Pin Screens to the Walls

Is it the future of display to have information pinned on the wall.  Or floating in space?

Qualcomm’s new AR ‘Smart Viewer’ lets you pin virtual screens to your walls

Lenovo adopted the design for its ThinkReality glasses

By Adi Robertson@thedextriarchy  in TheVerge

Chip maker Qualcomm has introduced a new reference design for augmented reality glasses: an AR “smart viewer” you can tether to a phone or PC via USB-C. Called the XR1 Smart Viewer, the system is meant to be lightweight and look (sort of) like sunglasses, while also enabling features like hand tracking and spatial awareness. The first glasses based on its design are set for release in mid-2021. .. "

Lenovo Launches Smart Assistant

Yet another smart speaker plus idea, reported in Business Insider.  The dynamic of integrating the brain of Alexa into many devices is interesting.   I am worried that the architecture of Alexa will not be good enough to launch the levels of intelligence we will ultimately expect.   I would expect that development from Google.   Expected to be available in May:

" ... Lenovo just launched an Amazon Echo clone that also uses Alexa — but costs $50 less
The runaway success of the Amazon Echo has shown that people are willing to accept some device built around a digital assistant into their lives, and now the rest of tech world is scrambling to get a piece of the smart speaker pie.

Google last year rolled out the Google Home, while Apple is reportedly putting Siri in a forthcoming speaker of its own.

Chinese tech company Lenovo doesn’t have an AI system along the lines of Google Assistant or Amazon’s Alexa, but as a relatively prominent hardware maker, it wants in all the same. And so, Lenovo on Tuesday launched the Lenovo Smart Assistant, an Echo-like speaker in both form and function, at CES 2017 in Las Vegas.

Lenovo says it worked with Amazon for the Smart Assistant; as such, the device relies on Alexa for its smarts. Like the Echo, you simply yell out whatever questions or commands you want to Lenovo's speaker, and Alexa will tap into the same set of “Skills” to help where it can. ..... " 

List of personal assistants studied.

Project Tango Area Learning

Mentioned previously here for retail applications.

From Google I/O

Streaming at the link.  (My apologies I thought these would be recorded at the link, but apparently are not.  Only streamed at time indicated.  If anyone has a link to the recording, let me know and I will replace with a link here)  An intro has been placed at the link below for now.

Introducing Project Tango Area Learning
May 18, 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM / Stage 1 | Hercules  (PST) 

Motion tracking on a mobile device has already enabled a whole new range of experiences, but what would be possible if your Project Tango device could have a memory? With Area Learning, Project Tango can not only see the space around you, but it can also remember the space around you. This opens up a new range of possibilities for Project Tango developers - attach virtual objects to the world that remain in place even when you restart an app, design multiplayer experiences and know the exact location of each player, pause/resume AR/VR experiences, and eliminate motion tracking drift. We'll go over basic concepts of area learning and best practices for Project Tango developers. ..  ... " 

Announced that a Tango enabled phone will be announced by Lenovo  this year.
Tango devices will be made available next month. 
Further announcements to be made here on May 18 at 3 PM PST. 

Smartphone with Augmented Reality

A concept we played with for some time.   Is it a better wat to engage, to buy?  How does it change the very nature of advertising?   Overlaying marketing with your mobile reality.  We primarily studied it on venues like cart mounted displays.    In Adage: " .... Lenovo Unveils First Smartphone With Google's Tango Augmented Reality .... Google's Tango overlays info and objects onto phone displays ... Lenovo has unveiled a smartphone that can see and map out its surroundings with help from an Alphabet 3D-scanning technology. ... "     More about project Tango.

Google Goes Darpa

More on innovation strategies.

" ... The famously innovative search company has taken a page from the Pentagon’s radical ideas factory. Here’s what’s brewing in Silicon Valley’s coolest skunkworks.

Today Dugan is leading a cadre of big-idea special forces—called Advanced Technology and Projects group, or ATAP for short—on an even grander mission for parent Google, where the unit is slated to remain after the sale of Motorola to Lenovo is completed later this year. ... The challenge? Bringing to fruition a slew of next-generation mobile wonders—not in a generation’s time, mind you, but in a handful of years instead. And though the group is still in its early days, it appears on track to deliver some jaw-dropping technological leaps that would help cement the 51-year-old Dugan’s cachet in Silicon Valley and beyond. ....

So what’s the ATAP playbook? It starts with identifying a project that demands a quantum leap in both scientific understanding and engineering capability to pull off (more on that soon). Once that is done, Dugan works to assemble a core team of experts at Google. But that team quickly casts a much wider net, tapping what are often a huge number of outside collaborators from across a mix of disciplines in industry and academia. That allows ATAP, with a staff of just 75 full-time members, to be far smaller and scrappier than traditional research labs. ....  "

Tobii Prototype Eye Controlled Laptop

The well known eye-tracking company Tobii is a likely origin to this kind of innovation.   I would like to understand how stable the control of a laptop can be using eye tracking.  

Tobii unveils the world’s first eye-controlled laptop

Stockholm, Sweden, Hannover, Germany—March 1, 2011—Tobii Technology today unveiled the world’s first laptop with integrated eye control. The prototype laptop has been developed in collaboration with computer manufacturer Lenovo and will be shown publicly for the first time at CeBIT in Hannover, March 1-5.  Lenovo, the world’s fourth largest manufacturer of personal computers, has built the world’s first eye-controlled laptop, using eye tracking technology from Tobii. The laptop is a fully functional conceptual prototype and an important breakthrough for Tobii in its mission to bring its eye tracking technology to serial production and consumer products ....  "