Cellphone as Virtual Mouse, Keyboard 186
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 :-)"
Wow (Score:1, Interesting)
Here's an idea: (Score:4, Interesting)
New Policy (Score:3, Interesting)
Gyroscopic mouse technology - patented (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I don't understand... (Score:4, Interesting)
Didn't Motorola CEO get kicked out because that's precisely what he was saying ("concentrate on quality that's obviously suffering right now, and not race for features")?
I think in the current market there is always race for features. More, more more and more. Until some complaint gets too loud and bites the company in the ass. Then fixing it becomes a future as well ("Our dialer is now better than ever").
I found it interesting how Microsoft acted back in the day. They bloated their software with features, many many features, to beat the feature list of the competitor. Well, so what that it crashed constantly, so what that it didn't do the job that well. (sarcasm). For some reason, it's still around...
damn it! (Score:2, Interesting)
then i see some mirrors - im happy again
then i find it wont work with my phone - im pissed.
Anyway, I have two mice (1 USB and 1 PS2), yet neither work (the cursor will not move and clicking has no effect). Windows says the drivers are fine, it's not a virus.. i've been told it might be the motherboard, can anyone verify this?
The mouse was jumping a little a few days before breaking, then the day before it broke it was stopping and starting. The day it broke.. well, it broke. Right in the middle of making the GUI for a program.
WHY ARE MOUSEKEYS SO DAMN SLOW?!?
Right idea, wrong tool (Score:3, Interesting)
Doesn't work on P900 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Slashvertisement? (Score:5, Interesting)
And don't start spouting "open-source this, open-source that" to me
Blindingly obvious (Score:3, Interesting)
What would be totally totally neat would be a dumb-terminal standard using bluetooth so when you walked into say an airport and launched the 'dumb-terminal' app on your phone you would get a screen produced by the airport computer which would be able to tell you exactly where you were (triangulation or bluetooth 'cells') on a visual map. Then you could just tap in the 'customer code' on your ticket and the airport computer would be able to tell you the real time of your flight, delays, where you should go, how much time you had, where you could get discount booze etc etc. the same could work for libraries, train/bus stations, sports-games, malls, towns, tourist attractions, and of course cinemas (where the screen would say "turn your fucking phone off" just before the film started) the protocal could either be like wap/html or pushed by the server, whatever aslong as its a standard, its open, it supports funky graphics, sound and vide and you dont get charged for it.
Re:Wow... (Score:2, Interesting)
And besides, what if you were in calgary right now and want to remember all the b00bs being shown. What better way to relive the NHL playoffs than through the joy of pictures!
and on that note, what if you were to shag a supermodel? No one would believe you (being a slashdot nerd), so now you can snap a photo while shagging a goddess! You will be the envy of your friends!
=D
Re:Slashvertisement? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)
This kind of statement about the lack of a use for a camera phone tends to tell me something about the person that says it.
1. They're not very creative. I use a camera-phone all the time for stuff I'd never use a camera for. For example, I take pictures of sales displays to compare the product on the internet when I get home and I take pictures of the sign that reminds me where I parked my car at the airport. Instant notes with no effort. I also have a cool game that lets me move around by moving my phone around. If you were more creative, you would have thought of a few more uses too.
2. They're not very spontaneous. I take pictures of my friends, family and important events far more often than I ever would if I had to carry around a full-size camera all the time. If you were interested in this kind of spontaneity then I'm sure you would see the use of a camera phone.
3. They're self-centered. People who don't want a camera phone personally, and seem to be dumbfounded by those that do, tend to be some of the most self-centered people I know. Lots of people have camera phones and lots of people like them. You may not desire or need one, but are you able to learn from and empathize with those that do? If you were interested in the thoughts and feelings of the people around you, you might have asked one of them why they bought a camera phone and realize that not everyone has the same needs and desires that you do.
Believe it or not, I'm not trying to slam you here. I'm just reporting my personal observations of people who've talked like you have about these devices. Camera phones are interesting because they're very popular, but there's a significant backlash. That backlash crowd, in my opinion, is really more alike than most people realize.
TW
OMFG CONVERGENCE IS TEH SUX!!!!111 (Score:3, Interesting)
Like what? What device, specifically, will perform the task these guys are describing? Are you going to build a completely new device with a camera, mouse buttons, and wireless connectivity for people to carry around so they can use these interactive installations?
Doesn't it make more sense just to install some software, which is practically free, on a device which already has all the necessary hardware?
Doesn't it make sense, if there are a lot of applications which require the same hardware, to just build one damn device and use it for all of them? If you really need a better implementation of one specific application than this convergence device can provide, carry a specialized device when you need it, as well. That still beats carrying a bag full of devices around all the time, when on any given day at least half of them are expensive and complete overkill.
Re:SSH on Symbian OS (Score:3, Interesting)
Other 2d barcodes could rapidly outpace this (Score:3, Interesting)
But with cameras and processing power on cell phones getting more sophisticated, other 2d barcode like QR Code [denso-wave.com] or semacode [semacode.org] will eventually outpace this technology with their considerably larger data capacity (up to as many as 4000 alphanumeric characters). In fact, semacode is already demonstrated on Series 60 implementations.
The submitter points to an application that uses spotcodes for remote control. In that implmentation, the spotcode translates to a number which the program then uses to send an instruction over Bluetooth.
However, those wishing to skip the tedium of entering URLs from the keypad using Spotcodes should note that BangoSpot [bango.net] (using the Spotcode technology) almost certainly uses a middleware server which performs a Spotcode number-to-URL lookup. So someone will know that you're using the Spotcodes. It's sort of like the CueCat but the implementation _requires_ them to know what you're looking up in order to provide a WAP URL.
It's an interesting approach, but I wonder how fast cellular carriers can adopt Spotcode-to-URL servers in their network before phone technology ends up leapfrogging and reading and entering sophisticated 2d barcode data directly into a phone browser.