I've just been reading the press release for the Samsun Vibrant, and T-Mobile says that the Vibrant has a six-axis sensor, which leads me to question, does this thing actually have a gyroscope? I've never heard anyone refer to a normal accelerometer as "six axis".
I believe that the six axis sensor is a gyroscope from a similar article that was posted for the VERIZON variant on phandroid tonight. Heres the link and if you read thru the article you will see where they kinda "confirm" that it is indeed a gyroscope.
phandroid.com/2010/06/27/verizon-wireless-announces-the-samsung-fascinate-another-galaxy-s-smartphone/
***EDIT***
Upon re-reading the article, IMO, its a toss up for me at the moment as to whether this is a true gyroscope, but im hopeful.
It does have a gyroscope.
The main difference between a gyro and an accelerometer is that a gyro can tell the difference between acceleration due to gravity and acceleration due to actual movement. It's a difference that sounds subtle until you try to implement something like an inverted pendulum (think: Segway or 2-wheeled balancing robot).
You can TRY to compensate by making use of background knowledge you have about the way the universe works (acceleration due to gravity is absolutely constant when the object is otherwise "motionless", whereas human-induced motion is never, ever going to be smooth or constant), but you're going to have zones of confusion where the algorithm just can't tell the difference between two different gestures.
A good analogy is the way multitouch works on the Nexus One and most other Android phones. By paying attention to the order in which the row-column virtual switches "close" and the way they change relative to each other, you can easily implement useful pinch-zoom. But try to implement virtual shiftkeys on a virtual keyboard with the keys rendered in their traditional positions, and your multitouch attempt will fail spectacularly when it can't reliably tell the difference between ctrl-w, ctrl-tab, alt-w, and alt-tab. Likewise, you can implement rough game control with accelerometers alone, but they'll work best in virtual tennis rackets, golf clubs, and bowling balls, where you have a hard swinging gesture through an arc followed by a sudden deceleration at the end that's easy to detect. Nintendo's choice of games for Wii Sports wasn't due to market research or coincidence... they picked the best use cases for using accelerometers alone as game controls.
Related
Heya all,
I have been looking at the iHologram app and it would be awesome to have one for the HTC...
http://adameatstilk.blogspot.com/2008/08/hologram-cat-on-iphone.html
Any Ideas?
hm...looks very nice and smooth, maybe just another fullscreen vid?
It is a fake - the designer only wanted to show a concept.
Heh, the designer did prove the idea that people think of Apple's devices as being allmighty and all powerful. Anyone wonder how the iPhone knows to whose direction this 'anamorphic perspective rendering' should be rendered? Or how it knows to render towards the videocamera instead of the cameramans eyes? How to do this with multiple people?
Somebody actually did this with the Wii, as you can use the remote control to 'localize' yourself.
It is not real!!! It is just an idea....
http://gizmodo.com/5041304/ihologram-3d-iphone-app-was-just-for-show-not-peek-into-alternate-world
to make this happen
you have to locate the sight of the user and only one user can experience the 3D effect. impossible to make it work on iphone or any ppc now (hardware limitation)
its funny but do not have that great value on the market
of course it´s a fake. how could the iphone detect moving itself around it´s own axis laying flat on the table? magical rotation sensor?
So I guess there could be a couple of problems:
- How do you tell the observer's perspective?
- Can the Diamond's g sensor tell when its rotated on a flat surface? (The lightsaber app doesn't seem to register much - but I will admit thats far from empirical testing )
Jamzb said:
So I guess there could be a couple of problems:
- How do you tell the observer's perspective?
- Can the Diamond's g sensor tell when its rotated on a flat surface? (The lightsaber app doesn't seem to register much - but I will admit thats far from empirical testing )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Maybe eye tracking using front camera?
using the wii VR demo, I experienced that the effect is reached best when the screen follows the head/eye movement instead of the other way around.
Jamzb said:
- Can the Diamond's g sensor tell when its rotated on a flat surface? (The lightsaber app doesn't seem to register much - but I will admit thats far from empirical testing )
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It would need a gyroscope. But i never imagine a cellphone whit a 3axis acc so just wait six months or so
soundonly said:
to make this happen
you have to locate the sight of the user and only one user can experience the 3D effect. impossible to make it work on iphone or any ppc now (hardware limitation)
its funny but do not have that great value on the market
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It is not a fake. It is not magic. And no you don't need superduper hardware. It is actually working on iPhone, it assumes a fixed position of the viewer, that's why it works only for one viewer (at the correct angle). Read here about it: http://www.davidoreilly.com/blog/2008/08/ihologram-update/
Holographic effect
You can have a nice holographic effect without a gyroscope...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugoq8M2XxVE
faethon said:
It is not a fake. It is not magic. And no you don't need superduper hardware. It is actually working on iPhone, it assumes a fixed position of the viewer, that's why it works only for one viewer (at the correct angle). Read here about it: http://www.davidoreilly.com/blog/2008/08/ihologram-update/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LOL - that link says this....
