All serious Pocket PC gamers know Orions: Legend of Wizards, by far the BEST Turn-based strategy game for the platform, of which I’ve published a Strategy Guide HERE. The homepage of the game is HERE. Unfortunately, there's (still?) no trial version; hopefully, this will be fixed now. However, I think you'll be absolutely pleased with the upgrade, even if you can't play the trial: for $9.95, it's quite a bargain. That is, just go and purchase the update - you won't regret it.
The developers have announced the forthcoming expansion pack, Orions: The Second Age, in late July. Since then, I’ve been waiting it really with anticipation pretty much comparable to waiting for Starcraft’s expansion set, Starcraft: Brood War. Thanks to the developers, I’ve received a Release Candidate version of the expansion pack. And, yes, I LOVE it. It’s REALLY good. (Note that the reviewed version is exactly the same as the final one.)
First, let’s see what has been introduced (The Good), what is (still) missing (The Bad), what has been changed and, finally, I give you some very useful tips and tricks. All this with TONS of screenshots.
The good
A LOT of (THIRTY!) new cards, most of them having GREAT spells (abilities), further increasing the game experience. Now, the game is really like playing chess or a similar board game!
The Campaign mode has been greatly enhanced; for example, the feature requests of Doug Goldring and Ben Stanley have (almost) all been implemented. For example, now, you receive bonuses in your chosen element; you can quickly teleport between words and you can buy any card on “card black markets” any time. (Screenshots of the latter in all stages of pre-building, building and using: 1 2 3 4)
The Dual mode (the one that I play the most) has been enhanced a lot, mostly as a response to my feature requests / complaints. For example, now, you can select between a smaller (4 cards) and a larger (6 cards with spells enabled and 5 without) desk, whether the deck should be uniform or not (in size; non-uniform decks vary in size - some elements can have even 7-8 cards, while others only 3-4) etc. I'll elaborate on these questions later.
There are some welcome game balance improvements; most importantly, Life / Chimera has been made much more expensive and a bit weaker and Life / Cerberus a bit more usable.
The bad
Unlike with, say, the Starcraft: Brood War update, there isn’t new music. Not that it’d be missing – the in-game music is REALLY great (and, if you don’t like it, you can just change it to anything else if it’s a .MOD tracked module file).
The game isn’t compatible with MS Smartphones (WM Standard devices - that is, devices without a touch screen). It wouldn’t be very hard for the developer to create at least a QVGA (no real need for 176*220 conversions any more, I think, as those low-end models are quickly phased out, except for some current models like HP's new iPAQ 514 Voice Messenger) Smartphone-compliant version as the game could be easily played with the D-pad / the Action button and/or the dialpad.
No hi-res (W)VGA support (it'd be GREAT to see the hand-drawn artwork of cards in their full glory on VGA devices - even without the (absolutely gorgeous) particle effects & other animations!)
There's no option of decks bigger than 6 (without spells, 5) cards. I'd certainly welcome even bigger decks - even ones that have ALL the cards.
TCP/IP multiplayer still only supports direct IP connections and there's still no central server (Game Lounge)-based solution like that of battle.net in Blizzard's games. This also means you won't be able to play if both of the would-be players are NAT'ed / behind a firewall.
Unfortunately, there's no LAN broadcast discovery either in order to quickly find your opponent either - that is, without having to look up her or his IP address and entering it directly. Fortunately, the title, once you enter the IP address, will remember it next time you start multiplayer mode; this is definitely good news as, in general, Bluetooth PAN and Wi-Fi peer-to-peer IP addresses don't change if you the same Pocket PC's participate in the local peer-to-peer net.
I REALLY hope the developer WILL (also - keeping direct TCP connections are also important to make it possible to play over Internet connectionless LAN's) introduce a game lounge so that you'll be able to
1, find other opponents to play if, for example, your friends aren't available to play against - just like on most other multiplayer gaming lounges like Battle.net
2, you try to play a remote friend but both of you are firewalled / NAT'ed and, therefore, no direct connection can be built up in either direction.
I also hope he'll add in-game chatting.
(See the Multiplayer Bible for more info on all these questions - why for example in-game chatting can be useful, what LAN broadcast discovery means etc.)
There are some (minor) bugs: for example, Earth / Giant Spider's Spider Web (another pretty useful spell to make a given enemy card unable to attack in the next turn) costs, in reality, three Earth elements - as opposed to what (two) the help page suggests. Also, Water / Leviathan, as opposed to what the card description states, can cast Curing (the price / performance ration-wise, best owner HP increasing ability of all) any time - even when the number of your Water elements is only 1 (which is less than 6). This will work even with Water = 0 because of an internal bug. That is, if you DO have Water / Leviathan, make sure you increase the HP of your owner every time you can do so - against, this is the cheapest way to do so. And, don't forget you can do this even when you otherwise have no Water at all. You can easily make use of this bug if you have at two Leviathans on the board and use both to heal your owner every turn: if your Water is continuously staying at 1, you can gain 8 health for a mere one Water element. (Or, even more, if you have even more Leviathans.)
There's no option of giving the SAME cards to both players in Dual mode. This, while certainly makes duels much more boring (not knowing at first what cards the enemy has adds a lot to the game - for example, if you go for, for example, mass-low level cards and it's only later that you're faced with an Earth / Quicksands spell, your (initial) strategy may turn out to be fatal), may be required by some: mostly people that want to avoid losing just because they were unlucky to get some worse cards, while their opponent got better ones – I know well enough from my (Star)Crafter past that even the slightest game balance nuances like this can result in a LOT of difference in a game between two very good players
(Balance) changes to old cards
Compared to the last, 1.02 version, there are some minor changes to old cards as well to improve the game balance (not to give an unfair advantage to a player that has the luck to possess a given card, while the other doesn’t).
Life / Chimera is no longer Level 11, but Level 13 and has the strength of 10 instead of 11. That is, it’s no longer one of the best cards – in previous versions, it was probably the best card (unless the enemy had the cheap Earth / Forest Spirit to absorb his damage while taking out the card with spells; most importantly, the, against Chimera, most useful / cheapest Water / Sea Justice), particularly if you often used on powerful spells like Fire / Fireball because of Chimera's halving their price.
The level of Death / Grim Reaper has been decreased from 12 to 11. This is also welcome as this card is definitely inferior to, say, Life / Chimera.
Life / Magic healer has slightly increased HP (12 instead of 10) and the same stands for Fire / Cerberus (8 instead of 6). Now, the latter is REALLY usable, particularly when backed up with a Fire / Diablo to continuously restore its health / increase its attack. Then, it really becomes a killer because of the damage done to three cards at the same time and a HP that most other cards can't match in one step to finally get rid of the card.
Note that, in my opinion, Earth / Satyr is, far too cheap for what it offers and its level, 2 (health: 10, attack / strength: 3), makes the game a bit unbalanced, particularly when you compare its level, health, strength and negative side effects to other low-level cards also used to quickly increase a given element. These cards are as follows: Fire / Demon (lvl 5 / HP 12 / strength 2, and it decreases Earth!), Water / Nixie (4 / 10 / 3 with an additional Fire -> Water conversion ability), Air / Nymph (3 / 12 / 1), Life / Priest (4 / 9 / 1, and it also decreases Death!), Life / Apostate (5 / 14 / 4, but quickly empties Life, having a pretty bad Life -> Death conversation ratio), Death / Ghost (3 / 13 / 3, but it decreases owner's life by 5 for every Death increase!) etc.
As can clearly be seen, no other element has the same cheap and powerful "quick increase" card, only Earth. Hope the developers consider raising the level of this card to, say, 4.
New settings
The settings have changed a lot: it received a completely new, second page (which can be flipped with the “Next page” icon):
It’s here that you can, for example, enable “Extended deck” so that each element has six (without spells, five) cards (instead of four).
Also, it’s in here (with "No spells") that you can disable spells. If you find some of the spells too strong and making an adverse impact on the balance of the game (for example, a player having really good destruction / kill spells like Fire / Fireball has a definite advantage over a player that doesn't), you'll want to check in this checkbox. It' greatly contribute to additional game balance.
Note that, should you disable spells, the value / usability of Air / Astral Cloud, Life / Unicorn and Life / Chimera decreases. For example, then, you will only want to use Air / Astral Cloud to negate the, by default, 2 damage of Life / Ethereal because Air / Astral Cloud decreases the impact of direct attack done to it by 2. (Alternatively, you can use the Air / Gargoyle with the (pretty expensive) Petrification ability, which, essentially, does the same and, therefore, adds full protection against Life / Ethereal.)
Without spells, of course, the game MAY become a bit less interesting – as with decent Real-Time Strategies like Starcraft, spells add tio the game experience. Of course, this option doesn't disable card spelling abilities - that is, disabling spells doesn't mean something like taking, for example, away all the very good spells (EMP, Plague etc.) in Starcarft - just the opposite, it may help in balancing the game.
Also, you can instruct the game ("More elements at start") to give you more elements at start (generally, up to 8) so that you don't need to start with low-level cards, but can go straight for stronger ones.
Finally, with "Random first move", you can instruct the game to select the first player to move in random - no longer will you always be the first to cast a card first (or to skip your turn, if there's no decent card to be placed).
All in all, as can be seen some (but, unfortunately, not all) of my previous, particularly dual / multiplayer-related remarks / recommendations have been implemented.
sweet i liked this game
Some tips, also showing (some of) the new cards & spells
(Note that this section is in NO way a full list of all the thirty new cards. I’ll update the official Strategy Guide after having played the expansion some weeks so that the new information I tell you can be as accurate as possible.)
