Google's $10M, no, $100M Android Challenge

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Don't declare winners before testing on the real phone!

Your point about the developers working with the SDK, not
real phones is very relevant ("But so far, the developers are
working with a developer's kit. Not real phones, ready to
bring to market."). Mobile phones aren't just software on a
standard platform, as most PCs are today. Take the camera
for instance: it dramatically varies from one camera phone
to another, not just in its resolution, but also in optical
performance, depth-of-field, focus range, in the file
format it generates (does it make RAW accessible to Sw
apps, or just JPG?), and many more.

Selected as one of the 50 finalists of the Android
challenge, Android Scan is one of the most highly
misleading applications. Although it has contributed to the
education of the market about the potential of reading 1D
bar codes on a camera phone, it uses an external mini-DV
camcorder connected to the PC that runs the SDK. Reality
will never match this. The mini-DV camcorder that was
used has abilities beyond what will ever be present on
mass market camera phones for a very long time. Its
depth-of-field for instance, as can be observed in the
video posted on the application author's website, is in a
different league.

As it stands, the key to reading bar codes with a camera
phone is the absence of blur (as blur merges the lines to
be read thus garbling the code beyond readability). Only a
very limited number of camera phones feature camera
modules with the right combination of autofocus and
macro modes that make it possible (note: the decoding
itself is an easy problem to solve as it is available as open
source -- Android scan uses Google's own zebra xing
reader which can only read focussed bar code images).

So, unless the Google phone comes out with a very high
end camera module, Android Scan will not go beyond what
it is today: a common sense (even if smart) assembly of
tested and proven technologies that are not going to be
available on a single mobile platform to anybody soon.

Google should wait for the finalists to port their
applications onto the real-world phone and only then see
if they have anybody left with a usable application that can
be declared a winner.

Posted by: Bblima   Posted on: 07/27/08  (Edited: 07/27/2008 @ 05:14) You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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