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CTIA 2011: US mobile show to be global launch

Samsung is expected to launch an 8.9-inch Samsung Galaxy Tab at CTIA on 22 March the company is teasing.

An invite has been sent out to American journalists, including being dumped on the company’s Facebook page with a picture of a tablet and the words:

“What’s your Tab life? 78910”

With a 7-inch tablet launched at IFA in 2010, and MWC seeing the launch of a 10.1-inch model that leaves 8 and 9 or 8.9-inche model we are led to believe.

Samsung all but confirms the launch of a new tablet on it’s Facebook page saying:

“Were you excited about the introduction of our GALAXY Tab 10.1 at 2011 Mobile World Congress? If you so, we’ve got more surprises in store at our UNPACKED event on 3/22!”

Pocket-lint will be live from CTIA in March in Florida, so make sure you come back to the site for all the latest news from the show.

Tags:
Tablets Samsung Samsung Galaxy Tab Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9 CTIA2011

Samsung Galaxy Tab 8.9-inch model landing in March originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 23:35:00 +0000

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Incredible gets an update too

HTC has confirmed that the Froyo touting HTC Desire, HTC Desire HD, HTC Desire Z and the newly on sale in the UK, HTC Incredible S will all get Gingerbread updates in Q2.

The Android 2.3 update (or 2.4?) will land on the selected handsets sometime from April onwards, although sadly there’s no Gingerbread action planned for the popular budget option HTC Wildfire – that’ll be permastuck on Froyo for ever and ever amen it seems.

Although Three has confirmed that its soon to be launched follow-up, the HTC Wildfire S, will be packing Gingerbread 2.4.

Pocket-lint also told you last week how the Samsung Galaxy S Gingerbread update would be coming in March.

Read

Tags:
gingerbread HTC Desire HTC Desire HD HTC HTC Desire Z HTC Incredible S Android 2.3 HTC Wildfire HTC Wildfire S Phones Mobile phones Android 2.4

Gingerbread houses for HTC Desire range in Q2 originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 09:27:32 +0000

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AR WEEK: Unraveling what AR is actually all about

You already know what augmented reality is. You just might not know it’s called that, and when you’ve seen it as its best, you probably haven’t even noticed it at all.

Put at its simplest, augmented reailty, or AR to its friends, is the art of super-imposing of computer generated content over a live view of the world. It is quite literally the practice of enhancing what’s already around us. The most often used example is the one the world is most familiar with and that’s television sports analysis. The reality is the footage of the game of football, rugby, cricket or what have you and the augmentations are the arrows of the players’ movement and the zonal areas marked out that don’t exist on the actual playing surface. For example, the first down line in American football is something that doesn’t exist on the real pitch but that the viewer can see nonetheless on the picture beamed over the airwaves and to television screen thanks to the addition of a graphical overlay.

One definition of AR as laid down by Professor Ronald Azuma in his Survey of Augmented Reality paper in 1997, is that it combines the real and the virtual, it’s interactive in real-time and that it must register in 3D. Using the example of the first down line, you’ve got the combination of the computer generated line – the virtual – on top of the real American Football footage; it’s present in the real time motion of the game – whether recorded or not – and the graphical line obeys all physical rules of depth as if it existed in the real world. In other words, that it appears underneath the plays feet and behind their legs when they cross it rather than spatially out of sync. It’s as if it really is painted on the pitch.

The first down line, of course, represents a very mild level of AR. It’s a very small, simple, largely static piece of augmentation and makes up for a tiny per centage of the total view. It’s much more reality than virtuality. Nevertheless, according to a second definition by Paul Milgram and Fumio Kishino, it does still exist on a continuum of augmentation which they describe as a line existing between the real world and a totally virtual environment. At the one end would be what you see through your eyes with no device in the way and at the other a completely computer generated world, a virtual reality such as Second Life.

