This is what I wish the internet search will be able to do with a mobile device in the NEAR future. Touch screen, built in camera, scanner, WiFi, google map (hopefully google earth), google search, image search… all in one device. Like this way, when you can see a building through it, it gives you the image search result right on the spot.
Choose a building and touch a floor and it tells you more details of the building.
Well, it doesn’t have to be a building, but it can be any object you see. You can use it when you want to know a car model, an insect name, what kind of food is served at a restaurant and how much, who built a bridge, etc. etc. But as a designer myself, I hope it’s able to tell me a name of a font of the type I see, the size, color (in RGB), and so on.
It’s got a scanner built in, so you can use it this way when you want to check the meaning of a word in the newspaper, book, magazine, etc.
It would be much easier to read a real book. You can use the dictionary, wikipedia, thesaurus and anything else available on the web. What do you think?
See also more ideas about this device. (here and here too)
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34 Comments
It’s all coming! A number of technology companies are working on providing these capabilities including Google, Microsoft and a host of lesser knows.
You’re right on target!
Really!? I should’ve known that then before writing this.
Why should I read newspaper (hard copy) if I have Internet access and many many news sites?
Microsoft Research has a prototype version of this that works for a limited set of objects.
http://lincoln.msresearch.us/Lincoln/Logon.aspx
The page says it works on magazines, posters, DVDs, paintings. Looks like it can recognize flat objects today. It’s not quite the full enchilada that you show here - but it looks like a start.
Quite interesting! Can any one please send me some links to know more about such devices.
Pratheep
Interesting, but I can see potential problems. The card isn’t going to know what info I’m seeking about what I’m pointing it at. When I point it at some people in Central Park, do I want info about the park, the people, grass, trees, lake or what? Intriguing, at any rate. I’m already missing my privacy, however.
Nice idea, at this point of development in sciences i think ideas become more and more valuable since they are the only thing that can’t be produced with a recipe or a fixed method.
I posted a news to the site http://www.neoteo.com in Spanish with due credit. Hope you like it.
Very nice idea man.
im posting this on my blog. woot!
This idea was chosen “Featured” on Behance Network. Thank you so much!
http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Future-of-Internet-Search-Mobile-version/59175
wow. this is cool. its absolutelt fantastic. you hv really great ideas. interesting
Loving. Would be so great for travel too. Just point at the Pantheon and get all the layers of history, plus nearby restaurant reviews
very nice and intelligent idea ! (blogged)
Definitely interested in this beauty! Great device! Blogged about it here - http://www.concept-phones.com/scan-the-world-around-you-with-an-advanced-mobile-search-device-63
Brilliant! Advertisers would love this. Wrote about it on Marketing Safari: http://blog.scope.is/marketing_safari/2008/02/the-advertisers.html
Well, thank all of you for your comments and pingbacks! I still can’t believe so many people could have a chance to see this.
Its seems like a really cool idea, and I would love to own one of these, but it would be very hard to do something like this in real life. A glass pane with an inbuilt scanner isn’t very plausible, and to project full and vibrant colors on that glass should be hard or expensive. As well, a touch screen uses electromagnetic waves to locate a stylus, and a hand doesn’t give off electromagnetic waves. Finally, glass expands and contracts with heat, so unless the casing stretched with it, the screen might shatter.
Reality sucks.
Wow, there are a lot of problems to solve. Thank you, tmunter.
I’m a designer, so if I sound an idiot, just laugh me off, but what about using the technique used for Microsoft’s “Playanywhere”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqSwBVzeTMY
It doesn’t have to be a scanner built in this device, but a sensor or something to check which area is being touched. This device should rather focus on usability of the control of the device itself, and leave what’s done in the screen to the power of the internet.
As for the fragility of glass, yes, you’re right. Ummm…
I tought about this but with a pair of glasses instead.
With a small camera attached to the pair of glasses, and some 3d positioning system, a computer would analyze what you are looking at and display info about it. The info could be projected directly on your retina as if it was part of the real scenery.
Also, if you’d point something with your finger, the computer would detect it with the help of the mounted camera and it would display info about the thing you are pointing at or take some actions. For example, when watching TV, if you’d put your hand in you field of vision, the computer could display TV control as if they were floating in the air, and by pointing it with your finger, you could control your TV.