If you can, get at least two (or even more – make extensive use of Fire / Daemon or Fire / Firelord, when available, to quickly bump up your fire elements) Fire / Diablos on the deck. They will be able to strengthen each other very easily. In the following screenshot, I’ve brought five of them to the deck and used their “Diabolic Path” spell to strengthen / heal them in a round-robin fashion:
For example, I’ve cast this spell six times on the third Diablo (just over Grim Reaper); this is why it has the strength of 18 (instead of the default 6) and still pretty high HP.
(Note that I’ve cheated a bit in order to make this screenshot: I’ve edited the “LEVEL” attribute in cards/diablo.inf so that it has the level 1 in order to be able to quickly take a screenshot).
If you don't have the necessary Fire elements to go for mass-Diablos, you may still want to use this ability with any other Fire creature. I recommend the now-healthier Cerberus to be concurrently used with the spell - you can quickly (in 4-5 turns) make it a REALLY powerful, deadly card because of its attacking three opposing cards at the same time.
If you plan to / can (for example, the enemy doesn’t have spells like Life / Gods Wrath or cards like Life / Paladin with both its quick Exorcizm spell and tripled damage to Undead (Death) cards to quickly get rid of your low-level Undeads if you use the abilities I’ll explain now to summon / create them) go the mass-Undead way.
One way to do this is Death / Black Mage’s “Extract Soul” spell to quickly transfer a non-Undead creature to a Death / Ghost with 15 health. This is, incidentally, a very commonly used strategy of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) of the game. Sometimes, I find, it's overdoing this because it transfers newly-placed, weaker cards (for example, Air / Nymph) to Ghosts even if it could still use the abilities of these cards for some 2-3 rounds at least.
Alternatively, with Death / Necromancer, using its “Dark summon” spell, you can populate the slots with Death / Zombies. This is a lot cheaper (costs only 2 Death elements as opposed to their original, 4 price) than summoning it from your cards (if they're available at all).
If you, in any way (for example, by using the above-explained abilities to summon / transfer cards or just go the traditional way), you can use the, with several Death cards in play, VERY useful and cheap Death / Undead Swarm spell to instruct your undeads to hit their targets twice in the same turn. Again, it's a very useful spell if you go mass-Undead!
Of course, going mass-Undead can be pretty risky if the enemy has spells like Life / Gods Wrath and, if you "only" use (low-level) Death / Zombies and/or Death / Ghosts, Earth / Quicksands. However, changing your cards to (pretty healthy) Ghosts can be a good idea when they, otherwise, would be killed in the next round OR they're very weak and you don't need their abilities any more. Just remember that all attacks on Ghosts will also do some damage to yourself - use them with care (for example, together with Water / Ice Guard to decrease the damage done to the owner by 50%)!
Earth / Python is also VERY-VERY useful, both its default, always-effective ability to quickly decrease the attack strength of the opposite card and its "Suffocate" ability, with which you can quickly kill any enemy card with health less than 6. This, as with Fire / Diablo's, as has already been seen, also VERY good Diabolic Path, doesn't require any elements to use. This card should be one of your most often used cards - particularly if your opponent makes extensive use of Earth / Forest Spirit (original HP: 3; that is, less than 6). You can get rid of the latter cards at once with Python.
Water / Scylla is useful, particularly if you play the AI and it extensively uses this card. Because of a bug? in the AI, it'll continuously be healing itself (even if you only damage it for, say, 2, in a turn, it will quickly re-heal itself for 5), which means it will very quickly increase your Water elements. In these cases, what I recommend is letting the card on the board (don't kill it quickly) so that you constantly receive a LOT of Water elements because the constant re-healing. Just put a card not taking (much) damage from the card in the opposing slot: Water / Ice Wizard (because it only takes 1 damage from Water creatures), Earth / Forest Spirit or the new Life / Etherial.
Water / Kraken is very-very useful – it delivers damage in the following way. If the card opposing it has empty slot on neither on the left nor on the right side, it’ll deliver 10 extra damage to the creature (that is, it'll receive 17 damage by default). If the opposing card has an empty slot on its right, it’ll be immediately be shifted in there (after having been hit by your card) and, therefore, if you have a card in the opposing slot (that is, on the right of your Kraken), it'll also attack the card (instead of the enemy owner) in the same round.
Water / Tython can be a good alternative to other means of healing your cards, particularly if you need a healing up to 15 HP's. Note that you MUST have at least one free slot on the board for this to work - as opposed to most alternative mass-healing means, which aren't card abilities but spells themselves.
The card itself costs 7 Water elements and the Disperse ability (which does the healing) costs another 2. That is, you can have at most four of your cards to be healed for 9 Water elements, which is quite a bargain if you take the price / performance ratio of other healing spells (Earth / Revie, Earth / Restructure (price: 6, +3 HP and 6 healing) or the new Life / Cure Wounds (price: 6; heals up to 6 HP's but not severely damaged cards, which receive no HP at all) and Life / Eternal Light (price: 8 Life + losing 3 Death elements; healing: 5 + causing 5 damage to enemy undead cards) into account. Of course, if you have all your slots filled (no place for an additional Tython) and/or don't need that much HP's and/or you have a Life / Chimera on the board (which, as is well known, halves the price of all spells), you may still want to prefer the latter spells.
Still speaking of healing, Life / Knight can also prove useful - it automatically heals the weakest card by two each turn. (Incidentally, sometimes it has chosen another card to heal so I'm not really sure the algorithm selecting the card to heal is correct or well thought-out.)
Also, if your opponent goes (mass-)Undead and frequently uses Death card abilities (for example, Death / Black Mage’s Extract Soul, very frequently used by the AI, Death / Necromancer's Dark summon etc.), the caster (Death) card will be hit for 3 damage.
In addition, this card has a REALLY useful, mass-killer ability, Concentrate, which is even better than Earth / Pegasus' Holy Strike (which only delivers 5 damage to ONE target card at the cost of 2 Life). This ability, which costs 3 Life (that is, only slightly more expensive than Earth / Pegasus' Holy Strike), is particularly useful against all the enemy cards. It delivers 6 damage to the chosen, target enemy card (unless it's a Life creature) and the same damage, divided by the number of cards, to all the others. It has no adverse effects like damaging Knight by 3 upon attacking a Death card either (unlike with Earth / Pegasus' Holy Strike); only (default) abilities like the Fire Shield of Fire / Efreet will return half of the damage to it.
All in all, ALWAYS try to get this card on your deck and make sure you always use its Concentrate ability! (Of course, you'll also want to try to bring an Air / Zeus on the deck in order to use its really cool (8 damage) and cheap (1 Air) Lightning ability if your enemy (frequently) uses cards with level 6 or below.)
If you go for mass-Earth (because, for example, your enemy doesn't have Earth / Titan, whose Thunder Fist ability is particularly effective (3 damage for each of them at the expense of 1 Air only) against Earth creatures OR he's preferring the use of the new Earth / Force of Nature spell, which has absolutely no effect on Earth creatures), you'll want to use Earth / Enchanter (level: 7), which also auto-heals other cards - but Earth cards only (as opposed to Knight, which heals any other type) and only by 1 each turn.
It has another feature: it heals all the other cards by five upon reaching one HP (but NOT upon simply dying) through, for example, the Death / Plague spell, other spells or direct attacks, only leaving 1 HP for the card.
Air / Kronos is a VERY useful card, for three reasons:
- its (pretty expensive: it costs 3 Air) Aging ability is particularly useful against high-HP cards (for example, Life / Chimera, Water / Leviathan, Fire / Infernal etc. to quickly reduce their (both maximal and current) HP to the half of the original. As it's the original that is halved, you will want to use the ability as soon as your enemy brings the card to the board - then, your first, subsequent attack will already decrease the halved HP.
Speaking of high-HP cards, you should also pay special attention to the new Earth / Force of Nature spell too, which deals damage to each enemy creature equal to half of its remaining health and is, therefore, REALLY useful. Note that it has no effect to Earth cards.
- attacks creatures of a level less than 10 with additional damage, equal to the HP difference. This means it'll attack for example a level 2 Earth / Satyr with (default) 4+(10-2) damage.
- one of the VERY few cards to deliver direct, and pretty high damage to the, otherwise, very though Earth / Etherial.
Life / Avatar is pretty strange and, frankly, I don't know why it's here at all. I consider it a pretty worthless card because, despite its high (10) level and double damage taking (the owner takes the same damage as Avatar, unless, of course, you have a Water / Ice Guard on the board to divide the damage by two), its strength isn't particularly high (7) and it has no special abilities / features either. Had it ANY extra ability, it'd be a nice card. Now, on the other hand, I in no way recommend it, not even together with the (cheap: 1 Air) Protect ability of the also-new Air / Guardian or the (expensive: 3 Earth) Spider Web ability of the also new Earth / Giant Spider.
Life / Etherial can be a real pain in the back for your opponent to get rid of and is excellent against “tough”, powerful, high-strength units like Water / Kraken or Life / Chimera; in this respect, it's pretty much similar to our old friend, Earth / Forest Spirit (the latter, of course, does receive (some) damage from other cards and spelling abilities).
Note that if your opponent has the Death / Lich card, it’ll deliver 5 damage to your Etherial every turn (but it won't deal any damage when it's summoned - as opposed to other cards). The same will happen with Air / Kronos as well - it'll deliver lvl 10- lvl 7 = 3 damage to Etherial each turn. If Kronos can't attack the card directly (another card is placed against Etherial), it can still use its Aging ability to reduce the health of the card to four (and, then, you can quickly Suffocate it with Python). Also, Earth / Echidna will eventually kill this card because of its poisoning it (poisons also kills Etherial - both used as card (default) ability or full spells). Finally, if you have Fire / Efreet, you can effectively use its implicit fire shield (or, if it's not in the opposite shot, its Fire Shield ability, preferably on another Fire creature to avoid losing health every turn) - it'll send back one damage (that is, damages Etherial by one) each time Etherial attacks.
