The LG Optimus 3D, LG’s flagship smartphone hitting stores this summer, will come packed with the world’s first augmented reality browser.

LG has partnered up with Wikitude to create the Wikitude 3D Browser, which was possible because of LG Optimus’s 3D capabilities. Wikitude has been offering a 2D AR browser for Android and BlackBerry devices since 2008, but the new 3D version will let you use the phone’s camera to see info about places, landmarks and objects in three dimensions, which should make them easier to distinguish.

We had a chance to try out the LG Optimus 3D at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in February, and while it had its little quirks, it was definitely one of the most interesting devices there. However, many of the other smartphones showcased there have already hit the market, and we’re still waiting for the Optimus 3D.

Although late (it was supposed to arrive in the UK in March), the Optimus 3D still touts a lot of “world firsts,” such as the first glasses-free 3D viewing and video recording on a smartphone and “the first dual-core, dual-channel, dual-memory architecture.” The Wikitude 3D Browser joins that list; let’s just hope that LG will manage to iron out the little bugs and polish the 3D experience until the device’s launch.

Check out a video highlighting some features of Wikitude’s 2D World Browser below.

The hype surrounding augmented reality has started to die down, but that’s no reason you shouldn’t learn how to build your own AR applications. There are now a variety of tools to give users of varying skill levels the ability to create AR tools of their own. Here are three tutorials with different barriers to entry.

Layar Tutorial

Layar is a popular augmented reality browser for both Android and iOS, and one of the easiest ways to get started with AR. Layar has a beginner’s tutorial on its wiki.

These are the steps:

1. Sign up to be a developer
2. Define and edit a layer on the publishing site
3. Prepare the database
4. Gather POIs information
5. Build a web service
6. Test the layer
7. Publish the layer

Doesn’t sound so hard, does it?

You can also check out this Layar tutorial, but the link doesn’t seem to be working just now.

Integrating Wikitude with WordPress Tutorial

Looking for something easier? Use WordPress? The plugin WP-Geo enables you to display geotagged WordPress posts in the AR browser Wikitude. And there’s a tutorial on doing just that at ihrwebprofi.at. Here’s what you need:

• A self-hosted WordPress installation
• PHP5 (It might work with PHP4, but hasn’t been tested)
• A Facebook, Twitter, Google or Yahoo! account
• A compatible smartphone for testing and display

If you still prefer Layar, and want something easy, check out Hoppala. Last summer, we called Hoppala the WordPress of augmented reality. It’s designed to give non-technical users an easy way to get started with Layar.

flARToolkit Tutorial

Looks for something more challenging? flARToolkit is a Flash-based augmented reality toolkit based on ARToolKit. It was ported to Flash from C by saqoosha. Using it, you’ll be able to create AR applications with your own graphics and animation.

Here’s a beginner’s guide at ActiveTuts.

According to SquareTrade, the warranty provider for the iPhone and other electronic devices, 25.6% of iPhone owners experienced a failure in the first two years of use.

It sounds like a lot, but it’s actually below the industry average. Even more importantly, the iPhone is improving in this regard; the expected failure rate over two years was 33% one year ago, when SquareTrade only examined the iPhone and the iPhone 3G.

Finally, most of the failures (18.1%) result from accidental damage, while only 7.5% are a result of a hardware malfunction.

As far as what’s breaking, it’s interesting to see the significant differences between the iPhone 3G and the iPhone 3GS. Most of the failures of the iPhone 3G have to do with the touchscreen by far, followed by buttons, power and battery.

Looking at iPhone 3GS, power is the biggest source of problems, followed by the touchscreen, battery and the buttons. It seems that Apple has improved the buttons and the display significantly between the two versions, but power and battery-related problems have actually worsened.

Read the full report from SquareTrade here [PDF].

[img credit: SquareTrade]

A screencast is a quick way to indroduce a product or feature and to show customers how something works. Screencasts are a popular online instructional tool, allowing you to explain things in a way many users will find preferable to dense text and more helpful than screenshots alone.

There are a number of tools available that make screencasting fairly simple, but here are some tips to help you along the way:

Choose the Right Tool

There are lots of options for screencasting, both software downloads and browser-based tools, available both for purchase and for free. A few options include Camtasia, Jing, ScreenToaster, and ScreenFlow. Make sure that the tool you use will meet your specifications:

Video: Will it record from a webcam or video camera?
Audio: Can you add a voice track? Will it record the computer’s audio? Can you record the audio live?
Editing: Will it handle multiple video and audio tracks? Does it have capabilities for transitions, zooming, and magnification?
Output: Does it allow you to export the file into the format you need?

