What is AR?

Once more into the breach!

AR and VR definitions:

AR or Augmented Reality means that over an image of what is real, additional information is added. The “reality” of Reality isn’t changed. You simply add or augment the view you see. This could be as simple as the ARRIM product, allowing you to lay a laser measure tool in an existing image or as complex as the game Pokémon Go. You can use a QR or image code to store and share the additional information.  The thing to remember about AR is that your view, of the real object, doesn’t change. For example, I’ve talked many times about the wonderful company AstroReality. The cover picture shared today is of their Earth Product. Using AR, you point at the globe with your phone (running their application). You see Earth, well a model of earth. We could argue the extensional reality that would allow the earth to be contained by my office. But that is another argument for another day. Today, we are looking at a physical model of planet earth.

With AR and the application, we get additional information. What is AR how that information is presented and stored?  In using the AstroReality application, you never stop seeing the Physical globe in the picture. You remain connected with the “real world” but are now provide additional information that augments your knowledge. AR. Another example of AR is the reality of HUD. What is HUD? Well if you live in the US, it has two distinct meanings. The first is the Housing and Urban Development Government Agency. We are not speaking of that HUD. The HUD we are speaking of is the Heads Up Display or HUD. Placed in front of the driver of a car, it allows you to see through it. But it can also, the HUD, provide you with more information about the car, trip and the world around you. It augments what you see with additional information. That is AR.

I think Schools, Museums, and Cities will be the first to implement AR systems. Why, well it is a critical part of education to show more. They have AR tags that allow students to learn when they are ready will improve education. The adage when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, truly is well implemented with AR systems.

Museums can have interactive displays or informational displays that may cost money to produce initially but over the life of the exhibit, save them considerable money.

Cities can build information kiosks that allow citizens to figure out where they are, what they are looking at, and where to get lunch where they are!!

When you look out your window, that is a reality, when you use your phone to identify the flower in your neighbor’s yard from a picture that is using AR and getting and delivering information about the world around you. AR starts with real. Stays with real and adds additional information to the real.

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my review of ARRIM digital measuring tool…

One of the products I have been using a lot is the ARRIM device. It is an Augmented Reality measuring device. The easy answer to why is I am trying to clean my office. Augmented Reality, as you can see in the picture shared with this review, allows you to look through the camera of the phone. Then, you can use their adapter to create measurements of space. I didn’t measure my office yet but did measure my basement sitting room. I have speakers (record player, I know really old tech) and a comfortable couch to relax there. I measured because I wanted to see if I could move the heavy table from the other room, into space.

With ARRIM, I was able to measure (and find out I couldn’t move the heavy table). The software is straight forward. They have a USB Micro, USB-C and a Lightning connector. That means you can attach the device to any phone. It flips the screen horizontally and allows you to pick the area or part of the room you wish to measure. It uses the laser in their attachment, to measure. So you are getting a true laser measurement of space.  It, the AR measuring tool, uses that laser, so it worked indoors or outdoors. Although I will caution you of two things. In really bright sunlight it takes a little bit of adjustment for the human, the laser works either way.

Simple process – attach the ARRIM system. Launch the software. Point the camera of your device towards what you want to measure. Line, a square or whatever, They also have pre-built templates in the software!

Oh yeah and if you measure something with Dylan around, he would pounce on the laser!

• Review question 1:

• Would you carry this in your bag? Yes, I do!

• Review question 2

• Is the software easy to use? Since it just a laser and your phone’s camera it is point and shoots!

Overall I give ARRIM a 10 out of 10

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Extended life batteries

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZLjdUqPKrc

The link is to my Yesterday’s Weather time-lapse weather video feed.One of the things I carry with me in my bag is an extended life battery. I have three in my bag currently. One is small (easily fits in a shirt pocket during meetings) the other is a little bigger, but it is also solar powered. That means I can change it, and my phone while I am outside.  Over the years I’ve tried several extended batteries, I’ve settled on the two I have. Based on that, I thought I would share my long used system for picking batteries. Please, note, not everyone needs an extended life battery.

1. Does the extended lie battery get hot? Hot means it ultimately can’t be in a pocket!

2. Can it change more than one thing at a time?

3. Will, it changes my phone to 100% at least once.

It is a simple system, but it has worked for me. There were many trips to Southeast Asia not having the battery would have been, well bad! I had to arrive with a fairly full phone battery to make sure I had car service, taxi, or ride into the city. Then I needed my pheon so I could download my email and get caught up. Twenty-four hours in a place or 28 hours in an airport makes you disconnected!

The growing potential of wireless charging will reduce the need for batteries over time.

**public service notice**Be wary of “free charging” and “Free internet” services. Make sure you know who put the station where it is. Often that is a trap!

**end PSA ***

To those who served in the armed services of the world, thank you for your service.

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Tech A Drift Column

My wife bought me a new truck today. Just to be clear, it is a hot wheel. Hot Wheels are the tiny model cars we used to give the twins.

Funny.

There are several things I’ve been looking at recently, and I have some reviews coming. I am so far behind on reviews; it gets a little frustrating at times. One of the things I am going to focus on going forward is the reality of voice embedded devices. A good friend of mine emailed me a meme yesterday that made me think about delving more into the topic (it was a picture of a voice activated door that opened when you said “open sesame.”) It made me laugh. Then I started thinking of a bunch of crazy uses of embedded technology like a voice assistant button on an overcoat. “Hi, you don’t need me today, it is currently 75 degrees, and today’s high is 86, so put me back in the nice dark closet and walk away”! Button what’s the weather today? That sadly started me down a path of crazy additional stuff. Can you imagine a fork that was also a voice assistant? “That’s enough cake for you!” There was a smart fork that brand when you were eating too fast.