To my knowledge, these are the only creatures that can do any kind of harm to this card by direct attack. Of card abilities (spells), you can Suffocate it Earth / Python (after damaging it with something like Fire / Fire Spikes, Water / Poison or the new, really effective Water / Poison Storm - or, with the other means (Aging, Fire Shield etc.) outlined above). You can also consume it with Water / Kraken, but the latter also consumes all other cards and, therefore, can only be used sparingly. Finally, you can also use Kronos' Aging against the card. It, however, can't directly kill the card with this ability - you'll need another spell / ability / card to finally kill it.
Installation tip
Make sure you also get and install the brand new version 1.10 of the original game (that is, Orions: Legend of Wizards) BEFORE installing the new pack on top of it. The expansion will NOT flawlessly work with the previous, 1.02 version of the original game.
Cross-posted to (might be worth checking out for additional info / discussions!): PPCT, AximSite, XDA-Developers, FirstLoox, BrightHand, HowardForums, MoDaCo, PocketGamer.org, PocketGaming.de.
UPDATE (08/20/2007): PPCT frontpage
UPDATE (08/26/2007): PocketGamer.org frontpage & featured review (no direct links can be given to top-of-the-page banner announcements; hence the screenshot)
Yet another major article update.
UPDATE (08/26/2007): PocketGamer.org frontpage & featured review (no direct links can be given to top-of-the-page banner announcements; hence the screenshot)
Yeah, you've guessed right: another update.
UPDATE (11/22/2007): version 1.11 has just been released. It contains several bugfixes and, what is even more important, balance changes. Please read this update BEFORE reading the main review because I haven’t updated the latter in order to keep it consistent.
Fire / Diablo: instead of 4, it only heals the target fire creature for 3 (fortunately, increasing its strength is not changed). Casting the spell costs 1 Fire (instead of 0). This makes this card considerably less recommended than previously.
Fire / Infernal has been made MUCH cheaper (10 instead of 13), which really extends its functionality. While, previously, I had little chance of using this card (I just didn’t have the necessary Fire elements and an additional, preferably low-cost like the now-strengthened “Fire / Imp” cards on the board most of the time), now I’ve found myself using it much more frequently.
Fire / Imp has been made MUCH stronger (14 vs. 9), which makes it much more useful, particularly if, used together with the now much more frequently used Fire / Infernal (you need to wait until you get the necessary Fire elements to summon Infernal) or the, unfortunately, somewhat degraded Fire / Diablo.
Life / Avatar, while it was not only completely useless, but also heavily noxious in the previous version, has become pretty useful now. For 10 Life points, you get a card with a very high HP (and an, unfortunately, pretty mediocre attack). Now, the damage taken is just the opposite of what was before: instead of damaging the owner by the same amount originally received by Avatar, the damage is done in the opposite way. That is, when the owner is damaged, Avatar is also damaged by the same amount. If you can make sure your owner won’t (really) be damaged in the near future, then, Avatar may be a decent pick.
The damage of Lightning Bolt has been increased to 6 (from 5). A decent move – for 4 Air, the previous version was pretty much overpriced, taking the other ways of damaging the enemy owner into account.
As far as Water / Tython is concerned, it’s now slightly stronger. (More HP (16 vs. 15) and attack (4 vs. 3)) and its casting no longer costs water elements. I’m not entirely sure this was a nice idea – after all, Tython has already been THE best and most cost-effective way for mass re-healing. Now, a player )if the other doesn’t have it) owning this card will be next to unbeatable (if he’s playing using the right strategy and is, otherwise, decent)
Bug fixes:
AI no longer casts Scylla's abilities too much. Oh dear, now, we can’t take advantage of this bug to quickly bump up our Water elements…
Leviathan, Nixie, Demon - elemental issues solved. (No more exchange nothing for fire/water).
Fixed cast cost for Spider.
Related
I purchased the original O2 XDA as soon as it was released and some of my wishlist has been fulfilled by HTC with the XDA II. With MSN Messenger, Outlook and Pocket Word I found that there was little need for a laptop and use of my desktop also reduced... equally there are numerous reasons why I am glad to find some dedicated XDA developers...
Wishlist for XDA III starts with:
1) UMTS... 3 should contract HTC to do this as soon as a dual tranciever becomes small enough, the XDA would make a great video phone platform and would give 3 the best PDA phone on the market. I would immediately choose 3 over 02 (or any non-3G operator) if this were the case... however O2 wins at the moment as GSM/GPRS are ample for email and IM.
2) Video out (so I can hook it up to eyewear or an external screen) my next goal when I upgrade to the XDA II. Also... it should be video out at higher resolutions such as 640x480 enough for XDA III and ideally later to 800x600 ++ etc... and why not ask for firewire NVidia style graphics processing, a few gigs of RAM and a Lenslet optical DSP too while on my long term wishlist!
[okay update is scrap the Lenslet Optical DSP - it turned out to be a TI DLP essentially] - And guys I like the new look but you have squished some of the message topics so where does this belong - Hacking it isn't quite right - I'm talking rebuilding it, I only got one reply this month and it wasn't really relevant
[Actually scrap PDAs altogether... with eyewear (and a wearable PC) looking at a piece of Augmented Reality (AR) paper and holding an e-pen is going to be better than anything a PDA can ever offer (sorry HTC) e.g. 24 bit colour with 3D graphs and images that rise out of the page on a full A4/Letter sized PDA that folds up and fits in your pocket and cost $5 for 500 sheets. No contest]
Anyone feel free to send on the XDA III ideas to HTC though... the glasses may be many years away :-(
3) The usual form-factor miniturization requirements... HTC have done well to get slightly smaller with the antenna and still pack so much more punch. Equally though when this device's width and height can be miniturised to approach the screen size it won't have any trouble competing in the regular handset market (and should clean up [okay I take that back too] - so this should be a key goal). Actually Microsoft should simply dump Stinger and put the money into R&D at HTC and its component suppliers to get the components and the XDA smaller quickly.
4) A flip up phone numeric/alpha keypad that covers 80% of the screen while in phone mode showing just phone status and number dialed on the screen *and* that then flips back about 180 degrees and perhaps folds out left and right to reveal a good qwerty keypad on its reverse... this would be most useful for speed/finger dialing in the numeric mode (which is impractical/slow on the original XDA) and also is necessary for texting with SMS and on MSN Messenger (something I think the device will increasingly be used for by corporate users now that Microsoft has released its real time communications server products)
This keypad should also fold fully back another 180 degrees into the back of the XDA III and automatically disable the keys in this configuration so the device can still function as a normal pen based PDA without anything activating or getting in the way. Would need some re-engineering to work with the current location of the ports and MMC slot etc... and may need to fold left or right etc... instead of up/down but I will leave that up to the HTC engineers to work out. I am sure it can be done and other phones are already doing at least part of this function. Also may need to create a special TFT that allows partial back-light to save power when in 'phone' use mode and the rest of the screen is covered and not in use (or maybe not?... expect it will depend on battery useage/production cost vs benefit user scenarios and testing - again over to you HTC).
5) Ability to replace the face-plate covers to style the device would be good but ideally will be best done when the form-factor reaches a stable size if want to make a recurring consumer market/revenue from them as Nokia does... so may be best to leave this one to XDA IV or V. (I came up with a way to prevent 3rd parties from creating unlicensed face-plates and make them much more valuable but that is another story and best left out of the wishlist at the moment for IPR/legal reasons).
6) A thumb control panel on the side of the device that is interchangeable left or right to cater for left-handed/right-handed 'one-hand' operation. This is something Sony has done relatively well with their jog-dial on phones which I understand they hold a patent on... it serves the same function as the wheel on a standard Microsoft intelli-mouse (spelling?). However most other manufacturers seem to have missed that a wheel is not optimal for a thumb to move and a four way tilt-switch (sort of like a better Toshiba laptop pointer) with the appropriate software controls to handle 'acceleration' through a list would work equally as well as a wheel... best shown diagramatically (hoping font is fixed width - ok ignore dots as the message board has removed spaces and I have dinner waiting so aren't going to bother putting nbsp HTML tags in):
Handset (e.g. XDA III) as seen profile from the right hand side standing vertically (e.g. screen to the left):
...........................Scroll UP list
...................................../\
Back/Cancel/Left........< X >...........Right/Forward
.....................................\/
.........................Scroll DOWN list
X - marks the Activate/Call/Fire key (e.g. push in/down)
Ugly but makes sense hopefully.
(controls would flip when the attachment was slid/plugged in on the lefthand side for left handed use)...
(Also thinking that using the two sides of the XDA to slide different control panels in would achieve what the iPaq tried to do but which was too bulky with the 'sleeve'. E.g. someone might want to put a thumb-print reader on it etc... actually that should just go as standard where the X button is above!!! That should give HTC some fun!)