The example of the first down line lies a long way to the left of this scale – just millimetres from the end really – but it’s equally possible to have a situation of something you might call augmented virtuality at the corresponding point on the right. By today’s standards, anything that fits anywhere on this continuum that isn’t right at one of the extremes would be classed as AR.

Now that we’re fully versed on what it is we’re talking about, let’s get practical with a few examples of what AR can do for us and how it works. The key part of AR is that you need to place a layer of virtual information over your view of the real world and, in order to do that, there must be a device in between to display that information upon. There are three main ways of doing that and they all relate to the position these devices occupy.

The first instance is where that display is right up against the eyes of the beholder. These are often referred to as Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) and will take the form of a visor of some sort or a pair of connected glasses such as those manufactured for consumers by Vuzix. The holy grail of HMDs is contact lens solution and indeed there’s plenty of research and development here that will be the subject of other articles in AR Week on Pocket-lint. HMDs are generally a good solution. It leaves the user’s hands free and means that their entire visual field can be overlayed with augmentation wherever they turn.

One step away from that are the handheld devices which are most notably these days smartphones but will doubtless include camera-toting tablet computers after the flurry seen at CES and MWC 2011. Either way, there’s an advantage here in that these things already exist in quite powerful and convenient forms. The issues, though, are that the user is limited to just a frame, that your hands are tied up and, possibly most problematic of all, is that the more AR is used like this, the greater the chance that people will end up assaulting each other by accident as they spin around with their arms stretched out in front of them or just getting their expensive phones whipped from their grip.

Finally at the other end of the business, and closest to the real world itself, is the method of pasting that computer-generated overlay directly on top of your real environment instead. It’s usually done with digital projectors or other devices known in this group as Spatial Displays. The advantages are that the user is required to hold or wear no computer equipment whatsoever and the second key difference is that everyone else can see the AR as well. The downside is that it’ll only work on a very specific environment but it’s perfect for collaborations like building projects and might even be the future of construction sites. Who needs plans and blueprints when everyone can see where each timber is supposed to go?

There is another slightly different group of devices out there which can be employed for activity specific environments and, in fact, these are what’s used for some of the most developed and mature examples of AR around at the moment. These are the Heads-up Displays or HUDs. HUDs are powered and connected transparent view screens with computer graphic LED information displayed over the environment.

Essentially, we’re talking about large, fixed, transparent computer screens sat somewhere not to far out in front of the user. The military have been using them for years with screens of fighter jets made just like this and indeed it’s where the name HUD comes from. It’s a heads-up display because the pilots are able to keep their heads up and looking at the action in front of them rather than having to constantly reference controls and meters on their cockpit panels. They can monitor the speed of other aircraft, compass headings, vectors, wind speed and anything else you could possibly want to know – all by just looking straight ahead. In the next few years, we’ll begin to see consumer car windscreens as HUDs but, again, there’ll be more on that coming up in AR week.

So, by now you should be thinking that you’ve pretty much got a handle on what this AR thing is all about and there’s even an excellent chance that knew all along anyway. Well done you. But just before we go, spare a little thought for this teaser – does AR have to be all about your eyes?

What about putting a layer of information between your other four senses and the rest of the world? For touch, you could have information sent back to you via haptic feedback, for taste, there could be device mounted on your tongue – as uncomfortable as that might sound – having headphones in your ear is simple enough and there’s no reason why there couldn’t be similar units for one’s nostrils.

So long as the user still has contact and appreciation of the natural world while plugged up with sensors, then there is still the mixing of the real and virtual and that is what AR is all about. A car’s increasingly rapid beeps when its bumper gets closer and closer to a static object could be considered AR, the noises of a Geiger counter are a form of AR and, doubtless, someone could invent a small nasal-lining film for hay fever suffers that might emit a strong smell when pollen passes across it.

