Tag: wishlist

3D AR- why Nintendo needs to open the API/SDK

Last night I gave my very first impressions of the new nintendo 3DS on The Daily Dose. It has me all excited and the more I mess with/play with/use it, the more I develop strong thoughts on what else I want the 3DS to do.

As I played with the AR games and FaceRaiders, I realized that this was the first example of truly engaging AR I have played with. I have spent a lot of time with Layars apps and other AR apps, but they all left me unfulfilled and fairly unimpressed. But as simplistic as they are, the 3DS AR games keep me coming back. The 3D element makes a big difference. FaceRaiders had my non-gaming, non-geek daughter enthralled for almost 2 hours last night. I immediately knew that I wanted to play with this interface, to build apps around it, so I went out to the Nintendo developer site. To apply for approved developer status ( and get access to SDK, etc..) you have to have a development site that is NOT a residence, has a certain level of security ( badge access, etc..)
Here is the excerpt:

Developer Qualifications: An Authorized Developer will have demonstrated the ability to develop and program excellent software for Nintendo video game systems or for other game platforms. In addition, an Authorized Developer will have a stable business organization with secure office facilities separate from a personal residence ( Home offices do not meet this requirement ), sufficient resources to insure the security of Nintendo confidential information and in order to ensure an effective environment for working with Nintendo and/or its Publishers. Nintendo provides Authorized Developers with highly confidential information and many of Nintendo’s Publishers also rely on recommendations and referrals to Authorized Developers. For these reasons, Nintendo exercises a very high level of care in evaluating Authorized Developers.

This immediately eliminates most startups, indie developers, home coders and educational organizations. WTH? When developers were creating multi-day play console games that required great security, this may have made sense. But when you want people to make short, quick play games this level of investment in infrastructure will never make sense, and you will get fewer organizations interested in trying really new experimental ideas.

I want Nintendo to open up an SDK that allows all developers to create small, quick play games. This can be separate from the larger,longer cased and hard media encoded game SDK. There are so many things that innovative small independent developers would do with the 3D AR capabilities here, and I want to watch it Thrive.

Here are some of the cool things you could do:

1.

Have a business card application that reads a QR code or other image on business cards to put 3D game or interaction in the user’s hands. Can you imagine if I could point my 3DS at your business card and get a full walk around of your product with schematics? If you gave me a fun, quick promo game?

2. Angry Birds and Tiny Wings in 3D. Need I say more?

3. Make an application that allows you to create Side by Side stereoscope images of the 3D pictures you take with the 3DS

4. make an application that reads barcodes and use them in a 3D game

5. ….?????

This is just a start with the little I have played with the 3D AR short games. I know many other creative ideas would come from the small developer, indie game community. But Nintendo will not let them in to play. I suppose eventually one of the other platforms will catch up and allow developers to leapfrog forward- maybe I should start saving for an Evo 3D this summer…..

Google Wave Bots I wish I knew

Building off of a previous post talking about the separation of data from application on Google Wave, here is my list of Bots I would most like to be able to include in a Google Wave (watch back later for Gadgets and Extensions):

1)Gluebot. This would be a robot from Adaptive Blue that taps into the Glue data and API. This means that when I am writing in a Wave, it is listening and when I mention an item, it inserts the Glue profile page for that item. It should also allow me to query interactively for recommendations. For example, if I am writing an article on Imogen Heap, I should be able to type in and the bot will substitute in the correct data. If I have also included a shopping bot, it should be able to interact with that bot as well to give me best place to buy.

2. Secure CheckbookBot. This bot would need to be completely secure and have access to the data flow from my bank account. As I interact with shopping bots, it will record the transaction and keep my checkbook register up to date and in sync

3. PersonalDataBot. This bot will know all the personal things I can not remember about the people I interact with. Not because I manually typed it in, but gleaned from all of their other social networking interactions. It will know their birthday, their anniversary, that their kid is sick or their spouse just got fired. It will remember where they went for vacation, and if they commented back to me recently. It would show this data in a private ( HUD-like) display as I am collaborating with people.. showing me select images or reminders on special occaisions. ( yes, I fully expect this one to freak people out.. but that big pile of data is out there, why not actually coordinate and use it?)

4. DataTransformBot. We are starting down this path already. There is a simple Maths bot that will take 5*4 and subsitute 20 in the wave. But I want this one to do more. And probably, it will have to be a collection of bots to start with. Here is the basic starter request list:
a) currency translator (like Rosie, but for dollars instead of words. I
type in my currency, the bot auto translates to the appropriate currency
for the viewer)
b) complex Math ( there is a LaTex bot, but how about the equivalent of a
natural Language bot for math?)
c) unit conversion ( metric to english and vice versa are the first start)

5. TranscriptionBot. If I include an audio file in a wav with an indicator, it subsitutes/includes the transcription

6. SemanticSearchBot- will do Semantic Search where I indicate and substitute the results. Natural Language would be icing on this cake.

7. CodeTranslationBot. People have started writing syntax checking bots already ( handy when they work well), but I want one that I can paste in code from one language and it will give me first pass at my language of choice. I am willing to have it limited to matching language types at first pass… Object oriented to other OO, scripting to other scripting, etc..

(edit. corrected this is not an official Google site ( see comment below) but still very useful)
You can find a very cool and useful Wiki of Bots , but what Bot would you add to conversations if it existed?