The side-panel 'pointer' idea above is a carry-on invention from a controller I came up with back on the Amiga 500 which I called a Turtle (it simply combined a tilting shell - the joystick - on top of a mouse. It was more to stop having to change plugs at the back of the Amiga than for any other reason back then but I realised later it would have allowed the same control as an intelli-mouse (if Workbench had had the software controls built in...) for scrolling based on rocking the shell forward/back/left/right). For a phone the concept is slightly different but I have tested out all usable scenarios on paper with the 4 way tilt-switch plus 'click' push for one-handed phone operation and it would be a very useful addition to the side of the XDA to allow scrolling up and down and moving left and right (particularly when using Pocket Internet Explorer since most websites are not optimised for it yet and the width of the page does not fit on the screen requiring excessive pen based scrolling. Also Back/Foward and Up would allow page/folder browsing controls similar to those on IE and Windows Explorer). Also I think it would be most handy for getting through contact/number lists rapidly when needed in one-hand operation just as the Sony phones allow now. When voice commands are added that will allow the XDA to browse say to a given URL hands free but it will still need a one-handed control button like this as it would be a pain to keep having to say 'scroll down', especially on a bus or in a public place (noting that the current multi-directional controller allows this but is not ideally located for one handed operation).
7) Secure authentication at the hardware level and a smart card reader slot to allow bank and payment cards to be used for direct debts. This would allow something for O2 or 3 that I originally thought of in Cambridge for Rational to reduce their licensing costs... but it works equally well the other way around and involves charging for the use of applications on a per-use or per-feature use basis rather than as a package. This would provide operators with the incentive to pre-load the XDA with the very best software available and to do OTA updates of it to ensure users were always happy... I would like this mostly because it would allow some predictability in the size of the bill at the end of each month, traffic seems like a primitive way to charge and per-useage/feature would be preferrable... 'User Pays' is probably the best term... (equally well if you don't use it because a given piece of software sucks, I don't want to have to pay a software license fee to find this out). In any case it should force the right motives for mobile/PPC software vendors and could create a 'best-of-breed' software product set for the XDA based on the financial incentive of getting the best software for each user so they 'want' to run up a bill (sic). It could be done with both Java based and MS/PPC based products and it is probably best done in partnership with Microsoft at the OS level as I heard they are working on some kind of billing system already and didn't want to work with Geneva on it.
8) Okay, some other simpler ideas... the controller mentioned above could act as a good volume control during a call or during music playback as it is more 'analogue' to touch and control (don't know why Microsoft still hasn't put an analogue twist-style 'digital potentiometer' on the PC keyboard for volume and similar functions) however it is preferrable to the pointer finger located click-button approach on many phones which is distracting to use during a call. I should have mentioned above the four-way thumb-push/tilt thing needs to have a nice 'feel' - it could concievably be a graduated push/pull/tilt control that startes with easy movement (for gross initial control) and then becames harder for precision... I think though it might be too small for force-feedback :lol:
9) So that is a requirement also - XDA III should come pre-loaded with good software... taking the per-usage billing model (and interchangeable or pre-built on multi-coloured face plates) it should be possible to brand the XDA as more than just a silver corporate device. I think it has the potential to be *the* key device leading on to becoming a wearable PC. One version should also be branded as a games machine with all the latest games on it and little features in the game like buying an upgraded weapon could make the operator a tiny fee, another device aimed at corporates (with partnership deals to allow for per-industry/company specialisation) and why not do a household style one for men/women to use in the kitchen to get recipies, as a shopping list to get groceries etc... Thinking about it probably the biggest market would be to do a stripped down version that focuses on MSN Messenger and sell it to school-kids charging 2-5 pence/cents per message... it would save parents from having to buy a separate PC for the kids. Or keep it full-featured and tailor it to school work so that it becomes a must-buy for all kids and gets part funded by the govt... pre-configured with maths/homework programs, teacher contacts and course calendar etc... Could actually be good at University level also since my XDA was the first device I have had that actually did handwriting recognition to the point I could take proper notes. In any case ... 'pre-configured' is a term that should be applied to XDA III.
10) Thinking of uses once it has UMTS... it could become *the* key platform for interactive TV around the house and office... after all interactive TV is valuable only when you want to 'do' something and most of the time I'm doing things I am not in front of a TV set. It would be great for example to have a 'ruggardised' version of the XDA that I could use in the electronics workshop, dad's wood workshop or in the garage... actually the more I think about it Microsoft needs to do something to get integrated video in the Internet Explorer window rather than on Media-player on the Pocket PC... plus with schematics (SVG) etc... so someone can get an engine assembly diagram etc... or more relevant here, I'd like to get an XDA 3D cut-away, schematic and wiring diagram so I can make my own video-out now.
11) That also means the little camera on the XDA II should really next time be mounted on the top of the XDA III with a swivel camera that 'flips' the picture depending on whether it is facing towards the screen and user or away from it towards an object. My Sony Vaio (PC1XA model if I recall correctly) had this and it was a great feature allowing recording of the other participants at meetings or self-videoing for conferencing with Netmeeting.
12) The addition of the camera in this swivel configuration would also allow gesture based controls now that the xScale processors are getting suitably fast enough to allow such recognition tasks - ideally I'd rather have a 3D version of myself sent across on a video conference based on a model that was adapted to match my facial expression but that was looking awake and good no matter what hour it was... :shock:
Bar-code recognition software could be added to the household version when adding up the shopping or equally for the supermarket themselves to do stock and inventory control, etc... That was another thing the Sony Vaio had in a rather primative form... perhaps also the res of the camera would need to go up for XDA III.
Any other ideas for the XDA Wishlist please post them here and we can trade them with HTC in return for them opening up their data on the device...
Also I am interested to hear from anyone who is working with configuring the XDA I or II as a wearable with alternative I/O. Goal: eye-glasses mounted screen and to take the infrared detection used on some video camera eye-pieces (I read about this in popular science in the 80's so the patent must be close to expiring) to detect where the eye is looking and mount this on glasses along with a screen... I have a couple of ideas to act as left/right mouse click and have found some ways to make it practical such as using ultrasonic sound emitters instead of having to have those terrible little buds in my ear all the time for hands-free. These aren't really 'speakers' as the ear lobe will hopefully act as the speaker where the ultrasonic waves hit it and (entirely depending on how small these emitters can me made) I am hoping that they can also be mounted on the stem of the glasses frame just in front or behind the ear (or both to do some 3d fx). As such the emmitters will ideally not need to go inside the ear and will act as the replacement of an earpiece. Ultimately I would like to get this also detecting incoming sound and perhaps working as a selective noise-reduction device by using the processing power of the PPC (oh yeah that was the other thing... better DSP capabilities in the XDA III - using DSPs more may also help reduce the form-factor as Sony did with the Clie).
I've got to go eat dinner, upon re-reading some of the above may need clarification. Please post any replies or queries here... Keen to hear from software/hardware developers who might want to work on wearable I/O based applications that push the current hardware...
[changed to - keen to hear from anyone who wants to build new hardware designs since the current lot a too slow]
Buchanan
so in other words youd like a nokia 6600 crossed with p800 lmao
If only they could skip the STUPID integrated f***ing camera!!! I'll have to stick with the my XDA I until there's someone smart enough to skip the camera as most of the companies I work for will not let me carry a camera on their premises.
Why not fill the space with a few hundred megs of RAM, a wifi and UMTS circuits instead?
/b
And add in a Siemens SX1 for good measure!!
Detachable Camera
Bamse... good point the camera in the XDA III wishlist *should* be a 'detachable' rotating camera (shipped as standard) and then problem solved. Also someone in another discussion mentioned varying quality of cameras in an unrelated example but equally it would be nice to be able to upgrade to a better quality CCD if one wanted... there must be an aftermarket accessories opportunity here for HTC.
Equally oneday there will need to be some form of corporate over-ride to switch camera functions off as you walk into restricted R&D/IP areas etc... but probably have to wait for more refined CPS technology or some kind of agreed standard to activate/deactivate it before this is feasible. Ok big-brother or not, add in a GPS to my XDA III wishlist and link it up to things like the clock so when I get out of the plane in a different country it automatically (or upon prompt) changes the display clock to match the current zone (keeping me a link to 'home time' as well).
having detachable cameras are crap as you have to plug them in and then take photos meaning you cannot capture a thing in an instant and also it means you might loose it hence it being built in makes life more simple!
...ok!! here is what I want...
i want a MICRODRIVE slot!!
if not, somethin with 10+gigs of storage!
lots of music and videos and games u know! :twisted:
oh! and since the DO make a small (pda size) printer via IR.
why not a scanner!? just as small, for business cards, this way i can scan all my contacts, on the go. without having to carry all them business cards with me.
and... maybe a joystick? thru the com port?? for my Arcade Style games u know... TURJAH 2, SIBERIAN STRIKE X, RAY MAN
You got a point also Gazzaman2k - HTC will just have to ship one with and one without... hence request to sell 'Pre-configured' to match different users needs as mentioned above... optimal would be to put it in a different face-plate... you don't lose those too easily...
Still think it should be rotating though and at the top... 3rd and 4th option on rotating would be a folded away position so no one could see the camera and facing 'up' to the top of the device so it could take video of meetings (like the Vaio) if the device was lying flat on the table top.
Cheers Ntabikha
> i want a MICRODRIVE slot!! if not, somethin with 10+gigs of storage!
Yes, I was thinking that something that could store video is a must. Last night I was thinking more about the ultimate eye-glasses... two other ideas that have probably already been thought of elsewhere are... camera to go on the bridge of the glasses or could have two for 3D recording with one on each side of the rims. Also could have stereo mic setup in the same way... but key really is to then be able to store a whole day of events so 10gigs plus is needed and a really good DSP geared to towards realtime AV compression (see Lenslet for the ultimate DSP - it needs miniturisation but doesn't everything).
