NET9 News Bites

Augmented Reality

In AR news, Mobilizy recently proposed Augmented Reality Markup Language [ARML] specification to the AR Consortium. I think this is a great move and one that will provide part of the foundation for augmented reality in the future.

Meanwhile, Layar Reality Browser has added 3D to its platform. It will be interesting to see how this new feature will be utilized, but I'm sure it will make the mobile AR experience more rich as developers start building upon it.

Imaging And Video

Picasa 3.5 brings face recognition and geotagging to your photos. This makes organizing photos that much better. All those family photos can now have more information than ever before. I can skip all those genealogy programs and have the names right in the images. The geotag feature is also handy for remembering where that mysterious image was taken.

Vitamin D launches object recognition for video. Talk about a breakthrough. This type of technology will be key to home and business surveillance as well as online video search. I look forward to testing the software this fall.

Mobile Web

Opera Mini 5 has officially replaced my original mobile web browser. Everything from the tabbed browsing and speed dial feature to the touchscreen support and virtual keypad have made me spoiled to the point of no return. The best part about Opera Mini 5 is the speed. It's like they threw a ton of magic in the development of this awesome mobile browser. Way to go Opera.

Rumor

Nokia set to buy Palm? Maybe, maybe not. Could change the mobile industry in ways I can't even begin to imagine.