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Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

digitalcameraworld.com

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Re: Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

#101

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

sroussey wrote: post #96
AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #74

For the people kinda worried: this is a highly specialized piece of glass that is extremely complicated to manufacture at present and must, due to the laws of thermodynamics, not be 100% transparent. It's not going to allow surveillance through existing glass installations in any form, just possibly new ones if there's room for the support equipment and through the use of 4-5 digit piles of cash. Any camera glass lik…

I agree with everything you said, but the example on the CES floor does not have an apparent tint.

I assure you it is semi opaque. A one way mirror is a primitive example of this. You can make the reflection increasingly transparent but it will be tinted up until the point it doesn't reflect anything.

It may not be noticeably visible to the human eye under most lighting conditions, though.

Re: Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

#102

Post by asow92 »

heleninboodler wrote: post #71
asow92 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so you know, in photography, "mechanical camera shutter" can mean something very different from what I think you mean.

This is an odd, almost reverse nitpick. The word "shutter" is general-purpose. It's literally a thing that shuts the opening. There's one inside an SLR camera, as you point out. There's often one on a webcam. They are common on windows on houses.

All words are general-purpose, but when we arrange them they adopt new meaning. I'm not nitpicking, and just pointing out that the meaning of those words as arranged may not be perceived as the author originally intended.

Alternatively, I'd suggest a different arrangement of words like "lens cover", "webcam cover", "webcam cover slider", or "webcam privacy shield" to be more accurate.

Of course we were able to grock what "mechanical camera shutter" meant in this context, although at first I was confused and wondered if in fact there were webcams with mechanical focal plane or leaf shutters.

Re: Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

#103

Post by tqi »

krisoft wrote: post #64
tqi wrote: post #41

"Webcams that enable you to look anywhere on your screen." Minor aside, but does anyone actually care about this? Forever ago, I was told to try and look into the camera in order to project eye contact during video calls, but now that just seems like a cultural hangup that arose from people not being familiar with video calling. Now that it is more ubiquitous, I feel like we all have collectively agreed that the eye…

> but now that just seems like a cultural hangup that arose from people not being familiar with video calling. Eye contact is about as old as humankind. So maybe in 300,000 years we can check if we get over it with video calls. It is not that communication is not possible without it. It just removes an additional layer. Eye contact conveys all kind of useful meta data. Depending on the circumstances and other verbal…

To clarify I didn't mean that all eye-contact is cultural, I meant specifically during video calls. I was told that if I didn't look into the camera during my interview, it would be perceived as rude or unprofessional.

Re: Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

#104

Post by neallindsay »

AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #74

For the people kinda worried: this is a highly specialized piece of glass that is extremely complicated to manufacture at present and must, due to the laws of thermodynamics, not be 100% transparent. It's not going to allow surveillance through existing glass installations in any form, just possibly new ones if there's room for the support equipment and through the use of 4-5 digit piles of cash. Any camera glass lik…

I agree that this shouldn't be anywhere near the top of people's privacy concern list. A $1 traditional digital camera can already be hidden very easily and this probably costs thousands of dollars at least if you could even get it.

It's still creepy though.

Re: Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

#105

Post by tqi »

layer8 wrote: post #72
tqi wrote: post #41

"Webcams that enable you to look anywhere on your screen." Minor aside, but does anyone actually care about this? Forever ago, I was told to try and look into the camera in order to project eye contact during video calls, but now that just seems like a cultural hangup that arose from people not being familiar with video calling. Now that it is more ubiquitous, I feel like we all have collectively agreed that the eye…

No, we haven’t agreed that. I continue to feel somewhat rude when not looking at the camera during a conversation. And it matters to nonverbal communication.

I also still habitually look at the camera (due to said training early in my career), but I think that the important thing is I don't think it is rude when other people don't do it. And in my experience, the vast majority of people I interact with don't either, which is why it feels like we have agreed that it is not important.

Re: Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

#106

Post by jameshart »

boxed wrote: post #76
wkat4242 wrote: post #38

Yeah it sounds like a great option to place a camera invisibly in the middle top half of your screen so you can actually look a person in the eye when videoconferencing. No more weirdly looking down or to the side for everyone. I'm sure it can be used for creepiness as well but I see the benefits too.

iPhones solve the camera angle by changing the position of the pupil in software instead.

Given that this will probably only produce a relatively low res, high SNR image, it might be the sweet spot is to use this tech to capture a true eye-contact perspective from the glass in front of a screen, then neural net combine it with images from offset cameras, to create a 'true' through-the-screen view.

Re: Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

#107

Post by buffington »

xyzzy_plugh wrote: post #21

It's a reverse light guide. We've been beam forming for a long time, it's unsurprising that the reverse is possible (imaging through a light pipe). The principal issue will be gathering enough energy. A well lit source like a bathroom mirror (mirror behind the light guide) could work pretty well I'd wager. If the light guide is too efficient then it will appear opaque, so there is a trade-off. I find "turns any windo…

> Zeiss isn't going to aspire to sell cheap glass on razor thin margins.

Especially true since Zeiss isn't planning on selling these at all. They're selling licenses to the tech.

I doubt that undermines your privacy argument in any meaningful way however. Even if the license was free, the cost of producing the components is certainly magnitudes higher compared to the cost of current tech that accomplishes similar goals.

Re: Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

#108

Post by nonrepeating »

AnarchismIsCool wrote: post #74

For the people kinda worried: this is a highly specialized piece of glass that is extremely complicated to manufacture at present and must, due to the laws of thermodynamics, not be 100% transparent. It's not going to allow surveillance through existing glass installations in any form, just possibly new ones if there's room for the support equipment and through the use of 4-5 digit piles of cash. Any camera glass lik…

Thanks. The original description made this seem like far-future technological magic. A system that can somehow analyze a random pane of glass and derive all the transformations needed to use it as a high-precision waveguide? I actually had a manager ask me to develop such a thing, and I asked him how many dozen optics PhDs I could hire to accomplish this feat.

Re: Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

#109

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

IshKebab wrote: post #61
swyx wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Edit: theres an actually good demo video showing the real state of the tech rather than mockups: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NORPeCcIXRQ buried below in the comments so just surfacing higher. everything else is artists lying to you. --- > Glass surfaces can also generate energy. The microoptical layer in the window pane absorbs incident sunlight and transmits it in concentrated form to a solar cell. This combines…

Nah, this will only be good enough for sensor-level power (like 5W from a whole window). Only useful in very limited circumstances. It's not going to replace normal solar power.

5W is nothing to sneeze at.

Re: Zeiss's "Holocam" turns glass windows into cameras

#110

Post by WesolyKubeczek »

swyx wrote: post #65
IshKebab wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, this will only be good enough for sensor-level power (like 5W from a whole window). Only useful in very limited circumstances. It's not going to replace normal solar power.

but like, thats enough for the camera to power itself. pretty cool no? we can deploy this tech without plugging it in.

I guess it might be not enough if the day is not sunny enough
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