[Change - Lenslet Optical DSP (www.lenslet.com) is actually not ultimate but they still have a good idea and optical DSPs will be good eventually. However the current implementation is really dependent on Texus Instruments technology. If Lenslet focused on building the inverse chip to the DLP - e.g. a DLD or Digital Light Detector of the same scale as the DLP then that would give them a sustainable market... to do this the energy of the reflected laser could be used to charge a small plate coupled to the silicon (e.g. activate one transistor) and then have a digitally controlled 'earth' (a second transistor) to clear the result at high 'clock speeds' (their terminology not mine - but idea is 'synchronization with the laser array' to allow energy reduction to avoid unwanted activations). With the DLP as the reflector (the digitally controlled 'lens' in their diagram), a DLD and smaller laser arrays a large array Digital Optical DSP will be feasible (and Lenslet will have something long lasting to sell)]
> lots of music and videos and games u know!
There is a really elegant solution for delivering this but at the moment it is being badly (and illegally) implemented and I am not going to advertise the guys who are doing it. Needless to say it is still cheaper to ship 10 gigabytes of data around the world with a postage stamp than through any wireless network.
> oh! and since the DO make a small (pda size) printer via IR.
> why not a scanner!? just as small, for business cards, this way i can scan all my contacts, on the go. without having to carry all them business cards with me.
Or combine the idea Ntabikha... make a miny inkjet and scan head that works as the user rolls the device across a piece of paper Nah... actually I can see the smudges already!
[Got the ultimate fix to this - no need for a flat scan head again]
> and... maybe a joystick? thru the com port?? for my Arcade Style games
USB drivers for games... will probably need standardizing by MS... you could just use a standard USB joystick then (pending standard slot configurations)... However I would rather have a data-glove and head orientation 8) I will need to find space now for where to put a gyro on my glasses.
[removed the tilt switches - gyro can easily be configured to do same function digitally]
Cheers
Ntabikha - just thought... if the CCD is good enough on the camera you don't need a scanner to capture your business card information... OCR off a bitmap image of the card might do it.
yea, but is there OCR for pda?? :?
> yea, but is there OCR for pda??
Someone is bound to be working on it somewhere... just checked Omnipage (now scansoft) they show mobile text-to-speech etc... so they are bound to port Omnipage eventually... perhaps if they aren't onto it yet then someone has just won themselves a job at Scansoft!... guess the main thing preventing it so far is that up until the XDA II the RAM and processor requirements were possibly limiting factors... although omnipage ran fine on a 486 DXII 66 so???
A few more thoughts for the XDA III+ Wishlist...
i) Improvement of pen digitiser over original XDA... pressure sensitivity to allow Fractal Painter type drawing.
ii) Again not yet sure what the XDA II has as a belt attachment clip but the XDA I case I got was much too bulky... the good part was the clip that was quick release but secure the rest of the time. So less bulk (may have already been solved).
[found a really good way to mount wearables that is comfortable and ideal for the centralisation of processing 'on the body' - The XDA and all other formfactors I've seen are way off base]
iii) I mentioned video out but better I/O all round is going to be the key to this becoming a good wearable [sic].
On the subject or wearables I have been trying to envisage life once 'augmented reality' is possible through having an inline screen on my glasses. Essentially a walkman/iPod is already augmented reality in the audio senses however I think this whole field is going to be able to be moved forward much further and could create a whole range of jobs for many web/tech workers who are currently feeling the pain after the dot.com bubble.
Firstly I was in the kitchen and imagined the information that could be made available when doing cooking or cleaning tasks... if the cameras had detection of other spectrums beyond that of our eye we could perhaps view where the bench needed cleaning most or when pots can detect the properties of food reporting things like 'too sweet' - 'just right' etc... there is also the standard stuff like bringing up iTV video of recipies being prepared and also I realised warning lights and those sort of things become less necessary on devices since if one looked at the kettle it could simply show a status with the words 'on' or 'hot' or 'off' etc... above it. Of course this would either need the recognition of the kettle or some way to know where the kettle was in relation to the user but the possibilities are there and potentially [definitely] life improving.
I also remembered where I had seen the camera on the bridge of the glasses before... it was in Mission Impossible when Ethan Hawke showed that Jim was still alive in the train and at some time earlier in the movie was used too [have moved to stereo - bridge now houses other things]. I was thinking of uses for this sort of eyewear too when I was on a bushwalk yesterday and climbed up onto a cliff overlooking the interior of the gorge but still within it. I really wanted to know what was behind the next hill and thought that with digital terrain modelling if I had been able to see an overlay semi-tranparent picture (augmented reality) of the view 'through' the hill it would have made my sight-seeing all the more enjoyable. I also thought as it was dense bush climbing up the hill that it would be cool to have the gyro/compass on the headset provide bearing data across the top of the virtual screen (of course GPS could do the same but perhaps not perfectly in real-time) and track markers could also pop up [found out these are not really necessary] when and where the path changed. It would be neat also for recognising features as one passed through the geography, telling the history of the place in the period one wanted to know about or providing details of the local amenities upon demand/command. In any case the need for the eyewear is enormous and would render most screens obsolete... or provide a screen wherever one wants one like wherever a picture frame is a different picture could be provided for each viewer, etc... (Bill Gates ought to like this because he owns the digital rights to many pieces of art - give me a call Bill ).
I also thought that the eyewear with knowledge of its location removes the need for holographic projection since if several people were looking at the same 'virtual object' through their eyewear then it could appear as solid as the projection onto the eye allows [came up with a great way to 'turn night into day and day into night' in effect].
So summary is I think augmented reality is going to be far more entertaining than virtual reality (sort of like that bit in The Beach were Leonardo is bounding through the forest in computer game mode) and the cost/benefit of eyewear is going to save the wasted production of millions of screens and create massive revenue potential for tourism and interactive TV applications that will have a real impact on quality of experience and quality of life. The educational possibilities are fantastic too... a child could learn three+ languages by having their portable recognise objects and teach them the name for it in each language etc...
[gone way beyond the above examples now - found out a health reason for AR too, kids under about 8 get alterations in their visual perceptive abilities if they spend too long in total VR emersion. AR solves this]
Two other things... if Microsoft doesn't move in this direction quickly and tries to slow down the release of such technology (as has been their strategy or default action with the release of the PC OS in some cases) then I don't mind if it is done on Linux... as long as it gets done. Any Linux or MS guys feel free to comment here too [no one has offered any comments in this area - I have moved on to find (better) mass parallel hardware, optics is not going to cut it in the next 5 years either].
Finally I think perhaps HTC could hold the key to moving these devices forward faster, just as Sony has improved the capabilities and usability of PalmOS... there is no point waiting for new OS releases if you can bundle other software onto a device with Telecom operators and move it forward faster... it will have to happen anyway because charging for traffic isn't going to be viable for long. [clarification - that was in reference to PDAs as becoming handsets - generally now thinking that silicon can't cut it for the uses I am now looking at with the glasses - that is not to say that handsets don't have a few years yet but the technology is dog slow and being painfully slowly released - Take the Mobile Explorer browser for example in WinCE, the programmable API version of this is clearly intended not to allow the same functionality as the Microsoft IE application itself on the PocketPC (I can see the devious thinking of separating it). This is just plain infuriating because if MS wasn't deliberately slowing down the development of the browser it could be modified to be the universal window on a PocketPC for any app - e.g integration with video overlays/3D/SVG etc, that's all a browser is, a window with greater API functionality - as such this restriction has forced me off the whole platform (early)... e.g. other factors such as output resolution/speed/memory are also looming]
Another thought just reviewing the posts above... there must be a massive incentive for 3G mobile operators in getting the eyewear working as well. And as regards the storage of video then if it was being transmitted from the glasses camera to the XDA and then to a 'video storage account' at the 3G operator then they will be making much more money than today and the Pocket PC won't need a massive harddrive... those 3G license costs may then well have been worth it. If the CCD on the glasses is good enough it would also provide the potential for billions of 'Kodak Moments' and solve the issue of the guy above who said he likes to just point and click (and spontaneous photos are often the best in my experience). It still leaves the problem of how to shut the camera off in sensitive environments in companies or like in Greece where you can't photograph airports and military bases but location based 'permission' (usually on in most places) would solve this... it could bring a whole new meaning to the words 'pay-per-view'.
Any 3G people please comment also... propose doing the eyewear as 'open hardware' (like open source but with hardware). Contributions welcomed. [okay stuff 3G, no responses. I have found a much faster delivery mechanism in any case with no need for large scale base stations. Rupert Murdoch give me a call you will love this one ]
Where are the super techs on the photo at the front of this site (XDA electronics gurus) ???... please reply with thoughts and technical problems to achieving the above [that was in relation to original video out on the XDA - forget it]. I have a way to get a really high-res screen on the glasses but again will require miniturisation... am thinking that overall timeframe before these become mainstream cost effective is in the order of 10 years [7 years] but with HTC and 3G operator backing it could happen sooner as the cost of the device can be subsidised in return for long-term account sign-up. I am ready to sign up for 3G with this now... [if you want something done... you know the rest] there will be many others! Handsets will still be necessary [actually they aren't - people will be able to pick up a virtual phone from infront of them, no handset required] although under this model they will become 'part' of an 'on body network' [changed] (and perhaps it will be beneficial to move the high energy transmitters away from the head and down to the hip etc...) [solved].
Again thoughts called for on this and most welcome... [still are - please post here]
One more thing...
