Tag Archives: android

Giving Directions With a QR Code

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If you’ve come across QR Codes before (The square 2D barcodes designed for capture by smart phones) you’ll know they can hold a variety of information.

I recently wanted to offer a map location via a QR Code and handily, the Zebra Crossing Barcode Reader App for Android supports this via the geo: format.

The data format is as follows:

geo:[DecimalLatitude],[DecimalLongitude],[MetricAltitude]

The altitude element (and the comma preceding it) are optional and I’m not quite sure of their value unless some applications allow you to find a room in a tall building this way.

So, if I wanted to give you directions to Paris, France with no altitude information, I would use the following co-ordinates:

Lat: 48.856614 Lon: 2.352222

I need to pass these to a QR Code generator, I use qrencode for Linux which allows you generate QR Codes from the command line.

The following command produces a png image called paris.png of a QR Code which contains the co-ordinates for Paris.

qrencode -o paris.png geo:48.856614,2.352222

 Which produces this QR Code image:

 

 

 

 

When Scanned using the Android Barcode App (The common ZXing one), it offers two immediate options. You can “Show Map” which fires up Google Maps and shows the location or you can “Get Directions”. Depending on the Apps installed, “Get Directions” may offer the choice of getting directions either by Google Maps or via the web browser.

Obviously, this is only an example of how it works for Android users. The geo: tag may work for other handset types, barcode reader apps and operating systems but I have not tested this.

I would be interested to hear from anyone who has tried this using iOS etc.

 

Mobile Browsing on the rise

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I’ve been noticing in the browsing statistics of various websites with which I am involved that mobile devices (think smartphones) are quite recently becoming very much more noticable.

On one ecommerce site, in a week, I saw nearly ten percent of purchases made using Apple Iphones where last year I would have seen none. The site in question retailed products which were in no way I.T. or telecoms related so this came as quite a surprise. Further, this site was not specifically designed to work with mobile browsers although it did have some design features implemented to make browsing on small-screen devices easier. I’ve also spotted numerous visits from Blackberry and Android OS devices across a broad range of sites.

So, are mobile browsers going to take over the internets?

Probably not but they’re certainly going to be a significant presence. In the West, mobile browsing devices now account for as much as 7% of traffic and the rate is growing quickly. I expect that in the near future there will be a significant push by web developers to provide mobile-native versions of their websites due to this expansion.

New Japanese Linux Android HRP-4C

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I’ve found the Japanese to have a somewhat worrying obsession with robots; everything from the 4-foot tall Asimo types to the 50-foot high flying types.

They also make some rather impressive bipedal robots which can be seen in videos all over the internet accomplishing impressive feats such as running and tackling stairs. They do, however, seem to have a slightly odd gait which looks as if it was borrowed from a ‘dog-walker’ as the feet and knees preceed the robot noticably as it moves. Apart from Hubo, there have been few attempts at turning the ‘robot’ into an ‘android’

Now, researchers at AIST (National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology) have produced a biped Android (or more correctly a Gynoid) known as HRP-4C.

The robot has the broadly realistic human proportions correspondent to a Japanese woman and also comparable weight. The simulation of human likeness only extends to the face which has some level of animation and the hands which I am yet to see change pose during a demonstration. The rest of the body appears as if in a fitted suit of armour.

Apparently she Linux in the form of an AIST developed platform known as ‘Actual Time Linux’ (ART-Linux2.6).  Although difficult to decipher from the translated text, it appears that much of HRP-4C’s development revolves around and contributes to open projects.

The walking gait is rather more natural in appearance than an Asimo unit but could still do with more damping as there is an obvious jarring in the step. Thus far I have only seen the gynoid perform basic walking and a short bow. On examination of a translation of the japanese information page, it seem that the unit is designed for entertainment or fashion modeling. An odd choice of target market to my mind but the size/weight constraints probably prohibit any industrial uses.

The HRP-4C stands about 1.6m tall and weighs approx 50kg.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brD5D0ytD04[/youtube]

If they could increase the abilities of an android of this scale, I reckon it could play a critical role in caring for Japan’s ageing population. I’ll be really impressed but don’t doubt that I will soon see a biped android powerful enough to lift a human safely.

In the mean time, I’m saving up for my RX-78NT1 Gundam 😉