At first glance, this tech news report seems to be telling us of an intriguing augmented reality app that’s scary good. When you point your camera at an object, it can automatically read your mind about what you’ll want to do next on the internet with respect to that object, like get a coupon for it or research about it on Wikipedia. Which would bring to mind various questions, such as, is it like auto-fill/auto-complete, remembering what you or others have done before, taken a few steps further? Is it selectively taking you to a website that’s ultimately aiming to get your money? Is it inviting you to give up your free will and just be satisfied with the website it saw fit to jump you to? How does it know what you want to do? The news piece seems to show some unfortunate chance encounter between a reporter and engineer who both have no idea how incoherent they sound:
Unlike the technology that reads QR codes, this technology detects changes invisible to the naked eye!
[To the engineer] “What do you mean by ‘changes invisible to the naked eye’?”
“There are little lights, invisible to the naked human eye, embedded throughout the screen. By increasing or decreasing the number of these lights, the brightness of the screen changes.”
(A full transcript can be seen further below.)
The official Fujitsu press event is featured in a separate Youtube clip, with some more crucial information provided. On the positive side of things, it turns out this piece of tech isn’t quite that occult or mysterious. They explicitly state that the goal of this new transmission method is to help businesses and advertisers reach their customers, such as through TV commercials and display screens (i.e., digital signage) in stores. Consumers would of course need their mobile device to have the app to read this new type of code. It seems to be based on the idea of QR codes, those square-shaped versions of barcodes that many of us are used to aiming our phones at to take us to the mobile version of websites. Instead of having a small square in the corner of the screen, this new method distributes some kind of embedded code throughout the display, unobtrusively and only detectable by a smartphone camera, hence “invisible to the naked eye”. Far from mindreading what site you want to visit, you get jumped to whatever is written in the code, whether it be a coupon or the business’s website. Kind of a letdown…
At first glance, this TV screen is displaying a normal image, but when I hold this smartphone up to the screen…
I get a coupon!
Today we’re featuring a smartphone technology designed by Fujitsu that can read video images. Unlike the technology that reads QR codes, this technology detects changes invisible to the naked eye!
“What do you mean by ‘changes invisible to the naked eye’?”
“There are little lights, invisible to the naked human eye, embedded throughout the screen. By increasing or decreasing the number of these lights, the brightness of the screen changes.”
Smartphone and mobile phone cameras can detect and distinguish finer details and changes than the human eye.
By embedding special information in video images, and reading those images with a smartphone camera, we can be taken to websites, for instance.
“This is a video taken of me a few minutes ago. Let’s see if this smartphone can indeed pick up anything special. Ah, it jumped right away – it took me to the website of this TV program.”
This technology works from up to several meters away, so there’s no need to get very close to a display.
“Our plan is to release this as a product in 2013, so we are currently resolving the various glitches. We would like to be able to use this technology to provide solutions for digital signage and broadcasters.”
Related Stories
- Forget Filthy Fingers, Soon Your Smartphone Can Check Your Pulse Just by Looking at You
- It Really Works! Turn Your iPhone Into a Microscope With Just a Drop of Water!
- New Touch Panel Technology Provides Intelligent Feedback, “Like pushing real buttons!”
- In the Future Your Own Hand Will be Your Smartphone (With the Help of 5,000 Pounds of Terrifying Machinery)
- New “Privacy Glasses” protect your identity and your image
Origin: Mindreading App (Shut Up and Take More Of My Free Will Away)?
Copyright© RocketNews24 / SOCIO CORPORATION. All rights reserved.
