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Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

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Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#261

Post by rewq4321 »

rib3ye wrote: post #254
abhv wrote: post #2

A good friend of mine at Google is the technical lead of this project (he has a Phd Princeton, and was a professor before joining Google). I've tried it in person and it was truly amazing. They used some very fancy tech when I saw the demo, so I'm thrilled it is finally being announced and possibly shared with a larger audience. Explanation of why it is amazing: It totally fools your perception. No glasses or goggles…

Isn't it just the "Pepper's Ghost" technique? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepper%27s_ghost

No, this sends a different image to each eye. It's not actually a transparent piece of glass with an image on it[0] - I think they just try to make it seem as if it is a transparent pane you're looking through.

The marketing for it is pretty terrible though, because I initially came away with the same impression as you.

[0] See image here: https://www.engadget.com/google-project-starline-191228699.h...

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#262

Post by sammalloy »

asim wrote: post #50

This is actually groundbreaking technology. If this gets widely deployed and then evolves we're looking at telepresence as the next step in ambient computing. When the technology fades into the background that's when you know things are going to be remarkably different. This is quite honestly going to be as close to teleportation as we get.

Asim, are you familiar with how Stephen Baxter portrayed the use of telepresence in his science fiction novels? If not, check it out. But if you are, please explain it to me! It always confused the hell out of me.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#263

Post by thegginthesky »

speeder wrote: post #251
thegginthesky wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn't an ophthalmologist here in Brazil be able to diagnose you and give you a prescription for corrective lenses, or even perform corrective surgery? I'm asking in case I might need to look for one in the future.

The profession of optometry came from physics instead of medicine, many of the early ones with physicists specialized in optics that ALSO understood how the eye worked, optics-wise. In places where they are legal they spend their time learning more and more about optics, physics, math and eye anatomy, they don't study diseases, infections and so on. As result you can't rely on one to fix certain stuff where you do ne…

Got it, I was a bit confused as I never had heard about the problem you mentioned. Too bad here in Brazil you can't get the specialized care you need for the condition you have.

This is a major screw up and inefficiency from this country.

Thanks for explaining the concept more in-depth too.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#264

Post by randompwd »

jonas21 wrote: post #189

There's a bit more detail in this Wired article (though it's still quite vague): https://www.wired.com/story/google-project-starline/ > What I’m actually looking at is a 65-inch light field display. The Project Starline booths are equipped with more than a dozen different depth sensors and cameras. (Google is cagey when I ask for specifics on the equipment.) These sensors capture photo-realistic, three-dimensional im…

> I met with three separate Googlers in Project Starline (all of them men)

Well, at least we know that they weren't all white men; because if they were, this writer would sure have let us know about this very irrelevant information.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#265

Post by peterthehacker »

michaelbuckbee wrote: post #73
weird-eye-issue wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think it's possible 90% of this is due to the studio quality lighting, large high quality screen, good mic/speakers, and low latency network? It seems like those factors alone would get most of the way there and the 3D aspect is just a bonus. Obviously I haven't used it in person but this was just a thought since most people are used to video calls on their small phone/laptop with poor lighting, mics, etc

I've spent a decent amount of time and money to make this happen and it helps less than you would hope. Partially there are just affordance issues of things like eye contact which are physically out of alignment unless you start using two way mirrors [1]. https://hackaday.com/2020/05/29/two-way-mirror-improves-vide...

Essentially eye-contact is the missing ingredient. I believe it! Eye contact is key to a conversation feeling authentic.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#266

Post by qmmmur »

I feel like video calling is not great because you lose that depth which is natural to human communication. That said, I work in field focused on digital audio and sound and so all my colleagues have professional microphones and headphones which makes up 90% of that difference immediately.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#267

Post by rewq4321 »

shahar2k wrote: post #148
imiric wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It looks like they're doing photogrammetry in real time, which is mind boggling. I'm not familiar with this space, but building a 3D model, texturing it with live video, compressing and sending that over the internet, and doing it with minimal latency for it to be believable/enjoyable? Incredible technical achievement if that's the approach. Using state of the art tech, no doubt, and probably lots of ML magic to smoo…

not that hard to do if you have actual depth sensing cameras, and even without those, something like the oculus quest 2 does that exact task (generate a rough 3d volume based on several 2d video feeds) you can see a neat example when you draw your guardian space, and move objects (and notice how it updates the 3d volume representation)

The difficulty completely depends on the level of quality you're after. They're certainly working on cutting-edge-level quality, so it is likely no easy task. Someone else pointed out that they released a paper on related tech last year:

https://augmentedperception.github.io/deepviewvideo/

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#268

Post by kossTKR »

thepasswordis wrote: post #253

Am I the only one horrified by this? The second photo of the person sitting in a booth looks like a set piece from some cautionary science fiction movie.

No, the whole setup looks dystopian to me. The presentation too knowing Google. Looks like a prison.

People are already depressed as hell from the lack of touch, real family, community and friends in modern society.

That said, of course this tech could have its uses, but mediated by the largest corporations on Earth that collect, sell and mediate everything about you and your friends? No thanks!

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#269

Post by llsf »

homedepotdave wrote: post #165

The porn industry is about to be reinvented

Yup, porn is definitely adopt it as soon as it makes economical sense.

Especially, if this is pre-recorded and only sent for viewing (so no need too much bandwidth on upload side). I guess it would come down to the hardware and how much it costs.

Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together

#270

Post by purplecats »

mywacaday wrote: post #212
abhv wrote: post #2

A good friend of mine at Google is the technical lead of this project (he has a Phd Princeton, and was a professor before joining Google). I've tried it in person and it was truly amazing. They used some very fancy tech when I saw the demo, so I'm thrilled it is finally being announced and possibly shared with a larger audience. Explanation of why it is amazing: It totally fools your perception. No glasses or goggles…

I have wondered in the past if a similar result could be achieved using a 3d headset with some tracking/cameras and removing the headset from the view through a real-time deep fake that could be achieved through a short scan before the call. Would this even be feasible?

probably would have an uncanny valley effect
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