Make a Script

Plan what you want to show. Let me channel my inner English teacher here, and advise you to write a script for your screencast. Your script should contain not just what you plan to say, but the images that will accompany your voiceover. Make sure to think about the genre of your screencast: is it a tutorial? A demo? Doing so will help you craft the words and images into the best possible presentation.

Capturing the Screencast

Although you can capture your whole screen in a screencast, you only need to record the pertinent action. Jon Udell advises “presenters to size the application window (or windows) to something like 800 by 600. That’s partly to minimize the quantity of video that has to be delivered, which continues to matter because broadband isn’t yet where it needs to be. But equally, it’s a way to focus on the real action.”

Depending on the tool you select, you might have to record everything – screen and voice – all in one uninterrupted take. Although there are different opinions on this, I’ve found it easiest to record and edit the video first, then record the voice second, so as to match the speed and transition of the videos.

Think of the screencast in sections. You can record the video and the audio in chunks or chapters, which might make piecing things together in the editing room easier.

Editing the Screencast

Editing is arguably the most important step and the key to making a good screencast. Although you can capture lots of raw footage, you’ll want to whittle this down to a succinct presentation.

A screen capture tool will capture every little detail: when you hesitated or wandered with your mouse, when you chose the wrong menu, when you had to resize or reorder screens. You should trim all of these unnecessary frames out.

Your screencast should be informative and interesting, but brief. People are unlikely to sit through a 20 minute video (if you have that much information to convey, consider offering the video in chapters). Aim for a 3-5 minute product.

As you edit your screencast, avoid the temptation to utilize all the fancy dissolves and swipes for your transitions. And be sure to check your work before you publish.

It might take some time to master making a screencast, particularly if you’re using some of the more elaborate tools. But a screencast is a good way to easily explain your product or service, and so it might be worthwhile honing your scriptwriting and screencasting skills.

Read here for more ReadWriteWeb coverage on screencasts. And below is an example from crowdSPRING, who also have a “How To” for screencasts on their blog.

This post is part of Mashable’s Spark of Genius series, which highlights a unique feature of startups. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here. The series is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark.

Name: Flavors.me

Quick Pitch: Flavors.me allows anyone to create an elegant website using content from around the web, ideal for homepages and brand marketing.

Genius Idea: It’s becoming common place for web users to have a presence on a number of different social media sites, especially those of us who use the web for professional purposes. The challenge then becomes picking the destination to direct contacts that represents you best, or trying to tie all of the sites together in an elegant manner.

Flavors.me (referred to as just Flavors) tackles both of those challenges, providing you with a easy-to-design website that can serve as your personal homepage, microsite or splash page. Flavors is ridiculously simple to use and includes a four-section design panel that’s user-friendly and makes creating an aesthetically pleasing page a just-add-water experience.

Users can enter their name and bio in the About section and start to populate their Flavors home. In the Services section, users can then opt to add up to 19 different web accounts to their site. Content from each added service is automatically refreshed and pulled into the Flavors site.

The Design section is where everything comes to life. Here users can select from a pool of different layouts, each with their own flare for organizing the connected services. For example, the Basic layout displays the user’s name and bio with social sites listed below on one side. When visitors click on a service name they are then presented with the dynamic updates from that service on the opposite side of the page.

The Design section also lets users upload their own background image, adjust the color scheme with color palettes or individual color selections, and tweak fonts.

Users can then promote their site via various social media channels and adjust site metadata for search engines in the Promote section.

The full Flavors experience — which includes metadata, additional fonts, layouts, analytics, a contact form and a custom domain — costs $20 a year, but a respectable scaled-down version is also available free of charge.

Sponsored by Microsoft BizSpark

BizSpark is a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

Entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Azure Services platform for their website hosting and storage needs. Microsoft recently announced the “new CloudApp()” contest – use the Azure Services Platform for hosting your .NET or PHP app, and you could be the lucky winner of a USD 5000* (please see website for official rules and guidelines).”

In many cases it’s worse to have your investor back out on a term sheet then it is to never be offered one. Before popping the champagne bottles and celebrating what looks like an offer, it’s best to remember that VC term sheets are not legally binding. While it’s certainly a feat to be offered one, angel investor and Hunch cofounder Chris Dixon wrote a great piece reminding startup entrepreneurs what can happen if your potential investor changes his or her mind.