The iHologram app was not real. It was an illustration of an idea I had which I believe could work with the technology (combining anamorphosis and motion sensing). Unfortunately I’m just an ideas person, and I can show how things should look, but I’m no hardcore programmer.
I’d be happy to collaborate with a developer or studio who want’s to make it happen, I’m bursting with ideas for the interactive world, but right now all my attention is on filmmaking.
My aim with this was to tackle the problem of 3d viewing in an original way using current technology, not fool anyone… so for those who doubted but still supported it, respect. I hope it inspires some talented programmers out there.
gerDiamond said:
You can have a nice holographic effect without a gyroscope...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugoq8M2XxVE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks for the post, this is the way i assumed something like this could work.
In the 3d world, besides being on an axis, there are virtually unlimited points to perceive an object. This guys application simply assumes the user is watching from an axis perpendicular to the screen, which is how we as people usually look at any display.
This way, no matter how you tilt the phone, it can react accordingly to you looking down on it, with gravity below it.
gerDiamond said:
You can have a nice holographic effect without a gyroscope...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugoq8M2XxVE
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a nice ap!!!!
yeh that dice app looks nice
In the dice experiment, he shakes the phone, it isn't rotation. (I only say that for people who can think strange things xD)
I have seen the dice app on the iphone. It does look very very nice. I cant code but surely the Diamond can compete on ths level. ?
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=421806
Sorry but thats not even in the same league..
Conclusion: There IS Accelerometer, only they call it G-Sensor, thanks for all the feedback!
Dear fellows,
I was unpleasantly surprised to find that Touch HD does NOT have an accelerometer, rather only a G-Sensor. (Some more detail: Accelerometer is supposed to sense "acceleration," typically in all three dimensions x,y and z. With software support, orientation sensing can be done as one usage. G-Sensor is an inferior sensor that only gives information about orientation, no velocity/acceleration sensing). Although it can be argued that most typical uses are covered by G-Sensor (like screen orientation), but the key word is "most" Accelerometer is definitively more useful in gaming, and potentially other applications. I searched several other threads and found many people equating G-Sensor with accelerometer. I hope this thread can add some clarification.
To me it looks like another effort by HTC to cut on a few bucks. Anyway I still consider it as a minor setback to me in my overall enthusiasm for Touh HD Just missing one good argument to an iphone user (no iphone debate wars intended here )
Best regards.
waqarz said:
Dear fellows,
I was unpleasantly surprised to find that Touch HD does NOT have an accelerometer, rather only a G-Sensor. (Some more detail: Accelerometer is supposed to sense "acceleration," typically in all three dimensions x,y and z. With software support, orientation sensing can be done as one usage. G-Sensor is an inferior sensor that only gives information about orientation, no velocity/acceleration sensing). Although it can be argued that most typical uses are covered by G-Sensor (like screen orientation), but the key word is "most" Accelerometer is definitively more useful in gaming, and potentially other applications. I searched several other threads and found many people equating G-Sensor with accelerometer. I hope this thread can add some clarification.
To me it looks like another effort by HTC to cut on a few bucks. Anyway I still consider it as a minor setback to me in my overall enthusiasm for Touh HD Just missing one good argument to an iphone user (no iphone debate wars intended here )
Best regards.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
another victim fallen to the marketing gimmick of a "buzz word", accelerometer, despite its name doesn't necessary mean it must detect acceleration, iphone's accelerometer doesn't do that. none on the market do that. if in the future there's a similar device that can detect acceleration, then it may fall into the "accelerometer" category, or market people will create a new buzz word to highlight its features.
but g senor, motion sensor and accelerometer are the same thing as the market/technology stands now. i made the same mistake and was corrected as well:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=436592#7
buggybug0 said:
another victim fallen to the marketing gimmick of a "buzz word", accelerometer, despite its name doesn't necessary mean it must detect acceleration, iphone's accelerometer doesn't do that. none on the market do that. if in the future there's a similar device that can detect acceleration, then it may fall into the "accelerometer" category, or market people will create a new buzz word to highlight its features.
but g senor, motion sensor and accelerometer are the same thing as the market/technology stands now. i made the same mistake and was corrected as well:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=436592#7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks. Well if this is indeed true (that iphone and others also only have a G-Sensor) I dont think I can call it marketing gimik. It is plain dishonesty. An accelerometer is a well understood term, misusing it is... well!