All the same, for the time being, most of the development and much of the interest of AR lies with the visual mode, largely because it’s an excellent medium for getting across more rich information in any one moment, and it’s here where much of AR Week will be based. Tune in as we take a closer look at some of the more exciting applications that the future holds.

Tags:
Phones Apps Augmented Reality Features AR Week

What is Augmented Reality? originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 09:30:00 +0000

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Three great new programs from Adobe, but which is right for you?

1) Adobe Photoshop Elements 9:

Elements 9 is designed for amateurs as well as semi-professionals on a limited budget and could easily be referred to as Photoshop “lite”. Elements 9 is a simplified and slightly stripped-down version of Photoshop. For new users Elements 9 offers many helpful tips that pop up on-screen to guide you in the process of improving your photographs.

Another reason Elements is often called Photoshop lite is that the current price is only $79.99 which is about 1/10 the cost of Photoshop CS5. After using Elements for a while, many users decide to move up to Lightroom and Photoshop.

Elements includes a superb system for cataloging photographs, which is a feature that Photoshop CS5 does not offer. Elements is quite intuitive and powerful enough to help you enhance or repair your photos, both new and old. It also allows you to create terrific panoramas from a series of photos that you may have taken, along with many other new tools that help you create the exact look you want for your pictures. Elements 9 also offers guides to help you make great prints, either at home or at your local photo store after you have finished editing your photographs.

In another nod to its core audience, Elements allows you to quickly post photographs (and videos) on Facebook directly from its built-in organizer, which automatically optimizes your media so that it looks its best when shared on the net. Considering the features and the price of this program, it is a fantastic bargain and a “must-have” introduction for those on a budget or newcomers to digital photography.

2) Adobe Photoshop CS5:

CS5 is the undisputed king of digital photography editing and manipulation. The original Photoshop program redefined digital imaging with a strong focus on the professional world. Soon Adobe redesigned and improved Photoshop to make it available as the first real breakthrough digital imaging program for a wider audience of users. CS5 is further refined with improved image selection capabilities, improved retouching, more useful painting and improved filters along with a wide range of workflow and performance enhancements. Adobe also significantly improved CS5′s user interface, making it more effective and easier to navigate.

Over the years Adobe has continued to improve Photoshop to the point where almost any professional or serious photographer uses it in his/her workflow. Photoshop CS5 is the latest edition and has some very important new features. It is not just a simple upgrade from Photoshop CS4.

Photoshop CS5 has new selection tools that make the often time-consuming process of creating selections much easier, using fewer clicks and ending up with even better results when trying to pick out complicated parts of photos to enhance or manipulate.

Of all the new tools offered in Photoshop CS5, I think the one that I’ve enjoyed the most has been the “Content-Aware Fill” tool. Using the Content-Aware tool you can remove unwanted parts of your image, and it automatically, almost magically, fills in the space left behind; it’s something you have to see to believe. Photoshop CS5 also has a much improved digital noise removal system built-in to its improved Camera Raw section, so you can eliminate digital noise at the start (at least, those of you who use Camera Raw… and those who don’t should really try it). Adobe has also vastly improved its High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging abilities. The HDR tool was very good in the last edition of Photoshop but it has been developed to a higher level in CS5.

Another valuable addition to the program is its new automatic lens correction feature. Almost every lens and camera combination has a few inherent flaws. Photoshop CS5 uses the image file and EXIF data to make precise adjustments to your image based on the model of camera and the lens you used when taking the photograph— with amazing results.

CS5 is also the premier program for graphic artists and many animators, and is well-known for its ability to create many of the dramatic effects you see both on-screen and in print. I do not use Photoshop for its graphic arts capabilities; I use it for photography, but many buy the program simply to use for their work in the graphic arts field.

There is much else to be said for Adobe’s Photoshop CS5, but that would take quite a few more pages and there are countless books about CS5 on the web and in bookstores— some running in excess of 500 pages— so suffice it to say this is one terrific program at $699.