In a recent blog post Dixon explains the unfortunate circumstance of one of his portfolio companies. Says Dixon, “Yesterday, one of the 40 or so startups I’ve invested in (either personally or through Founder Collective had a well-known VC back out of a term sheet for no particular reason besides that they decided they no longer liked the business concept. It’s the first time I’ve seen this happen in my career.”

Dixon explains that generally VCs only do this in extreme cases of fraud or upon finding that founders have criminal backgrounds. Because of this, any rescinded term sheet can be devastating for startup companies.

As is the case with startup CEOs, word travels fast on Sand Hill Road. In a recent presentation I watched as one founder revealed his funding from several well-established angel investors. Those in the room perked up as soon as they realized that major players were already involved in the company. The same logic can be attributed to the loss of a term sheet.

When one firm backs out of an offer, others who may have been interested will look at you under extreme scrutiny. Although Dixon’s case appears to be an anomaly, it’s important to remember that as an entrepreneur you should remain ever-diligent and avoid over-promising returns and results.

Now that the aughts are behind us, we can start the new decade with a bang. So many new technologies are ready to make a big impact this year. Some of them will be brand new, but many have been gestating and are now ready to hatch. If there is any theme here it is the mobile Web. As I think through the top ten technologies that will rock 2010, more than half of them are mobile. But those technologies are tied to advances in the overall Web as well.

Below is my list of the ten technologies that will leave the biggest marks on 2010:

1. The Tablet: It’s the most anticipated product of the year.  The mythical tablet computer (which everyone seems to be working on).  There are beautiful Android tablets, concept tablets, and, of course, the one tablet which could define the category, the Apple Tablet.  Or iSlate or whatever it’s called.  If Steve Jobs is not working on a tablet, he’d better come up with one because  anything else will be a huge disappointment.Why do we need yet another computer in between a laptop and an iPhone?  We won’t really know until we have it.  But the answer lies in the fact that increasingly the Web is all you need.  As all of our apps and data and social lives move to the Web, the Tablet is the incarnation of the Web in device form, stripped down to its essentials.  It will also be a superior e-reader for digital books, newspapers, and magazines, and a portable Web TV.
2. Geo: The combination of GPS chips in mobile phones, social networks, and increasingly innovative mobile apps means that geolocation is increasingly becoming a necessary feature for any killer app.  I’m not just talking about social broadcasting apps like Foursquare and Gowalla.  The advent of Geo APIs from Twitter , SimpleGeo, and hopefully Facebook will change the game by adding rich layers of geo-related data to all sorts of apps.  Twitter just recently launched its own Geo API for Twitter apps and acquired Mixer Labs, which created the GeoAPI.
3. Realtime Search: After licensing realtime data streams from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and others, Google and Bing are quickly ramping up their realtime search.  But realtime search is still treated as a silo, and is not regularly surfaced in the main search results page.  In 2010, I expect that to change as the search engines learn for what types of searches it makes sense to show Tweets and other realtime updates.  In the meantime, a gaggle of realtime search startups such as Collecta, OneRiot, and Topsy will continue to push the ball forward on the realtime search experience.  Realtime search will also become a form of navigation, especially on Twitter and Facebook.  The key will be to combine realtime search with realtime filters so that people are delivered not only the most recent information but the most relevant and authoritative as well.
4. Chrome OS: In November, Google gave the world a sneak peek at its Chrome operating system, which is expected to be released later this year.  The Chrome OS is Google’s most direct attack on Windows with an OS built from the ground up to run Web apps fast and furious.  Already a Google is rumored to be working on a Chrome Netbook which will show the world what is possible with it a “Web OS.” It sounds like it would be perfect for Tablet computers also (see above).  Chrome is a risky bet for Google, but it is also potentially disruptive.
5. HTML5: The Web is built on HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and the next version which has been taking form for a while is HTML5.  Already browsers such as Firefox and Google’s Chrome (the browser, not the OS) are HTML5-friendly.  Once HTML5 becomes more widespread across the Web, it will reduce the need for Flash or Silverlight plug-ins to view videos, animations, or other rich applications.  They will all just be Web-native.  HTML5 also supports offline data storage, drag-and-drop, and other features which can make Web apps act more like desktop apps.  A lot of Websites will be putting HTML5 under the hood in 2010.
6. Mobile Video: With video cameras integrated into the latest iPhone 3GS and other Web phones, live video streaming apps are becoming more commonplace—both streaming from phones and to them.  As mobile data networks beef up their 3G bandwidth and even start to tiptoe into true broadband with 4G (which Verizon is heading towards with its next-gen LTE network), mobile video usage will take off.
7. Augmented Reality: One of the coolest ways to use the camera lens on a mobile phone is with the increasing array of augmented reality apps.  They add a layer of data to reality by placing everything from photos to Tweets to business listings directly on top of the live live image captured by the camera.  Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera, Layar, GraffitiGeo and even Yelp are examples of augmented reality apps.
8. Mobile Transactions: As mobile phones become full-fledged computers, they can be used for mobile commerce also.  One area poised to take off in 2010 are mobile payments and transactions.  Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s latest startup Square turns the iPhone into a credit card reader.  Verifone has its competing product, as does Mophie.  The idea is that any mobile phone can become a point of sale, and those mobile transactions can tie into back-end accounting, CRM, and other enterprise systems.
9. Android: Last year saw the launch of nearly two dozen Android-powered phones, including the Verizon Droid.  In a few days, Google’s Nexus One will launch as the first Android phone which can be unlocked from any given carrier (it is launching with T-Mobile). Android is Google’s answer to the iPhone, and as it reaches critical mass across multiple carriers a
   nd handsets it is becoming increasingly attractive to developers.  There are already more than 10,000 apps on Android, next year there will be even more.  And other devices running on the mobile OS are launching as well.
10. Social CRM: We’ve seen the rise of Twitter and Facebook as social communication tools.  This year, those modes of realtime communication will find their way deeper into the enterprise.  Salesforce.com is set to launch Chatter, it’s realtime stream of enterprise data which interfaces with Twitter and Facebook and turn them into business tools. Startups like Yammer and Bantam Live are also making business more social.