The other things that I have been bouncing around lately aren’t as much fun.  I won’t bore you with those.

I also have a couple of follow up reviews coming. Sometimes it seems like I keep falling behind (I am) and I am never going to catch up (I haven’t yet). It is interesting because I used to review things that were bag worthy (had to be in my bag that went with me to other locations) versus things that were more permanent (office based). I got away from those types of reviews a few years ago. I am thinking about going back to that.

The poll is around those questions trying to see if I should go back!Have a wonderful weekend!

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a rag tag community of writers!

When I was a freshman in High School, I was friends with a person that other people thought was strange. He and I had been friends in Middle School, and I stayed friends with him in High School. After high school, we lost touch. He went off to a college out of state, I drifted off to college, and we stopped talking. In fairness, this is in the days before Facebook, before email and cellular phones. I ran into his mother at the store a couple of years after high school. She looked sad. I asked her why she was sad. She informed me that my friend had killed himself in his dorm room. I know he was bullied all through school. I also know that when I was around, the bullies left him alone.

I am not physically scary, just that the bullies knew I would stand up and say what you do and say matters. I am standing up now. I should have stood up before. I will not tolerate nasty negative comments on my posts. If you wish to disagree with me, that is perfectly fine. Please feel free to do so unless you break the first rule. If you post nasty comments on my posts, once I will accept any apology offered. If you do it twice, I will no longer interact with you. There is no place here on Virily for bullies. There is no justification for attacking people. Ideas can be attacked. People should never be attacked. Going forward, I am going to consider what the options are for dealing with users that post attacking comments on the posts of people I consider to be my community.

Another rule that is really critical. If you carry nasty comments to another platform beyond Virily that is actually quite mean.

People post on Virily because it is a safe haven. Let’s work hard to keep it that way.

My grandfather always taught me two lessons. The first is to be aware of your impact. The second is family comes first. I consider the Virily Community to be my family. Sure we have the crazy Uncle and the strange neighbors. We have an occasional issue, but we are a powerful community. One that I believe in. Virily has paid us for more than two years now. That is a year longer than Niume did. That is longer than many sites. While they stopped paying for a while, that only surpassed by MyLot and some of the other more established sites that I know of. Please note, that is wholly my opinion, I haven’t checked all the writing sites to know for sure.

We are strong if we are together!

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my love of science…

When I was a kid, I used to go to my dad’s office. It was a magical place, filled with all sorts of cool things to investigate. My love of astronomy comes from going to my dad’s office as a child. My love of science and the discovery model is more related to my father than any visit to his office. I still have several scientific instruments that I use all the time. Close up cameras for coins. You have to see the coin face to know if it has been damaged or cleaned. I have a Microscope that I use from time to time to examine motherboards. I am more likely to use the close-up camera for that, but sometimes I need to see an even larger presentation of something small.

The other side of small is big. It is funny, computers and cellphones got smaller, but monitors continue to get larger. The other side of monitors is the growing reality of projectors.  I watch the projector market, honestly because of the changes and the amazing new capabilities. I have been using the Capsule Projector from Anker for more than a year now. It is in its second release (Capsule II) and honestly continues to get better and better. It is using Android TV, which, as long as your project has Wifi connectivity, means you can watch anything on your device, without using your Cell Phone. That is one of the things that I suspect I am in front of compared to most people.

The concept of burning phone battery is something I remember from the early days of the smartphone. The reality of what you can do with your phone means more and more of your battery will be used. Having a portable projector allows you to use your phone while watching the movie. It saves your battery and also doesn’t force your phone to do a lot of processing.

As people move away from traditional “corded” devices (cable tv, home telephone), there will be more an more drain on your phone’s battery. The future will be a quick plug charger or wireless charging to keep you near 100%.

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was that Alexa talking in my button?

I saw a great article from the New York Times on the changes coming in technology over the near term. One of the things that were noted was the rising reality of embedded. Embedded can mean a couple of different things. The first is it represents the operating system that is “small” and embedded into either the actual chips or a small device. The other part of embedded is taking functionality from one technology and embedding it in another. Many years ago, Ford and Microsoft created a voice-enabled system for Ford Cars. Now, I won’t say that was a game changer, rather that was more of a new paradigm. Now you can get Siri in your car (Carplay) and Alexa in your car.

The expansion of technologies in your car brings up a very interesting situation. First, voice control doesn’t work that well. It is reasonable, but not her effective. My wife has a Toyota Rav4, and honestly, the voice control in her car is horrible. By horrible I mean we tried to enter an address using the voice control system six times. It failed all 6. We ended up using y wife’s phone to arrive. The difference between the car GPS and my wife’s GPS is about 40 seconds. As in the GPS starts reminding you to turn about 30 seconds before you get to the intersection. (right turn ahead in 200 feet). <y wife, normally says either “turn now” as we are halfway through the intersection or, you should have turned two blocks back.

Cars are not ideal environments for voice control. I also use speakers in my office, where the noise is controlled, and the voice control system works well. The evolution of embedded voice systems in other solutions is interesting. Part over time of the value of a voice-activated the system, in theory, is the reality of Artificial Intelligence. Where the voice-activated device can learn your preferences. Now, if you think about that, the risk there is you lose privacy. It has been noted that Amazon may have people listening to Alexa conversations to learn use patterns. That is sad and invasion of privacy. I suspect the same is true for Siri and Alexa, Bixby, Cortana and Google Home as well. Listening to better help you also take a little bit of your privacy with it.

Embedded voice systems can be a risk.

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