Upon reflection last night I also thought the ultrasonics on the ear piece mentioned at top are more likely going to have to come out over the ear with a small 'sub-stem' off the stem of the glasses but this will also help pre-detection of the sound to do noise cancelling (I had been thinking some kind of off-spectrum 'optical pre-detection' but it may not be feasible and may be possible and cheaper to achieve with a mic. Depending of course if the cancelling can be done with a DSP and still beat the sound to the ear lobe via the ultrasonic waves to achieve a cancellation on the ear skin itself [okay this is the way - it will work but serious miniturization of the emitters is required]). The theory is good but I still haven't found who is building the emitters [found] or how large they are [massive] and it will largely depend on that if the whole idea is feasible or not... otherwise the concept seems ok and would be much better than current bud earphones. If the 'sub-stem' and frames of the glasses were flexible it would also allow someone to have their head on the pillow and watch a movie/listen to music. Currently my bud-earphones cause my ear to get really sore when using my walkman to listen to the radio at night which is my favorite time as usually there are less ads (I really hate ads [clarification for Rupert - I hate pop up ads - I don't mind signage, packaging or sponsorship (especially in the arts) - not so sure about sponsorship in education but the jury is still out]
[Key factor is going to be safety - there is a cute ad on TV in NZ at the moment which I think was inspired by a music video I saw years ago... in the latter a milk carton went wandering around, in the ad a little yoghurt container greets the person when they come home and it is really cute... such things would be fine on the glasses where they don't make people trip up by appearing to scuttle under their feet but Saatchi and Saatchi or the real Saatchi's are going to love this medium better than TV - I'm imagining everything augmented now and traffic safety can be improved and all sorts of beneficial things - there will never be any need for interactive TV as it was envisaged in the late '80s early '90s and all this hype about WebServices is really a matter of just hooking up an improved Yellow/White Pages - or Universal Directory - and Digital Library to the glasses - of course you can read the output in a book and jump instantly to the right page).
Zaurus Competitor
Microsoft needs a competitor for the latest clamshell zaurus PDA as a realistic goal. Can someone argue for or against an XDA III that is basically a Zaurus running Windows 2003 with java and camera and GSM. Can anyone enlighten me on whats wrong with the latest zaurus and how MS can improve on that design? Thanks! :lol:
Lack of replies and needs a dedicated site
:x :idea: Moving sites... NE1 interested search Google :shock:
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Buchanan
bamse said:
If only they could skip the STUPID integrated f***ing camera!!! I'll have to stick with the my XDA I until there's someone smart enough to skip the camera as most of the companies I work for will not let me carry a camera on their premises.
Why not fill the space with a few hundred megs of RAM, a wifi and UMTS circuits instead?
/b
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I thought I read somewhere that the xda 2 camera is removable - is this true?
the motorola symbian 3g device have 2 wab one to use for video calls and one on the other side to take snaps with
would asume since cams are becomming more and more std
soon they'll be on milk!
it's not too expensive to put 2 in
what about 5.1 surround support! in xda3
(Note that I’ve removed the inline images because of the four-threshold. Click the links to see the original images.)
In my latest Misc News collection, I’ve already recommended Towers Trap, a brand new game on two mobile (Windows Mobile and Symbian S60) and desktop Windows platforms. GameZoneProject‘s official page is HERE. No matter what platform you have, I really-REALLY recommend giving the trial a try and play through the (initial) tutorial. (Again, you’ll have text rendering problems on VGA Windows Mobile devices). I’m pretty sure you’ll like the game.
In this strategy guide, I give you a far better and more thorough introduction to the game than the demo tutorial of the game. This includes explaining the difference between the available weapon types, the enemy (the “creeps” ), how the maze should be constructed etc. That is, first, make sure you play through the demo. After this, either start the Easy mode - or the 8k one so that you actually have a chance against the creeps. In a nutshell: creeps, your enemies, enter from the top and left. They must be stopped from reaching the other side. If they do, you lose lives. You only have 50 lives to start with, meaning you can only let 49 creeps reach the other side before the end of the game, which, at least in the 8k mode, consists of 80 waves of creep invasion.
The game is very well playable on touchscreen-enabled mobile platforms (and, of course, desktop Windows with mouse / stylus). On touchscreen-less ones like Microsoft Smartphone (Windows Mobile 6 Standard) or Symbian S60v3, playing the game is a little bit more complicated as the cursor moves pretty slow through the field. Hope a future version adds hotkeys for quickly jumping for example half a screen in a direction (utilizing the currently not used buttons). On the other hand, these platforms support quick weapon selection (using the numbers).
Now, let’s take a look at how the weapons can / should be used.
Weapons at our disposal
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/sniper.jpg
Sniper. Very useful, ranged, anti-ground&air, non-area-damage (non-splash) weapon with multiple functionalities. In the beginning of the game, it’s what you’ll need to buy (unless you play in the 8k mode) to successfully defend yourself against at least the first few waves of creeps until you can purchase more advanced weapons like Shocks and, even better, Earthquakes and/or Cannons.
However, its usage doesn’t end at this! It’s not just an early game weapon. Actually, I’ve found it much more useful than the Cannon & Air combo when talking about ranged weapons. (That is, I’ve lost almost all of my 8k games when I’ve gone mass-Cannon & Air, unlike with mass-Snipers. Both using the recommended three-wide vertical structures, mostly Earthquakes being outside and Cannons / Airs / Snipers inside to be protected from the lockdown of Ice creeps.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/rlaunch.jpg
Rocket Launchers. (Referred to as Luncher.) Much better (almost twice as long) initial range than those of Snipers. It’s also somewhat stronger. However, it costs double the price and can’t be used against air opponents.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/cannon.jpg
Cannon. This very expensive, (only) anti-ground weapon has pretty low (2) damage and moderate range (between that of Sniper and Rocket Launcher).
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/shock.jpg
Shock. While it’s pretty weak (5) and has as bad a range as Sniper, it has a very useful feature: it slows down all creeps it manages to shoot at for quite a lot of time. This is essential. However, as it’s mostly because of this (pretty much permanent) side-effect that it’s worth using and, otherwise, has low damage, I don’t recommend going for mass-deployment. In most cases, 10-14 will be sufficient even in end-games: 4-5 Shocks at both entrances and, if you have a long (ground) path, some additional Shocks when the initial shocking effect is eliminated.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/airrr.jpg
This only anti-air weapon, Air, is much stronger (strength: 20 vs. 8) than the other anti-air-capable one, Sniper and has a much bigger range (10 vs. 6). However, in practice, I’ve found going the mass-Sniper (with some Shocks, placed at both entrances, to slow them down right at entering the field) route better in games. Remember: if you absolutely don’t use Airs and go the mass-Sniper route, it’s only the last two tides of creep airplane ships that may have a chance to get past of your defense (in 8k games).
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/arth.jpg
Earthquake is an anti-ground weapon only. You will want to go the (mass-) Earthquake route as soon as possible as it has excellent splash (that is, damaging several creeps at the same time) damage (70; compare this to the 2 of the Cannon, the 8 of Sniper or 10 of Rocket Launcher). Its range isn’t very good (6) and upgrading it is very expensive (compared to, say, Snipers); therefore, you’ll want to place them to the creep path as closely as possible, while backing them up (mostly against the icy opponents) with Snipers and, possibly, some (very few) Cannons to easily get rid of closely-packed creeps / Shocks to make sure the initial slowdown / shock delivered to the creeps is safely repeated.
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/radar.jpg
Radar. This is a passive structure with the only aim of showing invisible creeps. As is described below, in the “Enemy creeps” section, in general, it suffices to place only two or three of them (fully upgraded) onto the battlefield. Note that the icy creeps also block Radars; during this, invisible creeps will creep in undetected. Therefore, make sure you protect them in the same way as ranged weapons behind Earthquakes.
The (initial) stats of all these weapons is presented in the stats area:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/stats.jpg
This shows the strength in the top left corner (10 in this case), build cost (20) and range (10; bottom left).
Enemy creeps
The most notable creeps you need to pay particular attention to:
The bombs, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru.png, have the bad habit of jumping over empty corners like the following:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru2.jpg
The solution is not leaving any empty corners on the field; always use “covered” or “filled” corners like this:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru3.jpg
or this:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/bombgoingthru4.jpg
The satellites, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/satellites.jpg , are very fast. Shocks are essential for slowing them down.
The airplanes, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/airplane.jpg , are the only air enemies. In my 8k practice, I’ve found that while “simple” Snipers deal less considerably damage to them, even a battalion of 8-10 upgraded Airs (the dedicated anti-air weapon), placed in the center of the gaming field, won’t stop at least the last two, most powerful tides of then-superstrong airplanes. Just putting at least four columns of Snipers and one column (as recommended) of Shocks (in the entrance) will almost completely stop even the last two tides of them.
When I tried placing a massive amount of Airs in the center of the battlefield, I generally lost my 8k games because it’s very important to have as many anti-ground ranged weapons in there . These means, most preferably, Earthquakes backed up (where ice can’t affect them) Snipers as Rocket Launchers can’t be used for anti-air and Cannons, while excellent against enemies coming in a bunch, aren’t as powerful as the mass Earthquake + Sniper combo.
The yellow guys, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/yellowguys.jpg , come in a group as in http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/yellowguysinagroup.jpg. This means Cannons (which do splash damage affecting very adjacent enemies) and, to a lesser degree, Earthquakes are especially useful against them.
The invisible folks, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/invisibleicon.jpg , make it necessary to build Radars on the field. Fortunately, splash damage done by Cannon / Earthquake is effective against them even when invisible if there are visible enemies (very) close to them. I recommend putting two radars in the two entrances (and upgrading them entirely) and another one in the lower right corner to get rid of the remaining ones.