Chrome OS

We’ve just been introduced to an interesting company: Doctations. This relatively new site aims to open communication channels and online services to turn any doctor’s practice into a web-based community.

The software, an Internet-based healthcare transaction interface, allows doctors to upload and save medical data, to share test results with patients, and to analyze information with their colleagues. Patients in this system can manage their healthcare, schedule appointments, request prescription refills, research medications, access articles, and communicate with doctors – all securely, quickly, and cost-effectively. Our question: Why aren’t systems like these in place everywhere right now?

Unfortunately, a combination of data security concerns and industry regulations such as HIPAA have made doctor-patient online communication – even via email – nearly impossible. Doctations’ data transactions are made secure through an encrypted database and a secure login and password. Voice identification processes are available, as well. These data security measures are compliant with all relevant industry regulations.

More than just a task manager, the interface allows physicians to access a messaging system that includes audio and video chats, kind of like Skype. Using this part of the service, physicians could conduct online consultations with their patients via webcam. It’s unclear whether the system would also allow homebound patients to send vital statistics such as weight and blood pressure to physicians automatically through the use of monitored devices, another trending topic in “telehealth“. Online consultations – and getting insurance companies to pay for them – have also been a subject of great concern to the American Medial Association, which has been lobbying for more modern billing practices for online consults since 2004.

Doctations has also expressed the goal of making physicians’ offices entirely paperless by moving source data (such as reports, faxes, and mail) and business processes online. The company has partnered with Sure Scripts and Quest Diagnostics to send prescription requests and order lab results. The company has also partnered with science and health publisher Elsevier to give patients access to important research materials and decision support alerts.

These are just a few noteworthy features we found while browsing around the Doctations website. The service appears to be full-featured for all aspects of a medical practice, from staffing and billing to patient-focused task management. The service is available on a subscription basis for healthcare providers.

Check out this CNBC interview with Doctations founder and neurosurgeon Dr. Louis Cornacchia:

Although many users would love the opportunity to have quicker, simpler, less expensive healthcare as well as greater access to their physicians, others still probably have concerns about the security of putting their most personal information online. On which side of the fence do you find yourself? And for our readers who are also medical doctors, would it make sense to implement such software in your own practice? What are the objections?

Let us know your thoughts in the comments. We’re going to switch on the webcam and see if we can get a doctor to look at this troubling mole.

Ribbit just announced the launch of Ribbit Mobile. Ribbit Mobile is a cloud-based VoIP telephony service that brings together web-based calling, smart call routing and voicemail transcriptions.

It is hard to look at Ribbit Mobile without comparing it to Google Voice. Just like Google Voice, Ribbit gives users a new phone number or they can use call forwarding to transfer calls from their mobile phones to Ribbit’s platform. Ribbit Mobile also has quite a few features that Google doesn’t offer, including the ability to ring different phones simultaneously and to make calls from within the browser.

