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Augmented reality brings fireworks celebrations to smartphones

| December 27, 2012

augmented reality fireworksMobile device users can celebrate whenever they want with digital pyrotechnics

A mobile product company called Pocket Scientist has just announced the unveiling of its augmented reality fireworks app that allows smartphone and tablet users to celebrate with a digital pyrotechnic display whenever they want.

These displays can be viewed on the screen of the device and can be selected for specific celebrations.

Some of the augmented reality fireworks that are available include New Years, romantic, and those for anniversaries. The various scenes that are available are designed to be appropriate for each different occasion.

The augmented reality technology that is used for the displays is cutting edge.

It helps to make it look as though the rockets and explosions that appear on the mobile devices are as real as possible. All the user needs to do is point the camera of the smartphone or tablet at the horizon, and the fireworks will appear in stunning colors and shapes.

The effects are meant to be as breathtaking as the real thing. The augmented reality pyrotechnics can work in daylight, but the full effect (as with the real deal) isn’t available until darkness has fallen. The perfect view is over a city’s lights from the side of a mountain or hill.

The augmented reality is used along with the camera of the smartphone or tablet. The rockets are launched into a three dimensional real time calculated space. If the camera is turned, the fireworks remain within the same virtual position and do not move along with the camera of the device.

This augmented reality application’s basic version is available for free download, but it comes with the downside of a watermark within the view as well as to a photograph that is taken from the actual AR view. The watermark is removed and the full app becomes available by paying a fee of $0.99.

Photos of the view of the augmented reality fireworks can be shared over a user’s Facebook account, so that their friends can also enjoy the images. This adds a completely different social element to the features that are available through this application.

Mobile payments startup undergoes massive European expansion

| December 26, 2012

mobile payments europeanPayleven has now stepped out of Germany for Android support in the Italy, Poland, and the U.K.

Payleven has just announced that its Android mobile payments app is exploding its way throughout Europe, as it leaves its previously exclusive Germany in favor of an addition of three more markets, which include Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom.

The app can now be downloaded in any of those countries through the Google Play Store.

The iOS app from that mobile payments company was already available in every market where that service is available. This includes Germany, the United Kingdom, Poland, Italy, Brazil, and the Netherlands. However, the company recognized that the Android environment presents a much larger number of challenges, simply because of the broad range of different types of hardware.

This meant that the mobile payments service needed to take far more variables into account.

A Payleven spokesperson explained that “As Android devices have different hardware components, it needs refinement to ensure app liability. So to actually launch Android perfectly in many countries is a long [process].”

Equally, though, while Android mobile payments may have meant greater complexity, it also has a tremendous user base, as the operating system has become a major dominant platform in the mobile commerce ecosystem. In fact approximately 70 percent of all worldwide smartphone shipments involve Android based devices.

This operating system is especially popular in the European market. For example, more than 70 percent of smartphones sold in Germany are based on that platform.

The Android mobile payments app from Payleven supports a number of different popular devices that use the platform. The company placed its primary compatibility focus on the most commonly used handsets, which include the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy SIII, Galaxy SII, as well as the HTC One Series line, which includes the One S, V, and X.

This mobile payments application allows merchants to use a dongle that is plugged into a compatible device in order to be able to accept debit and credit card transactions. The company charges the merchant 2.75 percent per transaction. It currently supports swipe-and-sign, but it has announced that in the first part of next year, it will also have a dongle that will accept chip-and-pin cards.