The boss (a black ball - remember the one - see for example THIS - in Epyx’ Impossible Mission?) is worth trying to eliminate at any rate as it gives at least 100 points. That is, try not to bring it to the field with the other enemies so that all your weapons can shoot at it. Also, if the field is doesn’t have many other creeps making it hard to guarantee you can build the tower back, use the tricks like quickly altering the path of these balls by quickly removing a tower - and, when the have come sufficiently close, re-building it. With a loss of 2 dollars a time (if you use a non-upgraded Sniper for the trick), you can give the AI a hard time and keep the two bosses in the maze for quite long, until they indeed get destroyed.
Finally, Ice, http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/iceicon.jpg , is by far the worst enemy: it disables all kinds of weapons (even Radars!) in its close vicinity. A very good counter-measure is not using columns of single or even two weapons, but - horizontally - group your weapons into groups of three. The two external weapons should be Earthquakes and the inner one a Sniper. The majority of my screenshots show exactly this setup. This way, even when the Ice creeps disable the outer Earthquakes, the inner Sniper will still be able to shoot at them. Nevertheless, be prepared to see some of them pass even the strongest weapons. Fortunately, this will only be an issue with the last about two waves - at least in 8k games, if you quickly build up your structures - not leaving out the three-wide walls of weapons as can be seen in the following screenshot:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k.png.jpg
(Note that the full-screen screenshots have all been taken on a desktop PC to make my life easier (compared to all the hassles of taking screenshots on phones...). The game looks exactly the same on VGA devices. On QVGA ones, the sprites aren't high-res and the non-active (game) area is much smaller.)
An example screenshot of showing these creatures locking down the nearby towers (showing a massive attack; that is, swamping the maze on purpose. Of course, you won’t want to do anything like this, particularly not at the end of the game, where not even splash weapons like Earthquakes or Cannons will be able to destroy most of them)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/massattack.jpg
Here, locked-down towers are white.
Tips & tricks
* in 8k games, it’s worth deploying Shocks right at the beginning in the first row so that the enemies are slowed down right at the beginning, giving your weapons much more time to take them out. Also, make sure that if you manage to build up a multi-column defensive structure like the one in the screenshot below:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick1.jpg
then, place some additional Shocks in the points far away from the start because the shock (and the consequential slowdown) goes away after a while. In the above shot, there’s one in the lower right corner and the path is built up in a way that it takes the enemies back to the upper block of several long-range Shocks, making sure that all your enemies are slowed down (again). Of course, the artificial intelligence of the app gives priority to shooting at enemies having been further on the field; that is, in a structure like this the Shocks will shoot at the enemies coming from down and not just entering the field. Of course, this is what one would expect.
I show you three shots of 8k games I successfully completed. Now, based on the rest of this Strategy Guide, you’ll understand why I’ve gone the mass-Earthquake + Sniper route (with some Shocks in addition to slow down the enemies).
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k.png.jpg
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k-2.png.jpg
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/80k-3.png.jpg
* there is a nice trick worth keeping in mind: the game constantly evaluates the shortest path and dynamically re-routes the enemies if it founds a shorter path to the exit. This means if you quickly destroy a tower, the game might re-route the enemies to go through the hole. While this can be pretty dangerous (I’ve lost several games because I wasn’t able to replace the tower fast enough - if you try to build it while there’re enemies on the ground / over it, it won’t work; then, you’ll need to re-select the tower icon to build and try to build it again) if the last (or the just-coming) enemies are still pretty near, if they aren’t, it can pay off by forcing them to go backwards. Some screenshots showing removing a low-cost Sniper (to minimize costs - remember you always lose 20% at every sell) at the top of the center column:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick1.jpg
(the enemies have left the tower but the shortest path to the target would still be through the hole created by removing the tower)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick2.jpg
(the enemies still under the newly-created hole start moving backward, which is also shown by their “faces” looking up. During this, they take extra damage from your weapons they’re passing again)
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick3.jpg
(another screenshot - from a bit later)
Of course, try not to wait too long - rebuild your tower before it’s too late and the enemies start pouring over the new hole:
http://www.winmobiletech.com/072008Towers/trick4.jpg
Problems
CPU usage. While it certainly doesn’t necessarily need 100% CPU, it still uses it (as of the just-released 1.1 version), resulting it most CPU’s chewing through the battery very-very fast. On the desktop, you’ll want to force underclocking; for example, with the free(!) Notebook Hardware Control. For example, on my 1 GHz Centrino-based HP TC1100 tablet, forcing the system to remain at 600 MHz radically decreased overheating and battery usage. You can do the same on non-VGA Windows Mobile devices too (the game is a bit slow on VGA ones). Note that it’s also pretty quickly chews through the batteries on Symbian S60: it consumes about 1.2W (as opposed to the ~0.3W when the game isn’t running and the backlight is on). Finally, also note that, on Symbian, the current version seem to have some sound problems (tested on the v21 Nokia N95).
Speed problems on some high-resolution (VGA) devices. Strangely, it’s pretty slow on my Windows Mobile 6.1-based, 624 MHz / PXA-270 Dell Axim x51v (which is one of the, unfortunately, very few models to come with a hardware underclocker utility built-in) - definitely slower than on the PXA310-based, VGA iPAQ 210. (This means underclocking the Axim to 208 MHz renders the game plain unplayable). I had no speed problems running it on QVGA devices (the 195 MHz TI OMAP 850-based WM 6.1 HTC Wizard and the 400 MHz PXA-255-based WM2003 HP iPAQ 2210), on the other hand.
No upgrade info is given on the new range and strength - unlike with some of the comparable games; most importantly, Desktop Tower Defense (see below). With the former, only beforehand - after the upgrade, you’ll already see the new range by clicking the tower. An example of this is shown HERE, where the last-but-one Sniper is selected having all the upgrades and, therefore, a very impressive range.
It’s not possible to cancel the process of selling a tower. This is really bad as it’s very easy to click selling a tower on a Pocket PC (this is less of an issue on non-touchscreen platforms and desktop Windows). If enemies start pouring over the newly-created hole, you may be doomed and may need to restart the game. And, if no such thing happens, you still need to purchase the tower again (and upgrade it if necessary), which means a loss of 20% money.
The good
Multiplatform (both WinMo platforms, Symbian S60v3 and desktop Windows)
Hi-res on VGA (albeit can be a bit slow on some devices)
Really-really addictive
Trial version not crippled and can be started several times before it expires
Online high score table
Compared to Desktop Tower Defense:
You may already know Desktop Tower Defense (DTD for short). It has a bit similar weapons and strategy to use; for example, DTD doesn’t have any invisible enemies. A quick comparison between its weapons and their Towers Trap counterparts:
Pellet Tower = Sniper
Squirt Tower = no real counterpart (it isn’t an equivalent of Rocket Launcher as the latter is anti-ground only)
Dart Tower = Cannon (with the same splash damage)
Swarm Tower = Air
Frost Tower = Shock (with splash damage; Shock doesn’t have splash damage, unfortunately)
Note that as it doesn’t have anything like the icy enemy (locking down nearby towers), the TDD example mazes available for example HERE aren’t as useful under Towers Trap. You may still want to give them a look.
Unfortunately, there’re no hotkeys in Towers Trap, not even with the help of external button redefiner apps to, for example, quickly start the next round etc. In this respect, TDD is definitely better. Hope this shortcoming will also be fixed.
Production of this Android Smart Ring can start soon as soon as some Big Device manufacturer lays his eyes on this ( I mean when he/she gets to know about this project ). Hopefully Google should be attracted towards this
The Android Smart Ring is an inspired device from smart-watches but has an unique Design,Specifications and can do beyond possibilities.
Watch Video HERE
I am an College Student who got this project Idea. I just want to give this project a Go and see if I can make it a success. I wanna give people a whole new experience of Technology. It's a unique Idea which has never been done, if previously it's done then that must be not as good as this one. The Android Smart Ring features a curved 720p display, Bluetooth v4.0, NFC, High Clarity Speakers, Microphone, powered by 1GHz processor, 512MB RAM, couple of required sensors, has Transistors (acting as a battery which requires no charging) and this ring runs on Android KitKat (or) Android Wear (in near future).
Keep Sharing this Idea and let each and every men know about it. Help me making this Idea an reality Thanks for all your support in advance.
I don't think I understand how you intend to incorporate a 720 P display on a small ring along with a whole bunch of other hardware
I don't think we have hardware capabilities to make your idea feasible at this point
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
thesparky007 said:
I don't think I understand how you intend to incorporate a 720 P display on a small ring along with a whole bunch of other hardware
I don't think we have hardware capabilities to make your idea feasible at this point
Sent from my HTC One using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
What this dude says is true. It's only possible if you created a time travelling machine and travel to the future and retrieve the techology from there, now this is definitely a viable and possible option for you homie.
Okay.. Wait a min. So, you guys think that this isn't possible. Let me tell you one thing, you must have heard about Phonebloks, right ? Was it possible back then ? Hell no, now Google has taken the project and made it possible. So, nothing is impossible
I would think scale down what you are expecting out of it, maybe not 720P display. Start small, and work your way up. See if you can get a working prototype first even with a basic display that might be small, because 720P is quite a big ask for what I would imagine to be a very small device.
Analyse it from every possible angle and lens you can think of. Here are some examples to start you off: Technical ability of construction, marketing, corporate usage, end user.
Here are some examples:
Technical:
Start trying to see if you can get electronic components small enough to even complete something like this first. If you can, what's the limit available today? Maybe you can't get a speaker small enough, so you work around not having that. Work out where your limits are.
Then let's say with marketing: Who are you trying to sell it to? How can you convince them to buy it? Does it provide any perceived value (not necessarily actual value), or will people see it as an expensive paperweight?