But have you checked that for iphone. I will check that tomorrow with one colleague who has one. Wikipedia gives different info here, I quote:
"For example, Apple uses an LIS302DL accelerometer in the iPhone, iPod Touch and the 4th generation iPod Nano allowing the device to know when it is tilted on its side."
LIS302DL is indeed a full blown accelerometer, not just g-sensor! So lets recheck and compare our notes. Thanks for the feedback!
I think the proof is in the fact that you cant do anything with the Iphone's "accelerometer" that you cant also do with the HTC "g-sensor" If there was a fundamental difference in their capability it would have been exploited by now.
WILD9 said:
If there was a fundamental difference in their capability it would have been exploited by now.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.CarTrackApp.com/
fallenczar said:
http://www.CarTrackApp.com/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
And in response... [APP] gMeter for HTC Touch Diamond/Pro [Second release]
edit: damn beaten to it!
waqarz said:
Thanks. Well if this is indeed true (that iphone and others also only have a G-Sensor) I dont think I can call it marketing gimik. It is plain dishonesty. An accelerometer is a well understood term, misusing it is... well!
But have you checked that for iphone. I will check that tomorrow with one colleague who has one. Wikipedia gives different info here, I quote:
"For example, Apple uses an LIS302DL accelerometer in the iPhone, iPod Touch and the 4th generation iPod Nano allowing the device to know when it is tilted on its side."
LIS302DL is indeed a full blown accelerometer, not just g-sensor! So lets recheck and compare our notes. Thanks for the feedback!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
These two apps prove you wrong.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=431965
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=422662
Surur
surur said:
These two apps prove you wrong.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=431965
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=422662
Surur
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Wake up ppl, all these applications discussed above are using GPS signal in conjunction with G-sensing. So this discussion is not relevant to this topic!!
Doing some more digging here and the source code shows my first post is accurate. There IS a FULL LIS302DL accelerometer in iphone, and we are stuck with G-Sensor of HD.... means we cant "shake things around" literally.
waqarz said:
Wake up ppl, all these applications discussed above are using GPS signal in conjunction with G-sensing. So this discussion is not relevant to this topic!!
Doing some more digging here and the source code shows my first post is accurate. There IS a FULL LIS302DL accelerometer in iphone, and we are stuck with G-Sensor of HD.... means we cant "shake things around" literally.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
No they don't use GPS for Accel, it is impossible to measure short time Accell with GPS accuracy.
G-Sensor is just another Name for Accelerometer. Both Sensors (IPhone and HD) have nearly the same accuracy in there API, so if you look to the source of the IPhone you should also look at the Sensor-API of the HTC's ;_)).
So HD/Diamond/Raphael has not only a "Tilt-On/Off"-Sensor as you try to explain, it is indeed a "full"-Accelerometer. You could just install one of the mentioned Programs to prove that the indeed are measuring acceleration .
And if you are really interested you should look at: http://www.koushikdutta.com/2008/07/using-htc-touch-diamond-sensor-sdk-from.html
to learn how to program the Accelerometer.
BTW Gyroscope-Sensors are brand new, and no phone to date has one , the should be cheaper and more accurate as the today build in Sensors.
Rivendel is absolutely right. The applications wouldn't work without a proper accelerometer.
Originally, micromachined accelerometers would have been very expensive, but now there is so much demand for them that they can be bought for about a dollar in large quantity.
Rivendel said:
No they don't use GPS for Accel, it is impossible to measure short time Accell with GPS accuracy.
G-Sensor is just another Name for Accelerometer. Both Sensors (IPhone and HD) have nearly the same accuracy in there API, so if you look to the source of the IPhone you should also look at the Sensor-API of the HTC's ;_)).
So HD/Diamond/Raphael has not only a "Tilt-On/Off"-Sensor as you try to explain, it is indeed a "full"-Accelerometer. You could just install one of the mentioned Programs to prove that the indeed are measuring acceleration .
