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Cellphone as Virtual Mouse, Keyboard

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the well-isn't-that-clever dept.

stab writes "Check this out! High Energy Magic have announced a public beta of software to let you use your camera-phone as a physical mouse by just pointing and clicking and rotating it in the air. Some very cool videos available: check out the volume control and flight booking ones in particular! The tags used are really robust - they did a wastebasket torture test for a bit of fun as well :-)"

9 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Wow... by k4_pacific · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Like the Camera phone itself, this is a solution to a problem I never knew existed.

    --
    Unknown host pong.
    1. Re:Wow... by normal_guy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Why fly when you can drive and sail? Because it's faster and more efficient. Why carry around a cameraphone when you can easily carry a brick phone and your Nikon 35mm? Because it's smaller and more efficient.

      --

      Linux: Free if your time is worthless.
  2. I don't understand... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why integrate a cell phone with all these add on features that aren't nearly as good as things devoted specifically to the task? Cameras on cell phones are horrible compared to a decent digital camera, cell phone games are also quite lame (though, in Japan, you can get some nice looking versions of Dragonquest 1 and FF1), and now this... Why not just fix certain problems with the PHONING (i.e. bad signals) - the main capability for which they were developed, rather than adding a whole number of (useless) features?

    1. Re:I don't understand... by Khakionion · · Score: 5, Insightful
      Why not just fix certain problems with the PHONING (i.e. bad signals) - the main capability for which they were developed, rather than adding a whole number of (useless) features?
      Put yourself in Sprint's shoes. You could spend more on improving your network, thus upping your subscription costs, or you could have Samsung come out with a shitload of useless PCS Vision features. Both sell phones, but there's less risk for Sprint, since Samsung's doing the majority of the R&D.
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      OMG! Wau!
    2. Re:I don't understand... by Diaspar · · Score: 3, Insightful


      I think the issue here is that the people *assume* that the phone just works. Quality of service is usually attributed to the provider.

      Now that we got that out of the way, once people take reliability for granted they look at optional things, such as camera, organizer, phone book, etc.. nothing wrong with it, just how the mentality works.

  3. How quickly is this all done? by Fiz+Ocelot · · Score: 3, Insightful
    So how fast is it? From what it sounds like in the description: A bar code like "spot code" is on an object. Your phone reads it with the camera, communicates this to a nearby pc via bluetooth, which then somehow runs code on the phone.

    Sorry but first off, I don't want a camera phone. Second, Will this all run within my 2 second attention span? Most likely just targeted ads anyways. Not to mention what this would do to the phone's battery life.

    1. Re:How quickly is this all done? by stab · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Sorry but first off, I don't want a camera phone

      You're probably posting from the US. In Europe, it's almost impossible to buy a cellphone without a camera these days. You're correct in that I dont particularly want to take pictures with the crappy camera - so why not use it for something useful?

      Will this all run within my 2 second attention span?

      Pretty much ... the decoding happens in real-time (you see the camera viewfinder, and it highlights tags). Once the main slashdotting dies down, the videos hopefully explain it a bit better.

      Not to mention what this would do to the phone's battery life.

      Actually, it's not too bad ... I was demonstrating this stuff at a research demo day recently, and we ran a normal Nokia 3650 for a good 8 hours without seriously killing the batteries - that the camera and bluetooth active at the same time.

  4. Re:Slashvertisement? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I believe you could avoid any accusations of dishonesty by just writing your blurbs to say "Check this out! My company...etc. etc.". People do that often and it's not a problem if the tech is cool enough (and this tech is cool). People get annoyed when you write the blurb as though you're just a third party bystander who found this out there. Otherwise it smells like astroturfing. This tech is cool enough to stand on its own, why mess around with marketing stuff that will give geeks pause?

  5. That's not how they make money... by dgies · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Carriers generally LOSE money on the phones. A phone with more whiz-bang features is a more expensive phone they have to subsidize. Carriers make money off of charges for using the network. The reason all the carriers are promoting picture phones is because they're hoping you decide to use your fancy new picture phone to send and recieve pictures over the cellular network, which they can charge extra for. That's the same reason they were heavily promoting downloadable ringtones and games last year. All carriers make money off of is your use of the network. The phones are just a nuisance from a carrier's point of view.