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Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

techcrunch.com

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Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#61

Post by sp332 »

bwang29 wrote: post #6

Lytro has really cool technology but never really found a good use case for consumers. I owned both the 1st generation and 2nd generation camera, as much as I hated the UI of the software and usability of the hardware, I can clearly see the team has tried really hard to make it usable. They tried building an editing app, a community, a community 2.0, multiple hardware batch revisions. I wonder why they didn’t stop so…

But they did stop. They wound down the consumer products years ago and moved into enterprise consulting and selling huge cameras to move sets.

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#63

Post by KaiserPro »

coldtea wrote: post #17
samstave wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are buying them to make dash cams for self driving cars is my guess... That tech in dash-cam video is priceless

Why would it be priceless? With dash-cam video you can just chose a fixed hyperfocal distance and have everything in good focus. You certainly don't need creative DoP and bokeh...

A light field allows you to generate dense 3d point clouds, even when static.

segmentation of foreground/background, becomes much simpler.

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#64

Post by KaiserPro »

StavrosK wrote: post #42
JimmyAustin wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just spit-balling, but could it be used for cheap depth perception, like a LIDAR alternative?

Probably, but so can two normal cameras, like the ones humans have in our heads.

stereo cameras only give two viewpoints, it requires a lot of processing power to re-create the 3d scene. a lightfield gives you much more information making reconstruction much simpler.

You can also see past occlusions, something not possible with stereo.

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#65

Post by StavrosK »

KaiserPro wrote: post #64
StavrosK wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably, but so can two normal cameras, like the ones humans have in our heads.

stereo cameras only give two viewpoints, it requires a lot of processing power to re-create the 3d scene. a lightfield gives you much more information making reconstruction much simpler. You can also see past occlusions, something not possible with stereo.

How can you see past occlusions?

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#68

Post by neves »

neves wrote: post #66

Can someone explain to me reasoning of the deal? It looks to me more some kind of Silicon Valley brotherhood deal. Sure 40m to Google is change money, but it is a failed company and they could duplicate the tech with far less.

Maybe it is the 59 patents...

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#69

Post by [deleted] »

bwang29 wrote: post #6

Lytro has really cool technology but never really found a good use case for consumers. I owned both the 1st generation and 2nd generation camera, as much as I hated the UI of the software and usability of the hardware, I can clearly see the team has tried really hard to make it usable. They tried building an editing app, a community, a community 2.0, multiple hardware batch revisions. I wonder why they didn’t stop so…

[deleted]

Re: Sources: Google is buying Lytro for about $40M

#70

Post by m3kw9 »

This tells me the tech isn’t too useful from the price and from the buyer and the amount of time it took to get a sale on that price.

That’s beside the fact that it does this selective focus thing which should be automatic anyways or selected during the shot.

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