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Project Starline expands testing through an early access program

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Re: Project Starline expands testing through an early access program

#71

Post by kevinventullo »

Someone1234 wrote: post #36
spoonjim wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The desire to connect across distance is very real. Grandparents want to see their grandkids, customers want to see their vendors, friends want to see each other.

Indeed. And the market has a lot of products that already attempt to address that. Aside from being physically bigger and therefore more expensive, what is the value-add to this for those scenarios? We'd all love a 65" window to stay in touch with loved ones, but the price is the problem not the tech. This doesn't attempt to address the economics, and to be honest I'm not sure what is new or interesting about Starlin…

It’s not just a screen, it projects different images to your eyeballs to give the illusion of depth.

Re: Project Starline expands testing through an early access program

#72

Post by readams »

I've personally tried a prototype and it's actually pretty impressive. You get a fully-3D life-size person sitting across from you. The rendering is not 100% perfect, but it's close enough that you're not in any sort of uncanny valley. The main problem is that it's really a 1:1 thing.

Re: Project Starline expands testing through an early access program

#73

Post by judge2020 »

a-dub wrote: post #35
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My questions are: 1. Does it only support 1-on-1 meetings (the demos only show 1-1)? I think that's still useful, but note probably 90%+ of my online meetings have at least 3 people. 2. Sounds like the expense means it will only be installed in offices, not people's homes. Which, again, is still useful as long as it hits the 3rd bullet point. 3. Does everyone need to be on a Starline device to participate? I'd expect…

> 2. Sounds like the expense means it will only be installed in offices, not people's homes. Which, again, is still useful as long as it hits the 3rd bullet point. honestly, with all the cool stuff coming out of computer vision these days, you might see something that can create a similar effect on your laptop in the not so distant future. high quality, single camera (realtime?) depth maps are a thing now. head track…

I mean, Meta showed off some pretty convincing Codec avatars at Meta connect[0], but the challenge there is that it requires pretty beefy machines to run and complex precisely-positioned cameras.

0: https://youtu.be/2mnonWbzOiQ

Re: Project Starline expands testing through an early access program

#74

Post by JumpCrisscross »

judge2020 wrote: post #43
a1371 wrote: post #33

The cards are definitely stacked against this when it's at Google. Because of: 1. Google's solid track record of killing things because they didn't grow quickly, after a half hearted effort. Stadia being the latest example. 2. Google being pretty bad at cracking the corporate communication space. Teams and Zoom ate its lunch. 3. Google not having a strategy behind communication tools in general. Meet, Hangouts, Chat,…

Meet is pretty dang solid, and is pretty much exclusively used for “work” or anything related to a calendar invite. The rest of their video chat seems to be reserved for P2P/personal communications.

> Meet is pretty dang solid

It’s being whooped by Teams and Zoom, latecomers, in no small part because Google can’t help but rename it every six months.

Re: Project Starline expands testing through an early access program

#75

Post by judge2020 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #74
judge2020 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meet is pretty dang solid, and is pretty much exclusively used for “work” or anything related to a calendar invite. The rest of their video chat seems to be reserved for P2P/personal communications.

> Meet is pretty dang solid It’s being whooped by Teams and Zoom, latecomers, in no small part because Google can’t help but rename it every six months.

I believe enterprises choose those either because:

(A) they've already bought into Office 365, so Teams being free to them makes it a no-brainer

or (B) Zoom was the first big name during Covid, so companies that bought into it don't consider changing due to the friction that would cause.

Pretty much every company I've interacted with over interviews and meetings who does use Google Workspace ends up using Meet as well, for the same reason enterprises using O365 as their user directory choose Teams (reason A above).

Re: Project Starline expands testing through an early access program

#77

Post by JumpCrisscross »

judge2020 wrote: post #75
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Meet is pretty dang solid It’s being whooped by Teams and Zoom, latecomers, in no small part because Google can’t help but rename it every six months.

I believe enterprises choose those either because: (A) they've already bought into Office 365, so Teams being free to them makes it a no-brainer or (B) Zoom was the first big name during Covid, so companies that bought into it don't consider changing due to the friction that would cause. Pretty much every company I've interacted with over interviews and meetings who does use Google Workspace ends up using Meet as wel…

Sure. Nobody disputes Google’s tech chops. It’s the business side that’s been perennially problematic. That applies to Starlight as much as it does to Meet.

Re: Project Starline expands testing through an early access program

#80

Post by pedalpete »

bibabaloo wrote: post #23

Wonder how the folks at https://tonari.no/ feel about this.

They should feel pretty great about this.

Google is making the market. Will Google eventually build a real product in this market? Possibly, but it is possible to compete with Google.

Do they have differentiator against Google? Maybe, I don't know the space, but it's probably a positive for them more than a negative.

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