Android Apps for Travelling

Today is a start of a 2 days trip to Bacakan, Jogja and FOWAB, Bandung. For this reason, I started hunting for Android apps that are tailored made for travelers. Definitely the kind of apps offer travel-ease and maybe some local content if available. By the way, I haven’t used all of them extensively but worthy of installation nevertheless. So let’s start with the list! Wikitude - wikitude.org This is the first app that came into mind. Also one of my 7 must-haves. With its Augmented Reality feature, I'm sure it'll give me a different experience. Someday I'll be layering for them when the time is right. They have Indonesian contents but I'm not sure it'll be large enough to cover Jakarta-Solo-Jogja-Bandung. Let's find out then ;) My Augmented Reality - mobikats.com Now this is a handy app. It basically gets geo coordinates from GPS of your location and lets you tag the location. This will be my number one app for geotagging. 3D Compass - android.a0soft.com Thanks to HTC, my Android has its own compass. With this app, I'm sure it'll be a neat survival tool if I ever get lost. Lookator - loftdev.com A very cool app to scan for Wifi APs and show you where it is and if you ever get low signals, just head towards the AP in Augmented Reality view to get stronger signals. Need Internet, this is a Must! TravelCamerAR - futurescope.jp This app will take pictures using the camera hardware and automatically geotag the pictures taken. By the way, it's another Augmented Reality app. I just love AR. AugSatNav - phyora.com One of the best Turn-by-Turn Augmented Reality navigation app for Android. Once I found a cool place to go, I need to know how to get there! Used this app over and over to look for addresses while driving. Very useful and a Must Have! Twidroyd - twidroyd.com I need to tweet so a Twitter client is a Must Have. Java here I come :p So there you go. My must-haves for travelling with an Android!

July 29, 2010 · Batista Harahap

Poligamy AR - Redesigned UI - by @andreasfendri

Hi everyone. This past few weeks, a friend of mine @andreasfendri is working on a renewed UX for Poligamy AR. I am in debt with him and please accept my thanks ndre :) Back to Poligamy AR, it’s a needed refreshment from the standard Android UI set. The design is now featuring custom made tabs and list view. Looking at the design initially, I was impressed with Andre’s touch of modern UI and combining it with wooden elements. ...

July 1, 2010 · Batista Harahap

Istri ketiga, keempat dan kelima AR

Sebelum mulai dengan artikel ini, saya refresh dulu memori istri-istri AR. Istri ketiga dan keempat AR jika disatukan menjadi Mobile Location Based Service dan say hello kepada istri kelima AR yaitu WWW alias World Wide Web atau yang biasa dikenal sebagai Web. Melalui kedua video sebelumnya, dapat anda saksikan sebuah aplikasi Android yang memanfaatkan hampir semua istri AR sejauh ini dalam satu aplikasi. Dengan menggunakan fitur-fitur deteksi lokasi yang terdapat pada hampir semua smartphone saat ini, AR telah berubah menjadi sebuah aplikasi yang memberikan pratayang kepada kita semua tentang masa depan. ...

May 21, 2010 · Batista Harahap

Poligamy AR - Now Available at Android Market

Yippy now Poligamy is available at Android Market globally :) Need everyone’s help to tear down and find bugs with the app so I decided to publish it. I’m game for a bug huting session! By using your own Android Market app, search for Poligamy or Augmented Reality as the search terms. Better yet, you can scan the QR code below and it will take you to the app. [caption id=“attachment_363” align=“aligncenter” width=“248” caption=“Poligamy-qr”][/caption] ...

May 17, 2010 · Batista Harahap

Augmented Reality App: Poligamy - In Action

Hello again. Happy Sunday everyone! I compiled a video about Poligamy in action. It basically features the barebones of Poligamy. The location data is courtesy of URBANESIA.com. Thanks bro :) [vsw id="ia9ArARK_jM" source="youtube" width="425" height="344" autoplay="no"] This video is meant to show the world that Indonesia is right on track technologically speaking. Poligamy is powered by Mediafusion Interactive Communication and a box of The Laughing Cow Belcube - Cheese Spread Cubes. Enjoy!

