 09 2010 Published by Fiacre under Augmented Reality, Future, Mobile, Technology

Last month during my thunder talk at Digital Odyssey I mentioned an iPhone app called StreetMuseum, created for the Museum of London by the creative agency Brothers and Sisters, that overlays images from the museum’s collection of photos onto the user’s view of the street.

Historypin, a new project by We Are What We Do and Google, comes very close to allowing anyone to recreate this. Unfortunately there is, as yet, no mention of a mobile app. However, the reason for the project, “to get generations talking more, sharing more and coming together more often” is a worthwhile undertaking and places a much needed emphases on the important social role that technology can play. Continue Reading »

Comments are off for this post