Slashdot Mirror
Using Mobile Phones To Write Messages In Air
Anonymous writes "Engineering
students at Duke University have taken advantage of the accelerometers
in emerging cell phones to create an application that permits users to
write short notes in the air with their phone, and have that note
automatically sent to an e-mail address. The 'PhonePoint Pen' can be held just
like a pen, and words can be written on an imaginary whiteboard.
With this application a user could take a picture with a phone camera, and annotating it immediately with
a short caption. Duke Computer Engineering Professor Romit Roy
Choudhury said that his research group is envisioning mobile phones as
just not a communication device, but a much broader platform for social sensing and human-computer interaction. Such interactivity has also emerged in the work of other research groups, such as MIT's Sixth Sense project, Dartmouth's MetroSense project, and Microsoft Research's NeriCell project, to name a few."
this does not seem to have big practical use as of now, if only for the fact that if you do not have access to a screen, for reading what you wrote or sketched, it seems to me unusable. On the other hand, if you are at your desk, the mouse does its job quite well, thank you.
Having said that, it looks like a Wiimote for everyone, and the possibilities are mind boggling. Think of Smart houses, in which by moving your mobile you can raise or lower the air conditioning and such.
"If a boss demands loyalty, give him integrity. But if he demands integrity, give him loyalty." (John Boyd, 1927-1997)
"an application that permits users to write short notes in the air with their phone, and have that note automatically sent to an e-mail address."
My god! They've invented text messaging from a phone, but... worse.
"A week in the lab saves an hour in the library"
My initial reaction was "oh noes! Air graffiti!"...
...until I read how this works. Actually, the idea could be quite udeful for once. Seems to me it should be quite a small step to introduce some sort of OCR into the works to clean it up a bit...
Fail.
This is an app which uses the accelerometer in the iPhone and handwriting recognition to create notes on the phone itself. Nothing to do with writing letters in the air which are visible to other people.
I know this is slashdot, but you are expected to RTF'ing stub at least.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
It would probably allow Italians to have two conversations at once.
Once upon a time many centuries ago...
Merlin (shaking and waving his wand with no obvious result): What do you mean my account has been suspended?
A magic hand appears out of thin air and points to something on the huge stone nearby.
Merlin: Damned fine print, damned greedy telcos. I should have bought an unlocked one.
Novel: Check
Excellent thesis topic: Check
Accolades from fellow CS geeks: Check
Impressive on resume: Check
Realistically useful: Uncheck
Better known as 318230.
The best part is you can flip the device over when you make a mistake and pretend to pour Wite-Out®.
Instead of using the g-sensor in the phone, put a g-sensor and a small RF unit in a small stylus.
Then you can write on a piece of paper or the table/wall while seeing the text appear on the screen of your mobile phone in the other hand.
Or you could use, I don't know, a special kind of paper that would display the writing of the stylus in real time and store it. Made compact enough this would be awesome for note taking on the go.
I can't believe nobody thought of it before.
You wouldn't even need a cell phone to use it ! Think of the possibilities !
May contain traces of nut.
Made from the freshest electrons.
As if it isn't bad enough with idiots wandering from side to side as they walk down the street. Now they have to frail their arms about too.
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
...introduce some sort of OCR into the works to clean it up a bit
Until then, expect your "sent" folder to be full of unexpected messages. Like the following. :)
jvjw~~wwwy
You are a typical person.
)(~!!
You are a teeny bopper.
-x-x-x
You were moonwalk dancing.
%!%!%!
You are no longer horny.
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