About a month back I blogged about Smokescreen which allows advertisers to run simple Flash movies on iPad/iPhone using HTML5/JavaScript. Today while checking my twitter feed I discovered Frash which runs Flash content on iPad/iPhone in a Safari browser. It’s an effort to take the Android implementation of Flash Player to run on iPad/iPhone.
Smokescreen project is an effort to bring Flash player to the iPhone/iPad without installing the Flash plug-in. It’s an open source project implemented in HTML5 and JavaScript. For now this project is targeted at advertisers to enable them to run Flash ads on the iPhone/iPad.
While we written about Microsoft’s Project Natal in the past, the interweb has been abuzz about a start-up from Israel that’s going to compete – Omek.
Their technology claims to “translate natural body motion into seamless 3D movement onscreen”.
The technology is claimed to be ground-breaking; you can judge from yourself; take a look at the videos.
We have been experimenting with development of Augmented Reality [AR] applications for some time now. Earlier this week we released the first Indian Layar app called Pune Layar and had earlier created a simple Car Game using FLARToolkit. While developing these applications we considered many alternative tools & technologies to develop such applications for learning. Here I share some of them that may be useful for our readers if they too wish to experiment with AR.
We believe Layar, the AR browser can have a significant role to play in mobile learning. We have been playing with Layar for a some weeks now and yesterday we released a layer for Pune city. This is our first public layer which would be useful for the public as well as (hopefully) provide us valuable feedback about Layar development.
Below I share my development experience of creating the Pune Layar.
We first posted about Augmented Reality way back in April 2009. Since then, we’ve been extremely excited by its potential in workplace learning and recently our innovation team has been trying out various SDKs/classes. AR applications around the world are being developed using FLARToolKit, LAYAR, UNIFEYE, D-fusion platform etc. So far, we’ve implemented FLARToolKit and LAYAR in AR application development at Upside.
It gives us immense pleasure to share our first real sample in AR Street Racing.
I have great respect for Apple as an organization particularly because I use an iPhone and I think the iPhone has definitely become one of those game-changers in the smartphone world and by a large margin.
I was looking forward to the Apple iPad even more so as we have been doing good stuff on mobile learning and putting up applications and tools on iPhone as pilots and on a trial basis. The iPad was supposed to be better and bigger than the iPhone, closer to a computer and much more than just a phone.
1. Meaning Tool: Training Semantic Search With Feeds
Meaning Tool is a semantic engine that offers users a chance to extract concepts from text using specific semantic trees. You define your categories of interest by creating 
search parameters and training them with related websites or RSS feeds. A great tool to see how semantic trees can help search.
- Device tag support in HTML 5
Yesterday World Wide Web Consortium has reported that HTML 5 will support external devices, directly from your browser. Now your browser will access your webcam, microphone and other USB devices directly, no other software/plug-ins required.
Often the real meaning and potential impact of a database can be hidden behind all the raw names and numbers, but a well-chosen visualization can bring the data to life. Google fusion is a cloud based application from Google where you can share and visualize data online. You can visualize data in a number of forms like: Map, Intensity Map, Bar, Pie chart, Table, line etc.
Abhijit Kadle | December 11th, 2009
I came across this really interesting interview with Greg Kroah-Hartman – Linux Kernel Dev/Maintainer. In this interview, Greg talks about how the Linux project has accommodated the accelerating rate of change for the kernel. It was very interesting to draw parallels between some of what he says and learning.
- Google Dumps Gears for HTML5
Google will end Gears, an open-source plug-in project it launched two years ago to allow Web applications to function even when a computer isn’t connected to the Internet. Applications that used Gears include Google’s Docs and Reader.
However, new incompatibilities with Gears have cropped up. Although it works with Microsoft’s Windows, Linux and some Apple Mac OS X versions, it doesn’t work with Mac OS X 10.6, also known as Snow Leopard. Also As much of the technology in Gears, including offline support and geo-location APIs, are being incorporated into the HTML5 spec as an open standard supported across browsers, it is natural for Google to Drop Gears in favor of HTML5. However Gears will continue to be supported for sites that already use it.