May 16, 2010 · Batista Harahap

[HELP] Beta Testers Wanted for an Android App

Good evening all. Continuing my Guest Post at DailySocial.net, I’m beta testing an Android app titled Poligamy lol. Need your help :) It’s an app to test real world HTTP connections and also to test Location-related features. I added an Augmented Reality viewer to trigger your geek souls hehe. Poligamy is built upon the Urbanesia class I posted before. It gets its POI data from Urbanesia and distribute the data into 3 main parts of the app which are List View, Map View and Augmented Reality View. It’s still in its early stages so it’s not too fancy, will do fancy things after it’s rock solid :) ...

May 15, 2010 · Batista Harahap

Poligami ala Augmented Reality

Akhir-akhir ini saya yakin sudah sering mendengar istilah Augmented Reality (Realitas Tertambah). Jika ditelusuri perkembangannya, aplikasi AR sudah ada jauh sejak generasi HP dengan kamera terintegrasi. Menurut Wikipedia (Bahasa Indonesia), AR jika kita lihat definisinya adalah sebagai berikut: Realitas tertambah, atau kadang dikenal dengan singkatan bahasa Inggrisnya AR (augmented reality), adalah teknologi yang menggabungkan benda maya tiga dimensi ke dalam sebuah lingkungan nyata tiga dimensi dan menampilkannya dalam waktu nyata. Saya kira definisinya dalam Bahasa Indonesia kurang tepat jika dibandingkan dengan definisi Bahasa Inggris menurut Wikipedia: Augmented reality (AR) is a term for a live direct or indirect view of a physical real-world environment whose elements are augmented by virtual computer-generated imagery. Masih ingat HP Nokia pertama yang terintegrasi dengan kamera? Keypadnya bundar :) Pasti ingat dengan Nokia 3650. Hampir semua HP Nokia termasuk dengan 3650 memiliki aplikasi kamera dimana kita bisa menambahkan Frame sesuai dengan yang tersedia di aplikasi tersebut. Itu adalah bentuk AR primitif pertama. Saat itu AR masih lajang. Dengan semakin berkembangnya teknologi baik di desktop dan mobile, AR mulai dikawinkan dengan teknologi-teknologi lain yang pada akhirnya mempunyai keturunan yang jauh lebih berguna dan menarik dibanding orangtuanya. ...

May 13, 2010 · Batista Harahap

Augmented Reality with #Wikitude API

I told you before that I’m gonna talk about another Augmented Reality framework. The framework is a great product from one of Augmented Reality’s early adopter namely Wikitude. Generally speaking, it’s more complicated than Mixare but offers more customization and definitely more features. I’m gonna build this tutorial with the following features: External Data Source - I'm using JSON from Urbanesia.com API. In-app WebView bindings - To display WebViews of any POIs URL. I haven't explore all the possibilities within Wikitude's API because of its lack of documentation. I'm really interested in its ability to handle Callbacks from clicked POIs. Haven't got the time to do so. That'll be another chapter of my tutorials. So to start off, for every project, you must include Wikitude’s API in your apps. Download it from here and get an API key while you’re at it. ...

May 12, 2010 · Batista Harahap

Another #Mixare Snippet

Lately, there’s been quite an amount of traffic to my blog related to Mixare. So I figure why not share more insights. You are most welcomed to share too by commenting this or other Mixare posts. To be honest, I’ve been focusing my efforts with another yet closed source Augmented Reality viewer in Android. I will post a tutorial soon. From all the frameworks I got my hands on, I must say Mixare is the simplest and most definitely easier to implement than any other frameworks. I accentuated simple because the app itself is still very simple and in its early stages of development. I would be happy to have the ability to replace the circles in every POIs with an icon of my own. It’s a viewer, that’s it (for now). ...

May 12, 2010 · Batista Harahap

Mixare Augmented Reality Tutorial

Good evening to you guys before I start. [flashvideo file=http://www.bango29.com/mixare.flv /] I’ve been in guerilla mode for Augmented Reality solutions these past few weeks and I found Mixare to be one of the best to date. It’s Open Source and have put enough knowledge in my head to make my own app. I wanna share the knowledge I got from Mixare. This is my contribution. Before starting, please make sure you have all the requirements of a regular Android development environment. I’m using Eclipse Galileo with Android SDK Tools Revision 5. My target build is for Android 2.1 API Level 7. ...

April 26, 2010 · Batista Harahap