Obama Wants Government Apps From All Agencies Next Year

Today, the Obama Administration went all 21st century on its federal agencies.

In an effort to accelerate efforts to provide consumers new and useful services on their mobile devices, President Obama issued a directive requiring that each major federal agency make two key government services available on mobile phones within the next 12 months.

The administration is also ramping up its efforts to make large amounts of government data more accessible to the public, which they hope will spur entrepreneurs to develop innovative new services and mobile applications.

President Obama said, “Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere, and on any device. By making important services accessible from your phone and sharing government data with entrepreneurs, we are giving hard-working families and businesses tools that will help them succeed.” 

So, what should we expect from our favorite government agencies next year? We'd like to see some sort of TSA app that makes airport security less of a hassle. And let's make use of GPS integration to make that whole "See Something, Say Something" campaign capable of real-time response.

What else would you like to see, readers?

App Connects Two Smartphones to Take Synchronized Photos

SynchroCam is not just another app. Really, it's a step toward a new age of photography: a collaborative level that is perfect for the social-media world.

SynchroCam lets you wirelessly link multiple devices (on the same wi-fi network or via Bluetooth), freeze a moment in time and save it as a 3D-like animated GIF.

Hopefully, projects like the Apollon concept will come next, allowing your camera to be physically combined with your friends’ cameras. This would let you snap images together to create things like panoramas and 3D photographs. Check out the idea below.

Hey, we can dream. In the meantime, download SynchroCam for free here.

Augmented Reality Gets Creepy, Just in Time for Halloween

Ready for augmented reality to take it to a new, creepy level?

Creepy Crawlies, a new app available now for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, is taking augmented reality gaming in exactly that direction. Although the app is relatively innocent, its creepy nature begs the question: How far will AR gaming go? Consider the terrifying and realistic level modern video games achieve--and now imagine putting that into your real-world surroundings.

The Creepy Crawlies app provides an immersive environment in which the player hunts down bugs, rats, snakes and the like. It's not a game played sitting down--it requires moving not only your thumbs, but your entire body.

Using your smartphone's camera, gyroscope and compass, the game propels the player into an augmented world. Players get to witness 3-D creatures in the X, Y and Z planar axis, with respect to their parallax and perspective. The player can move the device around to see and attack creatures as if it is happening in the real world.

Download it here, just in time for Halloween.

Get Ready for an Explosion of Computer Vision Apps

Surprised by how often computer vision technology is already cropping up in your life? Just wait: Qualcomm has released the first mobile-optimized computer vision library, FastCV. Get ready to enjoy an endless supply of CV apps.

FastCV enables developers to use computer vision in their mobile apps, which will heighten a wide range of capabilities, like facial detection/recognition, text tracking/recognition, gesture recognition and augmented reality tools.

So far, FastCV supports Android development only, but additional platform support should come soon. Developers, download it here. Smartphone fans, keep it tuned to InHardFocus for more on the amazing apps that will come of this announcement.

Smartphones That Measure Body Fat, Radiation, Bad Breath?

Think your iPhone is intelligent? Just wait until you hear what the next generation of Japanese smartphones are capable of.

Next week at CEATEC Japan 2011, the country's largest mobile industry tradeshow, several new innovations will emerge that may change the way we interact with our phones forever.

Several companies are planning to unveil smartphones that feature different "jackets" of sensors that detect surprising environmental changes (and the software to process the data). With one, users will be able to employ their smartphones to measure the radiation levels of their surroundings -- a popular idea in Japan since this year's devastating earthquake and tsunami.

Another "jacket" would be able to detect whether a user has bad breath, while still another can calculate how much body fat or muscle he or she has.

One day, developers may even create a smartphone that can detect whether the user has alcohol on his breath or is being exposed to too much UV light.

Are these "jacketed" smartphones fact or fiction? We'll let you know next week as news from CEATEC comes our way.