And if you are really interested you should look at: http://www.koushikdutta.com/2008/07/using-htc-touch-diamond-sensor-sdk-from.html
to learn how to program the Accelerometer.
BTW Gyroscope-Sensors are brand new, and no phone to date has one , the should be cheaper and more accurate as the today build in Sensors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK, yes I guess you are right too; Pocket GForce register lots of Gs just moving the device sideways without tilting it much, so some measurement of acceleration is there. Then may be, HTC ppl should upgrade and call it accelerometer!
waqarz said:
OK, yes I guess you are right too; Pocket GForce register lots of Gs just moving the device sideways without tilting it much, so some measurement of acceleration is there. Then may be, HTC ppl should upgrade and call it accelerometer!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well G-Sensor does allude to acceleration if you take name to mean a sensor which measures G-Force....
G sensors and accelerometers are exactly the same thing.the former is more of layman and commercial term while the later is the more appropriate technical term.what it does is measure acceleration as its name suggest.this device can be position in any axis(x,y,z).a complete system should consist of 3 accelerometers in exact tangent to each other in those 3 axis so that it can sense vertical,horizontal and lateral accelerations.since acceleration is measured in "meters/seconds squared"the value of acceleration when integrated once will give u distance and when integrated twice will give u time.this is the basis of any stand alone navigation or guidance systems but it must be coupled with a 3 axis gyroscopic system to give attitude information.in the phone,the accelerometers measure the gravity force which has an acceleration of approx 10 m/s squared.the resultant output will determine the phone's orientation
it has an acceltomater, with diamonds vr hologram, if you lay it on a flat surface, and push it artound, it wil stil move
Rivendel said:
BTW Gyroscope-Sensors are brand new, and no phone to date has one , the should be cheaper and more accurate as the today build in Sensors.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Some Nokia phones have had Gyroscope-Sensor for over year by now, it rotates the map in the navigating software real time when u spin around, its very handy when navigating by walking.
I think that's a digital compass in the Nokia phones. A lot of the recent ones don't have the compass though (N95, etc.)
I'm not really knowledgeable enough to actually dive down into the hardware and see exactly how multitouch inputs are registered, but after using a couple of multitouch enabled programs on my N1, namely Pong Multi Touch and Ethereal Dialpad (installing the NightSky multitouch-enabled dialpad), it seems as though the N1 registers multitouch inputs the same as (at least) the G1 and myTouch (I don't have access to any other multitouch-enabled Android devices to test).
That is, the screen is aware of 2 x and 2 y values, with snapping and both the x and y, and it's up to the OS to try to determine which x goes with which y.
In Pong Multi Touch, sometimes the paddles will switch fingers -- that is, the finger over the right paddle starts controlling the left paddle and vice versa -- when the paddles cross each other's line of sight.
In NightSky dialpad, you're actually given two blobs corresponding to your multitouch inputs, and like in the first multitouch demos by Luke Hutchinson on the G1, sometimes the points get confused and inhabit the opposite "corners" of where your fingers actually are.
It's possible that this is a software limitation and actually put into place for older Android devices whose screens operated this way, but I just really hate to think that in a world of true multitouch screens, the Nexus One might still be using that same flaws multitouch technology.
Does anyone have any experience with how say the Droid handles multitouch inputs? Does anyone have a better understanding of the Nexus One's touchscreen? I've searched this forum and Google, but I haven't really been able to wade through and pick something useful out.
Multitouch pinch to zoom is nice and all, but I mainly am looking forward to it in games to get the kind of experience the iPhone has been delivering with onscreen dpads and buttons. It's the kind of thing necessary to play Nesoid and others on the Nexus One.
There's a game in the market called ToonWarz Lite that tries to implement exactly that; the left side is a dpad and the right side is buttons and look direction. Problem is... it doesn't really work that well. It doesn't seem to track two fingers consistently, especially if the two touch points "cross" the same axis. The game looks pretty great, but control is still a mess in my opinion. I'm hoping it will/can improve.
Is this a limitation in hardware? SDK? Just bad design? Is it that clumsy on an iPhone too (I've never used one)? I know multitouch is supported, but I'm just concerned if there are still hardware limitations preventing it from working as well as I wish it would.
Android has supported multitouch for a long time. We're just now getting Google Apps w/ multitouch...that is all.
So to answer your question, the game's multitouch is poorly designed.
