Enkin for Android - After the Challenge

[xtrawurst]

Hello,

a few weeks ago we announced Enkin, a novel navigation system for
Android and an entry to the first round of the Android Developers
Challenge
(http://groups.google.com/group/android-challenge/browse_thread/thread/
66418b8cc4ce6504/d8acdf6efcc42c98?lnk=gst&q=enkin#d8acdf6efcc42c98).

Since then, our project has received lots of attention from techblogs,
newssites and print media all over the world. We received tons of
emails from prospective users and deveopers asking for first release
dates or technical details or just letting us know their ideas and
their excitement about the project.

As you may have already noticed, we were not elected as a Top 50
application by the ADC judges.
But although this was somewhat disappointing there is also good news
to spread: We have been contacted by Google, who share the same
excitement about Enkin as the web during the last few weeks.
There is definetly more to come and for the those who want to read
more about Enkin, keep track of the development or just want to share
our personal thoughts we have set up a blog:

http://enkinblog.blogspot.com/

We really appreciated all the inspiring emails some of you wrote us.
So if you feel excited about the project or have some questions, feel
free to write a comment to our blog.

Rafael

[javqui]

Congratulations, it's the best award for your work.

javqui

[efon...@gmail.com]

Thank you, and yes we did notice, and wonder.

[jaro]

hehe Enkin is AWESOME!!
Congratulations to you guys, if i was a judge, i would give full
score.
And this is what OHA is looking for (at least i thought so). Sad that
the judging process ended like this:
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2008/05/challenge-in-more-than-one-way.html

What about to make a developers round? Kinda unofficial one.
May be silly idea but at least some more clarity would be cast on all
this.

I know OHA follows some business plans but at the end public will
decide what to buy.

[jalopy]

Good job guys!. We all like Enkin.
You guys deserve the special treatment from Google.

[Hong]

This is GREAT news!!!  Enkin rocks!

[Dan T.]

Yeah congratulations !

I was amazed enkin didn't do it...


Plus you are the first to be contacted that's amazing ! :)

[jman]

Enkin is one of my 20+ favorites that did not make it to Top 50.
Sadly, some dedicated pro developers had to see their apps ranked
below some simple apps in Top 50 that could be done within 2 or 3
hours like weather, etc

[Shamim]

All the blockblaster movie doesn't win the OSkar , am I right?

> > Rafael- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Anil]

What is amazing about Enkin is, that it is not just talk - you
actually have a camera/accelerometer set up.
It is like having a navigator sitting on your shoulder!

On May 19, 11:26 am, xtrawurst <rafael.Spr...@web.de> wrote:

[xtrawurst]

We are currently thinking about what our next demo video for Enkin
will be like.
If you have any ideas for it, feel free to tell us!

[Steve Oldmeadow]

On May 22, 4:59 am, xtrawurst <rafael.Spr...@web.de> wrote:
> We are currently thinking about what our next demo video for Enkin
> will be like.
> If you have any ideas for it, feel free to tell us!
>

More robots!!!!!

[Joa]

On May 19, 9:26 am, xtrawurst <rafael.Spr...@web.de> wrote:
> Hello,
>

Hey guys,
I really liked your approach when I saw it the first time.
I hope you can get this going (so you don't have to plug it or post
Google ads on your page ;->).

Keep up the good work you should feel good about yourselves. Dem
Ingenieur ist nichts zu schwoer!

JP

[Anil]

child walks down a dark road. buildings around dark cannot see where
she is going.
only sillhouettes visible. Show scary people in evil costumes looking
at her. she holds up her phone and the building glows "Home!", lit up
by Enkin.
Extra:
She presses the location on the touch sensitive screen.
Her father sees on the enkin screen of his Android phone, that his
daughter is outside here.
He runs out and gets her.
------------

About your current demo - since there is no GPS right now, was the
video edited to add the Google maps street view and coordinates? Does
enkin do some sort of edge detection for the buildings - how is it
able to label the buildings - or does Google Maps tag the images in
street view?
thanks,
Anil

[kurosh]

HMM used in speech and handwriting recognition.
MRF used for depth extraction from 2D images provides better
quantitative results than HEH or SCN

kurosh

[xtrawurst]

people with costumes... we'll think about that : )

The scenes that you see in the demo video were done without image
feature detection. There was no room to include that while having all
the socket streaming and video capturing in the background.
The project documentation (www.enkin.net/Enkin.pdf) is pretty
detailed, too, so you might want to have a look.

[Anil]

On May 24, 5:18 am, xtrawurst <rafael.Spr...@web.de> wrote:
>
> The scenes that you see in the demo video were done without image
> feature detection. There was no room to include that while having all

I mean, how did you map the image of a building in the camera
viewfinder, to the street view tag of that building provided by Google
Maps?

[xtrawurst]

Positioning- and orientation-information is obtained from the sensors,
the GPS and some internet querys. This gives us a camera coordinate
system. What you see in the demo video is a plain perspective
projection of the 3D-content onto the camera plane.