3) Adobe Lightroom 3:

Adobe Lightroom 3 is the new kid on the block and a very popular kid indeed. Many photographers who simply want a powerful program to enhance (rather than manipulate) their images will find Lightroom 3 an ideal choice. This is a program that the professional community has embraced.

Lightroom’s real target is the photographer who takes a lot of pictures. It has one of the very best cataloging abilities of any program on the market, helping catalog your photographs with speed and efficiency. Lightroom is the favorite of many professional photographers when developing and enhancing their original images, managing them, and even using its built-in layout designs to showcase their photographs with style and impact to clients.

Lightroom shares many of the best “photography” tools from its big brother Photoshop, including CS5′s sophisticated new color and exposure controls, new and superior noise reduction, sharpening, and many other new features. Just as with Photoshop, Lightroom offers extensive raw image processing capability.

Perhaps the most compelling attribute of Lightroom is that it performs “nondestructive” editing. In fact, Lightroom does not alter your original image at all, its corrections are simply algorithms saved by Lightroom and are not applied to your original image which remains untouched, undisturbed and intact. In this respect, I prefer it to Photoshop.

Lightroom also offers a superb black-and-white conversion engine, which is shared with Photoshop CS5. While it lacks the extensive graphic arts capabilities and some of the popular image manipulation abilities that Photoshop offers, you have all of your pure photographic essentials in one package. If you are a truly busy photographer, you can quickly find and edit one photograph or work efficiently with libraries of thousands of images.

The already speedy performance of Lightroom has been accelerated in version 3, as you can import your images faster and easier, and synchronize and apply the same development settings to all photos in a group. Just as with the other Adobe programs, there are many books that offer invaluable help in learning the nuances of Lightroom 3.

Interestingly, many serious photographers start their imaging process in Lightroom and once they’re satisfied with the results, transfer those files to Photoshop for its more extensive image manipulation capabilities. Adobe Lightroom 3 has been extremely popular and lists for just $299.

There you have it, three great programs, available for both Mac and Windows, and each designed for a particular audience. All are leaders in their respective fields.

John Lentz

View full post on BestStuff – Photography

AR WEEK: Real-time maps at your fingertips

This week we’ve gone a bit AR mad, so all of our Apps of the Day have got a whiff of Augmented Reality about them. Whether it’s mapping, games or Wi-Fi locators – we’ve got them all. This map-based offering is one of the best we’ve seen and one that we can actually imagine a lot of people using on a regular basis.

Heads Up Navigator (iPhone)

Format

iOS 3.1 or later

Price

Free

Where

iTunes

Available for free from the iPhone store, Heads Up Navigator: 3D Augmented Reality Navigation may have a preposterously long name, but it’s very useful indeed. Especially if you’re the type of person that is flummoxed by even the most basic of maps. The idea is simple, the app combines Google Maps with AR, so that you can use the camera on your phone to determine where you are and which way to go. The map appears in a box in the corner of the screen and can be made bigger when you need a close look. It also rotates as you move so you know what direction you’re going in.

You can set the maps to show the conventional road view or a satellite view if you want to view things in a more literal way. You can also add locations or landmarks to make it easier for you navigate or just to make a record of memorable places.

Those using a pre-3GS iPhone or an iPod touch will find that the lack of electronic compass means that the direction you’re facing can’t be automatically determined. In this case, a wireframe mode is provided with arrows for manually rotating through the virtual space (it does, however, still tilt automatically as you tilt the device).

If your map-reading skills leave a lot to be desired, then this is the app for you. If you prefer, you can shell out 59p for an advertisement-free version.

Related links:

• Feature – 10 augmented reality tricks to try right now

Tags:
Apps App of the day Heads Up Navigator AR Week Augmented Reality iPhone

APP OF THE DAY: Heads Up Navigator (iPhone) originally appeared on http://www.pocket-lint.com on Mon, 28 Feb 2011 20:16:01 +0000

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