More Features than Google Voice

As Ribbit Mobile is part of Ribbit’s open VoIP platform, the service can even forward calls to your Skype, MSN or Google Talk account if you don’t pick up your mobile phone. Whenever you miss a call or when a new voicemail arrives, Ribbit can also ping you by email, Skype, Google Talk or SMS. Through its partners, Ribbit offers widgets for popular start pages like iGoogle and social networks like Facebook and MySpace. Through these – as well as on the service’s homepage – users can receive and place calls from their browsers. This is a feature that Google Voice doesn’t offer yet.

GrandCentral, which Google bought and then transformed into Google Voice, offered some of the features that Ribbit Mobile now offers. Google dropped quite a few useful features like simultaneous rings and call chains from Google Voice’s feature line-up, however.

Besides call chains, another nice feature of Ribbit Mobile is that you can choose which number will appear on your contacts’ phones when you call, even if you are calling from your computer. Once you are on a call, you can also easily transfer calls from any device to another. Because of this, you can start a call in the web interface or iGoogle and then continue the call on your cell phone.

Just like Google Voice, Ribbit gives users the option to set up a new phone number for their Ribbit accounts. Users can earch for a specific numbers and letter combination in these numbers. For now, Ribbit only offers numbers in select cities in California and New York.

A service like Ribbit Mobile wouldn’t be very useful us you couldn’t easily import your contacts. Thankfully, users can import contacts from Plaxo and as an Outlook CSV file (Google Contacts can export an Outlook CSV file).

Caller ID 2.0

As Ribbit’s CEO Ted Griggs and co-founder Crick Waters told us yesterday, the company wants users to look at Ribbit Mobile as a “personal customer relationship management (CRM) platform.” To do so, Ribbit Mobile doesn’t just display a caller’s name and phone number. Users can also add notes to every call and connect their Ribbit address book with their Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr accounts. Through this, the Ribbit team noted, conversations can now take place within a context.

Voicemail Transcriptions

Ribbit offers two levels of voicemail transcriptions. Free accounts come with automated transcriptions. Users with professional accounts – which are free during the beta period – can also choose to have ‘business-class’ level transcriptions, where a human checks the computer-transcribed text and edits it.

Ribbit for Developers

Because Ribbit is an open platform, developers can use the service in their own applications. Ribbit already features five apps in its app store, including an SMS widget, an Adobe AIR app for checking voicemails and a conference widget. Ribbit also plans to launch its own mobile applications for the iPhone and Blackberry platforms soon. Developers are free to charge for their applications and Ribbit also offers a profit-sharing program where developers will be paid if users use their applications.

Joining the Beta

Ribbit will slowly scale the service up over the next few weeks. The company will hand out new accounts on a first come, first serve basis. You can sign up for an account here. All service levels are available for free during the beta period, though Ribbit plans to charge for the pro accounts later on.

The University of Southern California (USC) will be sharing some numbers about its startup funding activities at First Look L.A. tomorrow, an invitation-only event it’s organizing in partnership with UCLA and CalTech. These numbers are nothing to sneeze at: in less than two years, USC has managed to raise an impressive $115 million in funding for 15 startups.

For your background: the University of Southern California, to be more precise its Stevens Institute for Innovation, helps USC spin-offs manage intellectual property, regularly incubates and showcases new high-tech ventures and connects promising young teams to appropriate investors for follow-up financing and commercialization.

Los Angeles-based USC tells us 15 startups have raised a healthy $115 million in funding in total since the beginning of the 2008 calendar year, tapping ‘creative’ financing sources beyond venture capital such as private and overseas investors as well as government grants. Based on those funding numbers, USC asserts the spin-offs are averaging close to $7 million in funding each, not including those that haven’t yet secured a significant investment and also excluding funding numbers for startups that couldn’t be verified through multiple sources.

You can find some of the startups on the USC Stevens Institute website, but most familiar to you will be Box.net, Orgoo (now dead) and Flixya.com. Another promising one is BigStage, which lets you create photo-realistic 3D-animated avatars that can be used in virtual worlds, video games, etc. The startup was recently ranked 18th in Forbes Magazine’s list of America’s Most Promising Companies and has raised over $10 million in financing over two rounds.

Needless to say, I think it’s a great to see universities doing their part in furthering technological innovation and giving promising young companies a leg up, and I think it’s equally great to see them reach out and disclose numbers. Id be interested to seeing how they stack up to other education and research organization’s results.