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Comment by User9812 | Hacker News Reader

It's one of those trick sites, where you never realize you can scroll down (thank you fullscreen image trend). Go back to the site, scroll. First thing you'll see...

Setup is a snap. Simply mount Osmo over your iPad's front‑facing camera. Reflective Artificial Intelligence and a built‑in mirror recognize and respond to your every real‑world move.

Then it goes on to describe the available games, and has other key information that's well summarized. I watched the video, and didn't realize you could scroll until I read your comment, and went back to the site a second time.

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I scrolled all the way down, but nothing tells me what it is. I didn't watch the video, though.

The bit you quoted raises more questions than it answers. Why is there a mirror? What the hell is "reflective artificial intelligence"? What does it do with the recognition of your real-world moves?

I thought that was self-explanatory. Your iPad camera faces forward, the mirror redirects it down to the playing surface. The AI tries to track the location of the letters and colored blocks in the mirrored image.

What does it do? The examples are pretty obvious, what more are you looking for?

Arrange tangible puzzle pieces into matching on‑screen shapes.

Be the first to guess and spell out the on‑screen hidden word by tossing down real‑life letters faster than your friends. A related picture gives the clue.

Maybe the problem is just that what it does is so far removed from the superlative language used to describe the product as a whole? The introduction leaves me with the impression that it must be more than a silly augmented reality puzzle game.

I still don't understand the mirror. iPads have a camera in the back already....

http://i.imgur.com/0OXmc9h.png

The blue line is an iPad, the red region is the camera line of sight. On the left, you have no mirror, the camera is looking straight ahead at you. On the right, a mirror is attached, it redirects the camera view down to the playing surface.

Got it, thanks. Nice diagram. I can't help but think that if the connection between the iPad and the stuff in front of it was made a bit more clear on the site, as you have done, that it would be much easier to understand. Or maybe it's just me.

It's not understandable without the video.

(I'm not taking sides here on what should or shouldn't be expected on a website.)

People are saying that, but I'm skeptical. Language is pretty versatile. If Wikipedia can explain the concept of an ergosphere to me without video, surely it can be done for somebody's iPad game.

I meant, "the website is not understandable."

I believe the product is, platonically, understandable without a video.

PS: I like misusing the word platonically

That's kind of funny. "It's not understandable without the video" can be complete agreement or complete disagreement with what I'm saying depending on what "it" is. Stupid language.

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