Everything and the Mobile Software Universe…

After the TomSoft post : TomSoft » Augmented Reality: Total Immersion moving on CellPhone?

I’ve spent a little time digging in YouTubes to get some Augmented Reality Videos…and wow, the status of this technology is now just amazing and Total-Immersion seems to be leading edge (cocorico!). They will expose something new in Barcelona (hey Guilhem!, go and see those guys!).
Possibilities are endless, from marketing, to user manual, tourism, etc…I’m really impressed by the frollowing examples, I’m curious to know the MIPS use of such technology.

Some real use of augmented reality:The future of online shopping

A Game running on the now defunct Gizmondo Portable Game Sytem:




The one from tomSoft…great

Video: Total Immersion – On10

Alien is back!


Amazing how smooth is the tracking:


Space Sport…

C. Enrique Ortiz Mobility Weblog

Seen here: w3sh magazine » Et si Sony Ericsson sortait son Chocolate?…I’m really a SE fan, even more seeing this!

Mobile Crunch is pointing Mobile complete in this article Mobile Complete: Virtual Handsets for Real World Developers. A MobileCrunch Exclusive

But others exist, like : Paca Mobile Center (with Mobile Distillery as one of its founder, check them out, the product seems great).

So this kind of business really put a definitive end to the java “right one, runs everywhere” (if it ever had a begining ), and things are even worse in the Mobile space…I’m not sure fragmentation is a bad thing after all cause it gives a lot of freedom to hardware/UI/software design … but less power to little software companies, application provider etc….but we are not in a PC world, and perhaps applications are not so releavant here…but the data (and its presentation) is!

Update: GigaOM covers it also, and add an interesting bit of info: funding comes from Motorola Ventures…

Mobile Complete,1 a 3-year old San Mateo-based startup that provides mobile application testing services, says it has raised2 a Series B investment led by Motorola Ventures. While the round size is officially undisclosed, it is rumored to be around $10 million. Previous investor Innovacom VC also participated in the round. The company says it’s using the new funds to expand its service internationally and add more mobile handsets to its testing of roster of 300+ list of handsets. Check out the company’s virtual device-testing service called Deviceanywhere.com.

GigaOM » Motorola Funds Mobile Complete

Good read at edschepis:  Is still there any Java ME Programmer Thinking in Object?.

I’ve always been myself an Object Programming advocates … if you know what Object Programming is! And after a lot of interaction with many developpers, frameworks, etc:

• Object Code is great if you know what you do, what is the philosophy of objects, self containment, inheritance, etc. But MANY people don’t know what is an object, they code Java/C++ as if it was in C, leading to code bloat, bad maintenance and performance.
• Object Interface are…hum counter intuitive: you never know what object to create or what function is really called if you don’t have designed yourself those objects: object are great for YOUR code, but not so great for libraries where your user won’t know/master all the maze of your object graph (have a look at Symbian APIs … far from being intuitive).
• Many time it may hide some very big CPU/RAM issues, but it has more to do with the associated libraries, like the STL (see my previous post about that performances trade off) .
• …did I say that I like Object Programming? .

Found via MyiPhone Blog: Pantech ‘Flexus 03? Can Pass as the iPhone – MYiPhone:

Perhaps not the rumored iPhone from Aplle but a darn good design!

:: mobiface :: next gen mobile interface thoughts

Be sure to read the three quoted links:

• UI “cruft” : …wow refreshing to see why our OS are so counter intuitve … ouf, I’m not completely dumb , check also from the same author: Why Free Software usability tends to suck.
• The Monkey Experiment : no way, read this one…and get free!
• This Is What Happens When You Let Developers Create UI this is sooooo true…:

from Mobiface also: Interfaces as art that links to a great design site pingmag

with a very nice article about art and phone UI Here are some examples:

Look at the contrast between the four above images and the first one…no comment.

It should be forbidden for a Software Designer to design any UI! To do that Designing UI MUST be done with non dev tools, but authoring/design tools … Seems obvious, but really not the case in the real world .