Corporate usage: Could you display advertisements on it without being too intrusive from general functions? Could it be used in a corporate setting, add any value to business running?
End user: Will it be comfortable and easy to use throughout every phase including charging, or would it overheat and cause discomfort? Will it last? Can it be adjusted to suit the needs of people (e.g. different finger sizes).
Give this a thought, and work out if you can provide solutions to every aspect, and identify potential problems BEFORE you even hit the market. You wouldn't want to go through extreme difficulty to process and manufacture it, and in the end it flops badly because of overpriced/poor quality, or maybe simply nobody wants one.
thedeejay said:
I would think scale down what you are expecting out of it, maybe not 720P display. Start small, and work your way up. See if you can get a working prototype first even with a basic display that might be small, because 720P is quite a big ask for what I would imagine to be a very small device.
Analyse it from every possible angle and lens you can think of. Here are some examples to start you off: Technical ability of construction, marketing, corporate usage, end user.
Here are some examples:
Technical:
Start trying to see if you can get electronic components small enough to even complete something like this first. If you can, what's the limit available today? Maybe you can't get a speaker small enough, so you work around not having that. Work out where your limits are.
Then let's say with marketing: Who are you trying to sell it to? How can you convince them to buy it? Does it provide any perceived value (not necessarily actual value), or will people see it as an expensive paperweight?
Corporate usage: Could you display advertisements on it without being too intrusive from general functions? Could it be used in a corporate setting, add any value to business running?
End user: Will it be comfortable and easy to use throughout every phase including charging, or would it overheat and cause discomfort? Will it last? Can it be adjusted to suit the needs of people (e.g. different finger sizes).
Give this a thought, and work out if you can provide solutions to every aspect, and identify potential problems BEFORE you even hit the market. You wouldn't want to go through extreme difficulty to process and manufacture it, and in the end it flops badly because of overpriced/poor quality, or maybe simply nobody wants one.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Well, I haven't just though about the production and all because I ain't ready to do that, I just provided a concept (or) an Idea and asked people to share it if they liked it and then maybe in the future a company might notice this Idea and bring it to reality. I never thought of bringing this thing to production by myself (coz I ain't a rich guy). Speaking of the speaker, it can be replaced with vibration alert which will be more effective (it can be annoying too) for people to never miss an message alert (or) call alert or whatever notifications you get.
When talking about marketing and corporate usage, well there's always a way to target everyone around you for it. However, it just requires an simple yet effective Idea to present in front of the public and it won't be expensive (deduction of specs to low-end ones would help).
Of course, it will be comfortable and easy to use. It's just same as your usual ring replaced by this Tech things from which you can see what's going on your device without a need to take a look at it by taking out it from your pocket. It's just a device which shows you alerts about your notifications and allows you to send messages directly to your colleague by using microphone (voice messaging service).
I Hope you are satisfied. Feel free to ask more questions, I am happy to assist you and NOTE :- It's just and Idea which I haven't thought to bring in production by myself.
Beyond B78 Fashion Smartphone can't read some character Blackberry Messenger
How do I cope with Blackberry Messenger and unicode autotext chinese letters sometimes appear on smartphones B78 beyond fashion? I 've been dressing droidsansfallback.ttf from 9MB to 22MB in size but nothing matched, whereas the Galaxy smartphone chat droidsansfallback.ttf 13.7 MB in size can read all Unicode characters.
The character I mean for example:
♪ ♫ * ¨ * ❤ * ¨ * ● ๋ • тєηgкソ υ 4 ѕнαяιηg ● ๋ • * ¨ * ❤ * ¨ * ♫ ♪ ˙ · 0 • ● ♥ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ♥ ● • • ● ♥ Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ ♥ ● • 0 · ˙ ♥ ♠ ѕє ℓ αмαт мα ℓ αм ѕαнαвαт ♥ ♠ ヾ( ¯ ▽ )ゞ
( ( ( ' ^ Ω ^ ` ) ) ) J ( 'ー` )し( ● '艸` ) ☆ L ( ' ▽ ` L ) ♪ ( o_ _ )ノ 彡 ☆ ♪ ( * ¯ ω ¯ ) v ( .つ ∀ ≦ . )
(゚c_ ,゚` . )フ( ' , `ノ) (艸^ ^ ) ( ≧ 艸 ≦ * ) ƪ ( ~ ε ~ ) ʃ ƪ ( ▿ ) ʃ ƪ ( ~ ε ~ " ) ʃ ▹ ( ⌣ ) ◃ ƪ ( ˘ ε ˘ " ) ʃ ( o · _ · )ノ" ( ⌣ _ ⌣ .. )
*ƪ ( ^ ε ^ ) ʃ ╭ ╮ ( ¯ , ¯ " ) ╭ ╮ ( ⌒ ˛ ⌒ )
usually if there are characters who do not read the text box will appear, but in my case the emergence of China. Please Help..
i‘m yedos
that's alittle bit like having an idea of something that's implanted in your eye
ive got an idea, its called the eye phone
what you get is a new retina
with the hardware inplanted into your brain
not sure of the hardware yet,,but the concept is there
also you can have a fax machine incorporated to
this fax comes out your bumbum
Just the part about a small 720p curved display, it can be done for sure but at the cost thats can scale into production? I don't think so! if it was Samsung would already make this kind of device
sent from Carina Nebula with my Nexus 5 inter dimensional cruiser...
I think you need to do some searching and find out for yourself that current technology is not there yet.
Google some of the components you're saying will be in the devices, then look at the smallest ones available. It's just not going to work.
Transistors? They won't be large enough to drive the hardware, if you can find them that will fit in a ring.
720p screen? Why? It's on a ring. Anything at that resolution is going to be UNBELIEVABLY SMALL.
High Clarity speakers? Aside from being extremely vague, you show that you have no idea how this technology works. Get some bose earbuds. Their quality is great. Then again, look how big they are. If they could make them smaller, they would. Hell, even hearing aids aren't that small, and their quality is acceptable at best.
1ghz cpu? Find me a 1ghz ARM cpu at this size. They're not available yet. The manufacturing process just isn't available.
512mb ram? Again. The chips aren't going to fit.
Maybe you can get some of these things into a ring, but definitely not all of them. The technology just isn't there yet. I don't mean to discourage you from your goal, but you really just need to be smart about it. Patent your idea, and keep your eyes and ears on the tech world. Be realistic. When the technology is available, you can bring your product to market.
One of the primary reasons I purchased this phone was for its TriCam System which has the ability to create point clouds of data which in turn can be made into a 3D mesh. There are a few apps out that take advantage of this system:
Matterport Scenes (point clouds)
Constructor (creates object mesh with texture file)
Open Constructor (needs some work)
Scandy Pro (creates object mesh)
Of these 4 apps I prefer Constructor. It seems to do a good job of accurately mapping areas and objects. Scans are best taken on non shiny objects that are in areas not brightly lit. This is true for almost all 3D scanners. The scanner in this phone is no where near as accurate as some of the commercial options available today, but can do some impressive things.
Below are some links to scans I took while on vacation in Chicago. I did not clean them up at all and these are the raw files from Constructor. Some of the exhibits in Art Institute of Chicago were most ideal for the phones depth sensing technology. I was able to get some decent detail out of clay and marble sculptures.
Boar Incarnation of God Vishnu:
https://skfb.ly/6tDGp
Statue of the Aphrodite of Knidos(Sorry about the artifacts... I may clean this one up in MeshLab):
https://skfb.ly/6tDGU
That is way cool!
Thanks for a great post dantegl36.
You write that the Asus AR is not as accurate as other devices. Have you been doing some test? What other proffesional devices are you thinking of? DOTDPI?
//Niels
Hello,
I don't (yet ?) own a PVG100. Therefore, I cannot help with PVG100 hacking.
But I may be of some help nonetheless : I have been (and am still) using a tiny Android phone (Sony-Ericsson Xperia Active, 3 inch screen) for 8 years.
I want to share the best apps I found for small screen Android phones, including PVG100. And I am sure that other folks have good apps to share too !
Please share here !
First, an application that is a must have on all tiny phones. I wouldn't buy a tiny phone that cannot run it.
MessagEase is a VERY different keyboard.
Instead of a myriad of tiny QWERTY keys, it features a small number of big keys.
It is like a numeric keypad, but every key has multiple uses. It depends if you tap it or swipe it or tap-and-hold it.
It takes a few days to get used to it, but when you feel comfortable with it, you wonder how you could use your phone without it.
Try it. Don't drop it after 5 minutes. You will be rewarded.
You can customize letter (and special characters) placement, color, appearance and the size of the keys.
Exideas (the editor of MessagEase) even provides key placements (and word dictionaries) optimized for various languages.
It has a drawback, though : the suggested words are not always the ones you would think of (at least in french). But since you don't make as many typos as with a QWERTY keyboard, suggestions are not as important.
Second, a fully customizable application dedicated to sports (not only biking).
With IpBike, you can select what parameters you want to display, and choose size and placement.
I use it a lot with my phone GPS and an ANT+ heart rate sensor when I hike or run or skate, and with ANT+ cadence & speed sensors on bikes.
If the PVG100 is not ANT+ capable, IpBike is also compatible with Bluetooth sensors.
You can display a map (and follow a GPX trace), record your trip, read graphs on your phone. It is very complete.
Its drawback is that, past 2000 km, you must buy IpBikeKey, a Key program to unlock IpBike.
A small, light and waterproof phone like the PVG100 is well suited for activity monitoring. IpBike is well suited for small (and big) phones.