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TIL: You can access a user’s camera with just HTML

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Re: TIL: You can access a user’s camera with just HTML

#91

Post by unknownaccount »

totetsu wrote: post #19
recursive wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm getting a cert error. Subject is *.fortinet.com, not nega.radioac.dev. Edit, the second: Disregard. It's definitely a corporate middlebox on my end.

Maybe you're behind a firewall with some filtering, and it doesn't like the domain name or something? browsers treat '.dev' domains a bit more strictly than the norm, so the browser doesn't like the redirect?? that's just my guess sorry.

Can you elaborate on how browsers treat .dev differently? its the first im hearing of this and it sounds interesting, thx.

Re: TIL: You can access a user’s camera with just HTML

#92

Post by chrisweekly »

dheera wrote: post #69
naillo wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Old enough to remember when the accelerometer didn't require permission to access.

Yeah you could use the vibration API and accelerometer API as a very low bitrate TX/RX system for devices on the same table and close enough. No permissions required.

I vaguely recall there being some early-days accelerometer-based webapps that absolutely destroyed batteries, because the high-resolution accelerometer checks required responsible throttling / debouncing. So gating it behind permissions makes some sense to me.

Re: TIL: You can access a user’s camera with just HTML

#93

Post by googlryas »

recursive wrote: post #13
totetsu wrote: post #9

This is a site that shows the camera feed full screen and inverts in with css https://nega.radioac.dev/ I hacked it together in half an hour to give people a way to look at the uninverted version of my inverted analogue photos with their phones at exhibitions. most people were more excited to play with it on their phone than by the photos I took days making. :'( [edit oops this javascript ]

I'm getting a cert error. Subject is *.fortinet.com, not nega.radioac.dev. Edit, the second: Disregard. It's definitely a corporate middlebox on my end.

Hey, get back to work!

- your boss

Re: TIL: You can access a user’s camera with just HTML

#94

Post by _tom_ »

spicybright wrote: post #75
zikduruqe wrote: post #68

https://critter.camera

What an awesome idea! Was thinking of doing raspi craziness for capturing birds out my window. Why do that when you can duct tape an old phone to the window lol

There are apps for turning old phones into dashcams and security cams, too.

Why waste an old phone?

Re: TIL: You can access a user’s camera with just HTML

#95

Post by grumbel »

onion2k wrote: post #78
grumbel wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing wrong with HTML evolving, the problem is that it has evolved in the completely wrong direction. HTML should be a document language, yet it has barely improved in that in the last 20 years and is still missing really basic features (e.g. long-form document support). Instead it can talk to my Bluetooth devices and my camera. Something went very wrong in the evolution of HTML. It's nice that we have a p…

HTML should be a document language, yet it has barely improved in that in the last 20 years and is still missing really basic features (e.g. long-form document support). I'm not sure what features you mean. Most things I can think of for long form content are right there in HTML. Instead it can talk to my Bluetooth devices and my camera. Something went very wrong in the evolution of HTML. That's not HTML though. That…

> I'm not sure what features you mean. Most things I can think of for long form content are right there in HTML.

If you publish a book as plain HTML scrolling becomes impossible, as any tiny movement will catapult you numerous pages forward. You can't bookmark a scroll position either and neither can you link it. If you split the document into multiple HTML files, you complete break the ability to search across the whole document. Performance also breaks down with long form documents.

There is of course .epub, which fixes some of those short comings, but epub is not part of the Web, not supported by any browser and requires a separate app. So it really doesn't fix the fundamental problems either.

There is also 'link rel=next/prev' that in theory would allow working around some of those issues as well, but that hasn't been supported in any browser as far as I know.

If HTML would be any good at handling documents we wouldn't still be using PDF all the time.

Re: TIL: You can access a user’s camera with just HTML

#96

Post by amalcon »

johnfn wrote: post #86
amalcon wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recognize that this kind of thing is useful to the developer, of course, and we've gotten a lot of neat things this way. My worry is basically that the absent functionality is the best thing about the web as a user. Take the notification API: One of the nice things about web pages and apps is that they stop bothering me once I close them; not so if I accidentally permit notifications! Fortunately I can turn that wh…

I don't know, this seems like a good compromise to me. Some apps (calendar) would be absolutely crippled without them. For everything else, I've just never turned them on in the first place. > I wish there were a permission pop-up before playing sound at all The browser can't actually play sound unless 1) it's triggered as the result of a user action (such as a mouse click) or 2) if you've often listened to sound on…

My answer to this is that the calendar just does not need to be a web app. Weakening a primary advantage of everything else on the web just so that my calendar can be a web app seems like a poor trade-off.

Re: sound, "Triggered as the result of a user action" is not a high enough bar.

Re: TIL: You can access a user’s camera with just HTML

#98

Post by zikduruqe »

uneoneuno wrote: post #71
zikduruqe wrote: post #68

https://critter.camera

Have you used this before? This looks great - much lower overhead than what I was doing with a Pi, USB camera, and motionpi

I have, but limited usage. Just for monitoring the dogs when I'd run to the store or something. I've had it bookmarked for years in the event one day I needed it for something.

Re: TIL: You can access a user’s camera with just HTML

#99

Post by ryandrake »

osrec wrote: post #77
Waterluvian wrote: post #27

A lot of totally valid opinions out there about this, but I personally _love_ how the browser is becoming a very well-featured sandbox for shipping applications. For personal fun and learning, I'm making a complete 2D video game in ideally less than 1MB. It has 60fps graphics, full spatial audio, and gamepad support, all because the browser has a lot of these APIs that didn't exist when I was starting out my career.…

Thanks for saying this, as I know a lot of people on HN have very negative feelings towards this trend. Personally, I feel the browser is a great way to stop reinventing the wheel, and the APIs abstract away a lot of the heavy lifting. They pretty much get you 80% of the way there, and the last 20% is where you can really add the stamp of "uniqueness" to your implementation. The fact that the browser is also heavily…

It just feels like every time software developers can't (or won't) build things cross-platform, users end up with bigger and bloatier solutions and poorer experiences.

First, it was cross-platform UI toolkits and OS abstractions like Qt (require users to use a big, "lowest common denominator compromise" library )

Then, it was web apps (require users to provide a browser)

Then, it was Electron and friends (ship the whole browser with the application)

Then, Docker and containers (ship the whole OS with the application)

Where do we go from here? Ship an entire physical PC to the user pre-loaded with the application? We keep trading away the end user's resources and convenience to gain developer's time and resources. All to keep (badly) solving the "Well, it works on my computer" class of problems.

Re: TIL: You can access a user’s camera with just HTML

#100

Post by notatoad »

amalcon wrote: post #83
Waterluvian wrote: post #27

A lot of totally valid opinions out there about this, but I personally _love_ how the browser is becoming a very well-featured sandbox for shipping applications. For personal fun and learning, I'm making a complete 2D video game in ideally less than 1MB. It has 60fps graphics, full spatial audio, and gamepad support, all because the browser has a lot of these APIs that didn't exist when I was starting out my career.…

I recognize that this kind of thing is useful to the developer, of course, and we've gotten a lot of neat things this way. My worry is basically that the absent functionality is the best thing about the web as a user. Take the notification API: One of the nice things about web pages and apps is that they stop bothering me once I close them; not so if I accidentally permit notifications! Fortunately I can turn that wh…

this seems like a pretty silly criticism - you have a feature that is both gated behind a per-site permission prompt and that has an option to globally turn it off, and you're still grumpy that it exists?

if you don't like it turn it off. arguing that things shouldn't exist just because you choose not to use them is pretty selfish.

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