king talk

Some days ago I hat the opportunity to check out Siri, an iPhone app which acts like your personal assistant and can be controlled mostly via speech recognition. It‘s really working pretty good, I have tested it and was really surprised. You can see a real test at this demo video. Unfortunately this App is US only. Siri acts like a real assistant, understands what you‘re saying, accomplishes tasks for you and adapts to your preferences over time. Today, Siri can help you find and plan things to do. You can ask it to find a romantic place for dinner, tell you what’s playing at a local jazz club or get tickets to a movie for Saturday night. Siri is young and, like a child taking its first steps, may be awkward at times. This app may occasionally misunderstand things you ask it to do even within its range of understanding.

You can converse with Siri through combinations of spoken requests, typed keywords and phrases, or graphical user interface requests. As you express what you want to do in the way most comfortable to you, Siri applies a patented algorithm to sift through multitudes of possible interpretations, applying what it knows about your location, the time, your preferences, and your task context to determine the most probable understanding of your intent. Nonetheless, Siri will improve quickly by getting to know you better and understanding a broader set of tasks. In fact, right now, Siri’s learning how to handle reminders, flights stats and reference questions. Our vision is that, over time, you’ll trust Siri to manage many personal details in your life – from recommending a wine you might enjoy to managing your to do list.

Siri was finally aquired by Apple two months ago. Now that it is an Apple property, I don’t expect the virutal assistant technology to make its way on to competing devices — especially Android phones. Maybe we will find this gadget in other future Apple devices?

Today I want to feature a really nice project for kids. Although the video looks simulated, the idea is good. Just take the iPhone and put it in a box. By browsing the pages the young user can discover new worlds of interaction. I like the playful approach of that application, you don´t need to read user instructions first, it´s just about touching and having fun. Would be interesting to fill up that interface with some information about natural sciences and publish it for teens. How would that one look like?

via mobileart.jp

Nearest Tube is one of the first augmented reality apps created for the new Apple iPhone 3GS. 2D tube maps are so oldschool! This one tells you where the nearest tube station will be directly displayed in your environment by using the new video and compass function. When you load the app, holding it flat, all 13 lines of the London underground are displayed in coloured arrows.

By tilting the phone upwards, you will see the nearest stations: what direction they are in relation to your location, how many kilometres and miles away they are and what tube lines they are on. If you continue to tilt the phone upwards, you will see stations further away, as stacked icons. If you are owner of a new iPhone 3GS and you´re living in Chicago, Washington DC, Paris, Berlin, Madrid or Barcelona you can join beta testing by sending an email to contactus[at]acrossair[dot]com with your iPhone UDID Identifier code and your city location.

We think that the iPhone is the perfect mobile hardware for projects like this. Six years after the Handheld Augmented Reality project at TU Graz started their pioneer work with projects like the Invisible Train, a real multi-user Augmented Reality application for handheld devices, this technology enters the mass market.

After marketing guys have found out, it could be cool to map products as rotating 3D object on markers it´s time for the real apps. It´s time for applications which help us out during our everyday life. Where is the next hospital? Where can I find a cheap accomodation? Where are my friends now?…

The Klimahaus Bremerhaven 8° Ost is a new theme attraction which was opened for public last weekend in Bremerhaven (Germany). Some current videos about it can be found at german news channels ZDF mediathek and ntv online.

This unique new theme attraction will give answers to these questions while sending its visitors on a memorable journey around the world. The Klimahaus with its authentically simulated climate zones, multimedia-staging, interactive exhibits, large aquariums costed about 11 million Euros and is a »theme attraction« for the new generation.

envis precisely developed the multitouch application running on three seperate media tables at Klimahaus for mehr:wert. Three different virtual books, from munich based company gameworker, filled with informations about the sponsors can be paged through and dragged around the surface. Additional features like zooming and painting were added to the application just to improve joy of use. Some additional media content will be published at our official portfolio the next weeks. So stay tuned and subscribe our RSS feed.

… if you are owning an iPhone. Yesterday I tried the iHUDisplay app from logiware. This one is using the integrated GPS modul from the 3G to messure your speed and displayes it mirrored on your windshield.

You can fix your device by laying a rubber mat underneath your iPhone to avoid a shift. The biggest advantage of this solution is the price. For about 2,39 Euros it´s yours… ; )

Unfortunately the biggest disadvantage is the fact that the displayed data causes reflection on the glass. Admittedly this effect can be alleviated by using a ground-glass foil.