Another example would be to turn on or off the light in a room by looking from a distance at a light switch and pointing your finger at it. The computer would analyze that you are trying to turn on or off the light and would send a command to the light switch to take the desired action.
Imagine also playing games with that. The computer could display monsters while you are looking at your backyard. The computer would calculate the position of these monster depending of where you are looking at. For example, a NPC could go hide behind a trash can because, with the help of the camera, the computer analyzed that there were one while looking around.
And that’s only few examples. The possibilities are endless.
I think the greatest inventions were the ones that gave us access to more information and gave us a faster access to it (books (printing), phone, tv, internet, …). With the internet, we now have the data, but the challenge now is how we present this information and how we can retrieve it easily (ex.: Google). This invention would be a good answer to that.
I don’t think that the technologies are advanced enough to create this kind of product right now, but one day for sure this will be one of the greatest stuff around!
Jonathan
Great ideas, Jonathan! Yeah, the possibilities are endless for sure. Thanks for your comment.
You’re not Jonathan Ive, are you?
No, sorry
I am not in the design industry at all. Just a simple programmer 
In Japan they can scan a bunch of stuff with their phones including movie trailers by pointing them to bill boards
http://florence20.typepad.com/renaissance/2007/04/cell_phones_as_.html
I have an app called Word Card Mobile on my ATT Tilt (made by HTC) which can take a picture of a business card and OCR it in to my contacts…so most of what you would like to see is already there or just around the corner…
The scanner part should be capable of doing direct translation of texts; from bookas and magazines, as well as text on streets when you´re in a foreign country.
(the gps tells you where you are; you just define your default translate-to language)
What do you think ?
If you used some kind of super heat resistant plastic or something instead of glass…or maybe the stuff they use for beakers and things.
Definitely way cool, I’d buy one.
good idea!
Very cool device, and no doubt one that will become a reality in the not too distant future. Complements.
I was looking into similar technologies recently and these links may just interest you.
There have been a lot of advances in Augmented Reality (enhancing a real world image with overlays of information).
http://www.hitlabnz.org/wiki/Home
These guys even created a mobile phone application that can apply a 3D object into a realworld scene. Does your device need to be a transparent screen?? - surely pointing my iPhone at something would have the same effect, seeing the image replicated on the screen? Maybe a little less sexy? Also seeing on a screen what the computer is ‘understanding’ rather than looking through a transparent screen. Here you could be looking at a lot of different links depending on your viewing position.
http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~gk/index.html
This is amazing stuff.
Check out this guys videos - it shows how your device could work - recognising objects and overlaying information.
http://www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/docs/manual.html
These guys developed a software that will no doubt be integral to your kind of device.
I think that glasses may be more useful.
This is a cool demo of 3D Augmented Reality using glasses.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLikgptMD98
Complements on your well designed blog.
A wonderful solution to the interconnectedness of the “Internet of Things”. Have you read Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge yet? You may find more inspiration from some of the near-future technologies he describes.
I think Swiss Startup Kooaba is interesting to be mentioned in this discussion. They actually offer a functionality to take a photo of an object and instantly retrieve more information about it: http://kooaba.com/en/howto.html
I’ve added some more images related to this device.
http://petitinvention.wordpress.com/2008/03/01/future-of-mobile-internet-search-applications/
a very neat idea - i linked you on my blog
my friend sent me a video clip today.. i think your idea is already a very near-reality now. check out microsoft surface computing: http://www.microsoft.com/surface
Thanks, celestial!
Check out Emporis Maps (http://maps.emporis.com) - they combine building data with maps. The beta release is online since last week!
I hope someone somewhere is making it right now
because i want it
http://koozies.wordpress.com
Good day!
My name is Natalya, i am from Russia.
I wrote about you and your invention in the Russian magazine.
Could you please e-mail me a high-resolution photograph of this gadget for an illustration?
I’ll be very grateful!
Intel did a presentation about the subject with simular device. Here is the movie: http://www.t-immersion.com/0_swf/FLV_PLAYER.swf?file=/exclude/BANQUE_VIDEOS/VIDEOS/Intel_CES.flv
There is already a working mobile AR application, but the servers running the application can only handle 60 concurrent lines. If Alcatel Lucent can offer more concurrent users, Total Immersion will launche this application. See also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL2ByYozGOI
Best regards, Jeroen Mol
61 Trackbacks/Pingbacks
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