While the Apple iPad Tablet announcement last month was disappointing for augmented reality developers and enthusiasts, the details about the upcoming Dell Tablet will make you salivate.
The Mini 5 will have a five inch touchscreen with both front and user facing cameras allowing full augmented reality capabilities. WiFi and 3G connectivity allow enough bandwidth and the 1.0 GHz Snapdragon Qualcomm processor will give the Mini 5 the juice it needs to power resource-expensive AR apps. It’ll run the latest version of the Android OS which gives it AR credentials right away since there are many apps already made for that system.
The price plan will affect the market that it’s trying to fill, though Dell says they will price it “competitively”. But I don’t think I could have asked for better features from a tablet for augmented reality. The weight of the device might impact AR since holding it up will be harder than a smartphone and since it’s a touchscreen, will you want to hold it with one hand and navigate with the other? I hope some AR developers can incorporate voice commands into their games and products.
And while the screen might be too small in this version, they have eluded to a suite of tablet products so maybe a larger iPad sized version might come out in the future. Personally, I already have a free smartphone from work, so a tablet that does different things on a bigger screen would be appealing to me.
Will this be a killer device for AR? Probably not. But it’ll give developers a bigger landscape to play on and increase the number of AR devices on the market. The front facing camera certainly makes is a no-brainer for video conferencing. Just add some facial recognition and you can talk to your kids while out on the road with bunny ears attached to your head.
[Via Wired]
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Apple, augmented reality, Dell, iPad, mini 5, Wired |
Games Alfresco 
Sorry but this is still not the adequate device for AR : holding up a smartphone or tablet in front of you just doesn’t make it. We need see-thru glasses or equivalent to make mobile AR really usable and appealing, and so far the majority of Android devices have lacked AV outputs….
True we need opticaly transparent hmds, but I think its the best we got for now.
That said
“and so far the majority of Android devices have lacked AV outputs….”
Standard AV output isnt any good. I think Ive said before, but you need information flowing both ways, as well as 2 channel RGBA. Normal a/v would be impossible for this.
Android devices do tend to have miniusb which is a better option for now. (allthough that might well lack capacity for decent resolutions, its at least possible to use).
What we really need (I think) is something like a fire-wire port. Something with the capacity needed as well as tilt information being able to flow back to the phone to calculate the 3d overlays angle.
[…] the iPad, Thomas put together some information on a promising alternative – the Dell Tablet Mini 5. Check out his comments at gamesalfresco or at his […]
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