RedLaser 2.6 is now available on the App Store. This update has a number of enhancements, including:

• Multiple scan toggle switch:  This mode makes RedLaser act like a checkout scanner.  Scan an item and move onto the next without pressing any buttons.  This is good for cataloging your entire bookshelf or rapidly zapping several items without having to wait for RedLaser to search for prices.
• Local library search:  This feature actually launched before 2.6, but we never had a chance to announce it on the blog.  RedLaser now searches WorldCat, the world’s largest library catalog, to find books at local libraries.  Check out the TV spot on this feature by NBC 4 Columbus.
• Improved startup speed and less memory use: RedLaser’s more efficient with its memory use during scanning and during normal product browsing, and it also starts up a bit faster.

And keep your eye out for Repo Men movie posters like the one below.  If you look in the corner, you’ll see a barcode, and right below it the text “ACTIVATE WITH REDLASER.”  RedLaser exclusively displays actual product listings for the artificial organs, or Artiforgs, that are the subject of the upcoming Repo Men movie starring Jude Law and Forest Whitaker.

You can scan them with RedLaser 2.5, but RedLaser 2.6 will automatically activate the Artiforg product details when you scan these posters which are scattered around the country.

Additional notes: For advanced Custom Apps users, we’ve made it possible to put a “Scan” button inside your RedLaser custom app.  This is nice if you want to create a web-based utility where users can scan multiple items without needing to exit RedLaser every time.

Sumocat from GottaBeMobile posted about of how he used RedLaser to organize his office by cutting the clutter of loose books.   The before/after image he included with the post was so cool that we couldn’t help from posting it here as well.

I grabbed a book, scanned its barcode, put it in the box, then confirmed the search results matched. …  Once I filled a box, I numbered it, emailed the list to my work email, and cleared the list for the next box.

Check out the imagery.  The only thing that could be better than the super RedLaser arrow with drop shadow would be a timelapse video showing the the whole process.

Messy -> RedLaser + Boxes -> Organized

What I really like about this is that this is exactly the organization system I’d like to use for all sorts of physical items, like massive (print) photo collections, and souvenirs that you don’t want to throw away but also really don’t want to waste shelf space for. The challenge is speeding up the electronic cataloging process so that it’s easy to do this.  Thanks for showing us how RedLaser can help with that!

When we launched the first realtime barcode scanner for the iPhone a few weeks ago, it only worked on UPC codes (no books or European codes) and had trouble with curved barcodes.

We’re excited to announce that with our latest update, RedLaser 2.2, realtime mode now supports EAN (books / European codes) AND solves the problems with curved barcodes!  We’ve also made improvements to the UI based on feedback from all of our users.

Developers, get going! The SDK has been updated with the latest recognition code, and it no longer requires an internet connection to work since scanning happens completely on the phone.

Here is a full list of all the new features/improvements:

1. Realtime scanning for EAN and curved codes (Photo scan mode is now gone because it’s not needed).
2. Increased speed and less memory usage.
3. Emailing occurs within the app – no need to exit.
4. Email contains an attachment with a list of barcodes for import into other software.
5. “Clear” button to quickly start a new list.
6. Setting to turn off autosearch to allow quick scanning of several products to email or search later.
7. Manual entry support for 6-8 digit UPCs and 8 digit EANs. These are the only UPC/EAN codes we can’t scan currently. They’re rare, but now you can at least enter them manually if needed.

We’ve submitted 2.2 to Apple for approval, and it will be available on the App Store soon. If you’re an app reviewer and would like to try it before it goes live, contact us at info@occipital.com.

Here are some examples of codes that now work great with RedLaser 2.2 realtime scanning:

Book (EAN) with 3G	Curved UPC with 3GS
Book (EAN) with 3G	Unfortunately we can't scan humans ..... yet*

*Andrew Hyde’s attempt to scan Jeremy Tanner.

Today’s pedestrian navigation relies heavily on top-down maps, and hasn’t yet made the leap to 3D point-of-view navigation like many in-car systems have.  A major reason for this is that GPS+compass navigation lacks the precision needed to create a compelling experience on a handheld device.  Several meters and several degrees of error creates an unpleasant jittery experience — even in-car systems occasionally make mistakes about what road you’re on — and the acceptable precision on the road is a lot lower than on foot.

So how do you build an inexpensive navigation system that is sub-meter precise, with degree-accurate heading?

Four months ago, Occipital built a system that is able to achieve this level of precision, by using standard mobile video as an auxiliary position sensor.  After an approximate GPS position is established, video frames are transmitted to a server, where they are compared against a vast database of street-level imagery captured by earthmine.  Each earthmine image is backed by a dense 3D point cloud.  Using all of this information, we are able to estimate the user’s position within a meter, as well as three precise angles of orientation (6 degrees of freedom altogether).

Tomorrow’s pedestrian navigation won’t be top-down; it will be superimposed on the world in front of you.

The internet is just incredible. Within 30 minutes of logging onto the #iphonedev IRC channel on freenode, I got timing results for the iPhone on the simple loop benchmark from my last post. Thanks to ‘august’ for the help.

Here’s the benchmark converted into objective-C:


NSDate *start = [NSDate date];
int arr[8*320*480];
for(int i = 0; i < (8*320*480); i++)
arr[i] = i;
NSDate *end = [NSDate date];
NSLog(@"%g", [end timeIntervalSinceDate:start]);

Results:

• iPhone (2.1 firmware, Objective-C): 9.5 milliseconds

And, from last time:

• G1 (R29 firmware): 922 milliseconds.
• G1 (R29 firmware): Loop only. 520 milliseconds.

Conclusions:

Objective-C kills the Java implementation on Android.  It’s almost exactly 100 times faster.  Note that I’m unsure if the memory allocation is included in the timing, so a more conservative statement is that Objective-C can run a tight loop 50 times faster than the Dalvik JVM.  It’s also true that real applications aren’t full of tight loops, and a real Android application won’t be 50 times slower than an iPhone counterpart.  Nevertheless, all else being equal, it will be slower, and potentially a lot slower.

For now, we’re sadly going to put our Android development on hold and switch to iPhone, and keep an eye out for performance improvements.