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Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback

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Re: Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback

#151
this whole release feels extraordinarily 'Apple' , to me.

Apple takes an idea and staples as many 'side-grade' style functionalities to it as possible in order to sell it , rather than just offering a really well-performing product within the niche.

The iPhone was a remarkably bad phone -- it was more awkward to hold than any other phone at the time (now they're ALL awkward), and the reception was terrible. The provider it was locked to at the time was one of the worst in North America at launch; but the iPhone had features that people went nuts for which drove sales beyond the phone offering.

I feel like this VR headset will be similar.

It's a mobile device with a 2 hour battery life -- something that everyone in the world has been saying would make a device dead on arrival for the mobile market; but it has all of these little side-grade features that will attract purchasers that are interested in the Apple product itself but not necessarily VR.

As a consumer i'm glad -- I may have never been a big iPhone fan, but the Android reactionary effort produced so much value that I can hope that this field will see something similar once it proves the market feasibility. I can't wait for my 8 hour/8k res/quarter-priced white-label VR headset clone in a few years.

Re: Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback

#152
post #142

Hey I appreciate the general lack of cruelty so far in the comments, sometimes HN can be pretty rough. The weird phrasing in the tweet is because I can't talk about any of the work I did due to NDA's besides my job description and those patents. But I had a pretty unusual role all things considered. I was also trying to clarify in the tweet that these aren't meant to be interpreted as unannounced existing features or…

I for one got the 10% phrase like you seem to have intended it, and it actually got me to think about how much time I spent in previous employments relative to the entire span of my life, which was an interesting venue to go down, so thank you! (Also for the insights on your work, that sounds like an immensely fascinating experience!)

> how much time I spent in previous employments relative to the entire span of my life, which was an interesting venue to go down

Same for me! Didn't even notice any weird phrasing (the tweet got immensely popular though, so nitpickers inevitably arrived). It was also nice to know people are working on getting non-invasive neurotech into the mainstream - very exciting

Re: Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh so now the hot new thing is a computing device that actively tries to guess its user’s emotional state It also induces different states by way of imperceptible stimuli and measured the response. The tweet got increasingly dystopian the more I read; spine-chilling stuff. Had this been about the Quest, people in this thread would be reasonably apoplectic. Imagine what Saudi Arabia or a Gambling or News app could d…

>It also induces different states by way of imperceptible stimuli and measured the response Are you sure? Am I missing that part? I see this: >Other tricks to infer cognitive state involved quickly flashing visuals or sounds to a user in ways they may not perceive, and then measuring their reaction to it. But that doesn't say they're inducing states but rather trying to figure out the state. Trying to understand if s…

If you have the capability to measure state, and you have control over audio / visual input, then you necessarily have the ability, albeit via a probably alarmingly small number of experiments, to induce (some value of) state.

Re: Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback

#154
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not the patent that’s preventing him from speaking it’s the NDA he signed with Apple.

To be honest, I think it's a little dangerous he's saying the things he's saying, esp. the part where he tells people, "hire me to talk more".

I was thinking the same. The Apple I know, starting with the orientation, puts incredible amount of effort into telling its employees that people will be coming to you for consulting gigs, hoping to steal their intellectual property.

Sounds like he cleared the post with Apple, though.

Re: Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The more personal a device is and the closer it becomes to interfacing with who we are, the more it will need to do things like this to work, else it will just feel off.

Fully user controlled device running only free software ? Sure, agree totally! A totally closed hardware & software combination tethered to a corporate cloud ? NO WAY IN HELL!!

One thing that's notable about devices that "only run free software" is that they actually don't, since people use web browsers on them, and the websites are not free software.

You'd also have to never talk to another person with them, since other people are capable of manipulating your emotional state and can't be audited.

Re: Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback

#156
post #124

This begs the question: what is Apple’s real play with Apple Vision? It sounds like there’s a real possibility that, even at a $3500 price point for hardware, the consumer is still the product. What else can their system determine about someone’s brain? What is going to be done with that data?

Nobody wants to do anything with anyone's data. The idea that your data is valuable is largely an excuse to feel self important.

Facebook, for instance, makes money by showing you ads, not with "your data".

Re: Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally. "10% of my life" sounds a lot more significant than "3.5 years"

"I was nearby when cool things happened, hire me now, need to pay Cupertino mortgage rate."

I'm not sure anyone under the age of 70 has a Cupertino mortgage.

Re: Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback

#158
So Apple can tell how you bio-physically respond to dynamic input. No worries though, we'll show a blend of an Apple logo and lock, which means all is fine. Go back to sleep, but we'll let you know if it was a proper sleep.

Re: Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback

#159
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It also induces different states by way of imperceptible stimuli and measured the response Are you sure? Am I missing that part? I see this: >Other tricks to infer cognitive state involved quickly flashing visuals or sounds to a user in ways they may not perceive, and then measuring their reaction to it. But that doesn't say they're inducing states but rather trying to figure out the state. Trying to understand if s…

If you have the capability to measure state, and you have control over audio / visual input, then you necessarily have the ability, albeit via a probably alarmingly small number of experiments, to induce (some value of) state.

Lacking an understanding of the mechanism, I'm not sure I understand how that necessarily follows regardless of the mechanism. Completely pulling something out of my ass, imagine that they determine inserting occassional white frames results in more significant pupil dilation increases when someone is in a heightened emotional state. Sounds doable and vaguely plausible? It would allow them to infer that heightened emotional state from a quickly flashed visual in a way most users likely wouldn't perceive from a measured reaction to it. But I'm missing how it would follow that you could use the same to cause that emotional state.

Re: Apple Vision predictive bio-feedback

#160
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the capability to measure state, and you have control over audio / visual input, then you necessarily have the ability, albeit via a probably alarmingly small number of experiments, to induce (some value of) state.

Lacking an understanding of the mechanism, I'm not sure I understand how that necessarily follows regardless of the mechanism. Completely pulling something out of my ass, imagine that they determine inserting occassional white frames results in more significant pupil dilation increases when someone is in a heightened emotional state. Sounds doable and vaguely plausible? It would allow them to infer that heightened em…

> Lacking an understanding of the mechanism, I'm not sure I understand how that necessarily follows regardless of the mechanism.

Classical conditioning has been known since Pavlov and his experiment with a dog.

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