Meanwhile Google Meet is still horrendous compared to Zoom, despite me and my coworker both having gigabit internet...
Don't get me wrong, this is cool, but a research project becomes really cool when it gets well executed
Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
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Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
#392On a related note, I wanted to share my amazing experience with a similar but lo-fi tech. My mom and dad for the past 2-3 years have mostly lived in two separate countries (due to work reasons) and I could tell they miss each other quite a bit. I got both of them an Echo Show 10" device each and set it up for them. I don't think I can explain how our lives have changed for the better, just based on this simple piece…
I share the feeling.
I started working fully remote two and half years ago. Company has a couple of meeting rooms fully set up with Zoom, which I and a few other remote people used to connect to with my laptop for standups together with the in-office people. That's not the case everywhere but quite classic.
The company also had a dedicated TV+camera+24/7 Zoom meeting setup in the open space itself, so that remote people could connect to and say hi anytime. It was surprisingly nice.
Then one day on a whim I got a wide-ish USB webcam plugged into my Xbox One†.
The difference in perception is insane: instead of having this wall of people faces, like you're on several phone calls at once, I got a portalesque window between the office and my place. Instead of connecting people, it connected places††. But it only works if both sides are sharing a space instead of a selfie angle, and I think the way sound was picked up by a fixed element in the room played a lot as well.
So I'm a bit partial about this Starline thing, as it seems to be a step forward in "definition" but also feels like a blown up selfie angle.
† There's no Zoom app on Xbox (which is really a shame) so I used Edge, for which Zoom on the web is more limited and barks on webaudio (which works! Zoom just support only Chrome so I had to dial in on a phone). Also, Xbox+Kinect truly had the potential to be something amazing beyond games. I believe the marketing was botched alright but it was also way too early for the audience.
†† Which ends up connecting people on a deeper level. At some point I caught myself intuitively wanting to hand over physical objects through the TV.
Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
#393Thought: This could bring back phone booths. If this tech turns out to be too expensive (for normal people) we could still use it on a pay-per-use basis, like with a "video conferencing booth". You'd schedule your call and reserve a local booth for both participants through an app. And most companies should be able to afford having one of these in the office.
I hate to say it but my first impression of this was that it looked like a visiting area for a prison. (Something about the bleak colour palette and minimalist display). But, I think that presents a similar long-distance use-case as the 'phone booth.' I wouldn't be surprised to see this as a pay-per-use option for prisoners/families. It's probably only a matter of time before the 'Echo Shows' capitalize on it.
Yeah I had the exact same impression. Still vastly preferable over a zoom call, but I expect I'd have to use it extensively before I can shed that association.
This is assuming that this somehow does allow me to interrupt someone's sentence — otherwise might as well do a zoom call.
Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
#394Earlier quoted context omitted.
My mind was also blown when I got to demo this a few years ago. You sit down and you forget that there's technology happening. The person is there, in front of you. I don't know how else to describe it. The testimonials in the video aren't exaggerating compared to my experience.
I suspect this worked because the person was, indeed, there. I mean, not in the same room, but down the hall or so. You can have the most perfect rendering in the world and 100ms of latency will be enough to make the experience miserable.
Depends on how much bandwidth it needs. I've been video conferencing a lot (who didn't, this past year) and even with people on the other side of the globe I don't recall latency ever being a problem.
Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
#395Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, that's what the lightfield does. You see different physical images depending on your angle to the screen
Fascinating. So not only is it feeding it an 8K / 30 (60?) FPS image, it's feeding it numerous incident angle variations and displaying all of them simultaneously? Sounds like a monster data rate.
Sounds like eye tracking could still be useful to not bother with images for angles that are 100% not visible at the moment.
Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
#396that.. looks a bit like prison visit
I hope they don't start using this for "whiteboard" interviews, would be super stressful to be interrogated from behind a mirror with nowhere to go
Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
#397Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would have to be really futuristic to convince people to coordinate timings, reserve a slot, pay and drive to some location for a video call. FaceTime/WhatsApp are still good enough for most. The office use case is probably more realistic, but some other related products (Surface Hub, Jamboard) haven't become as ubiquitous as originally imagined.
Remote job interviews.
No way anyone cares about visual detail for job interviews.
Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
#398So are they going to use NLP to parse your conversions and build a knowledge graph of all your topics of interest to later run targeted advertising that is shockingly accurate and manipulates you to waste money purchasing random products you really didn’t need to waste money on right now?
Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
#399Earlier quoted context omitted.
My mind was also blown when I got to demo this a few years ago. You sit down and you forget that there's technology happening. The person is there, in front of you. I don't know how else to describe it. The testimonials in the video aren't exaggerating compared to my experience.
I suspect this worked because the person was, indeed, there. I mean, not in the same room, but down the hall or so. You can have the most perfect rendering in the world and 100ms of latency will be enough to make the experience miserable.
You could imagine commercial/institutional sites hundreds to thousands of miles apart with <10ms latency on dedicated fiber.
Re: Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
#400I wish they'd pump their money and brainpower into trying to reverse climate change instead of an incremental improvement to chat like this