Deathwish238 said:
So to answer your question, the game's multitouch is poorly designed.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's reassuring. Especially because in those multitouch demo apps (like MultiTouch Visualizer) the same problem seems to be apparent. Pressing two points near the same axis just seems to kind of stick and not register correctly. And it doesn't seem to react instantly, there's a delay before it recognizes the second touch point.
Does anybody know of an app that demonstrates it better, without the problems I've mentioned above?
Otherwise I'll just sit tight and hope for better implementation one day
dudinatrix said:
That's reassuring. Especially because in those multitouch demo apps (like MultiTouch Visualizer) the same problem seems to be apparent. Pressing two points near the same axis just seems to kind of stick and not register correctly. And it doesn't seem to react instantly, there's a delay before it recognizes the second touch point.
Does anybody know of an app that demonstrates it better, without the problems I've mentioned above?
Otherwise I'll just sit tight and hope for better implementation one day
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The last time I looked at the source for MTV it was using the "old style" of MT where it would infer the locations of the two fingers based on the "size" of the primary touch. This was the closest you could get back on 1.6 which lacked the true MT APIs. Also, this method involved a heuristic to determine when there was more than one touch - I think the size had to go over a threshold before it would try to decode the multiple touches. All in all it looked a lot like voodoo to me and I wasn't surprised by how flaky the results were, especially when crossing axes.
In 2.0 they now report each touch independently with its own size and pressure. I was going to hack the MTV app to do true multi-touch, but I never got around to it. Did you find a version of it that is "True MT" or is it still the same old original version that was doing it the old way?
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/08/...brings-opengl-es-2-0-access-to-devs/#comments
Hopefully this will bring some great games and maybe have google allow us to install to SD card to fit more games.
woop woop!!! can't wait to see what comes out of this. wow android is growing at such a fast paced, around the time it took iphone 3 years to do. After seeing Exzeus arcade this only gets me more excited to see what they can squeeze out of my N1
Kutthoat5150 said:
woop woop!!! can't wait to see what comes out of this. wow android is growing at such a fast paced, around the time it took iphone 3 years to do. After seeing Exzeus arcade this only gets me more excited to see what they can squeeze out of my N1
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1. would love to show off what this device can really do.
If only HTC hadn't completely screwed all their multitouch sensors. That really takes all the fun out off this news.
PlanetJumble said:
If only HTC hadn't completely screwed all their multitouch sensors. That really takes all the fun out off this news.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
how screwed up are they really?
also would be nice to finally have some stuff that shows off what the nexus can do
malicious85 said:
how screwed up are they really?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Pretty much, at least for gaming. As being hinted out by Cyanogen, the issue with the switched axis can be resolved by a software filter. But still, when the two touches are close together on one axis (like, horizontally alligned but far distanced on the edges, as in most multitouch gaming controlls trying to emulate a gamepad) the two touches "snap together magnetically", resulting in semi random controlls.
The only workaround i could think off is placing the virtual directional buttons in the lower corner and the action buttons in the upper (or vice versa). That would make controlls awkward, but at least lets the multitouch sensors do their work.
Or just play it on a Motorola Droid/Milestone, because the Non-Superphone features proper sensors. :/
any word if bejeweled blitz will developed based on opengl? i would love to have blitz on my android. to me thats the only win win thing between my iphone friends. ahahah
OpenGL isn't the issue for games like Bejeweled, just that PopCap doesn't seem interested in the Android platform just yet.
Also, developers can store their assets on the SD card already if they feel the need (ExZeus for example)
Nice mention of Exzeus, which does fit the 63+Mb needed entirely on the SD.
Nice thought !
It's only a matter of time now to see much improved Android games.
Cheers !
PlanetJumble said:
Pretty much, at least for gaming. As being hinted out by Cyanogen, the issue with the switched axis can be resolved by a software filter. But still, when the two touches are close together on one axis (like, horizontally alligned but far distanced on the edges, as in most multitouch gaming controlls trying to emulate a gamepad) the two touches "snap together magnetically", resulting in semi random controlls.
The only workaround i could think off is placing the virtual directional buttons in the lower corner and the action buttons in the upper (or vice versa). That would make controlls awkward, but at least lets the multitouch sensors do their work.
Or just play it on a Motorola Droid/Milestone, because the Non-Superphone features proper sensors. :/
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
that sucks. I thought even though HTC was the one who assembled the device, Google still had the final say on what hardware to use on their flagship nexus one?
I hope Google deliver some Divx codecs soon too.
Its all getting a bit hard. May have to go back to my HD2 to watch movies