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Soli

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Re: Soli

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>there is absolutely nothing that replaces physical buttons, encoders, sliders and toggles Even space, versatility, & cost aside, there are definitely tasks that a touch screen does better. Using a map with a touch screen is incredibly intuitive compared to a mouse. (I cannot imagine using sliders or other "physical" interfaces) >A physical button guarantees that the action was performed by the means of feedback So y…

I suppose Tinder-style rapid decision apps might excel with a touch screen. Infinite scrollable timelines are certainly built for touchscreens, though I can’t think the last time I asked for one.... 99% of the time the reason I put up with touch screens is so I don’t have to sit at my desk.

OTOH, a physical keyboard is vastly preferable over a touch screen one.

Re: Soli

#154

I recently showed some videos of Soli in the HCI class I teach. Students immediately hit upon the two major issues I wanted to discuss (I was pretty proud!). The first is learnability. A big problem with gestures is that there is no clear affordance as to what kinds of gestures you can do, or any clear feedback. For feedback, one could couple Soli's input with a visual display, but at that point, it's not clear if th…

As predicted in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: "...an electric pencil flew across the cabin and through the radio's on/off-sensitive airspace."

Well, but Trillian did that on purpose specifically to turn off the radio.

Re: Soli

#155
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus a stationary or semi-stationary version only lets them collect data from wherever you place it. Put it in phones and pretty soon you've got whatever sort of data this thing picks up from damn near every room, every street, every trail, every car, every everything anywhere that people exist. Data to train your machine learning algos, for free. God knows what else—data to map every square centimeter of every envir…

It may help to understand Google's priorities by following up on this Hacker News link ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21271087 ). Their goal is ubiquitous access. To get to that goal, they're collecting a lot of data about the world and their users to figure out where, when, how, and why users want data to optimize getting it to them. And yes, it probably serves their ad model too, but there's more to it than…

Their goal is the same as every company's goal, earn money.

If they introduce anything new, the first question is, how that will make money for them. If it is collecting data, the question is, how they can use that data to earn more money.

Also as it has been mentioned by someone in the comments, I'm really not keen being surrounded by another set of devices that can "see" me CCTV is more than enough already. I also I don't want to invite google to my home to map it out.

Probably Pixel4 owners are going to be asked to turn off their phone and put it into a box next to the door when they want to come into my flat.

Re: Soli

#156
post #58

Not sure what to think about it. Seems awesome at first glance but then the examples are skipping songs and hand waving pokemons. Feels a lot like a solution looking for a problem.

Would be useful when cooking with mess on your hands and trying to scroll through a recipe.

This is the one and only suggestion so far that makes sense. It would be nice when cooking. If I was sitting in a bus/train/plane/concert/, there is no chance in hell I am waving my hands at a phone. I would even feel silly doing it at home.

Re: Soli

#157

Good lord... this is a really cool piece of technology and half the comments here are just complaints that it will enable better ad tracking or erode privacy or that touch screens are good enough. This is HN. This is cool technology . Can we just stop to appreciate what cool new interfaces or game concepts we might be able to build with this, rather than jumping on the knee-jerk Google hate train?

It is an awesome cool piece of technology which is also one of the best remote spying device people can bring into your home and map it. Also motion based identification is a nice thing, so they could tell, who is at home.

If you can give me an example of any cool tech which has been not used to kill or spy on people, I happy stop jumping on the hate train.

Re: Soli

#158
post #4
post #2

I wonder if that's proximity sensors or always-on gesture recognition doing image processing off the front camera. Either way, gesturing left/right/up/down doesn't seem to add more than touching the device. My Moto G6 has that now, using the fingerprint sensor as a directional swipe button, love it.

they specifically point out on the page that it's not a camera, doesn't capture any visual images, even works through some solid materials, and can sense in all directions around the device. This looks literally perfect for something like a smart display. I have a google home smart display on my desk, and I like to keep it back far enough that it's a bit of a reach to touch the screen and interact with it. If i could…

I have a Google Home (Google Nest Home now?) in my kitchen and think soli would be a perfect fit for it. Between the noise of my stove and music, sometimes it's really hard to get the device to hear my voice commands. Being able to do gestures with my dirty hands would be great.

Re: Soli

#159

Those growing up with Remote Controls of the kind: https://i.imgur.com/AIqz63k.jpg After a few days, the user develops a muscle memory of sorts. User doesn't even have to look at the controller and all actions (and feedback) are executed through the tactile interface. From cockpits to nuclear power plants to home tv remote control, there is absolutely nothing that replaces physical buttons, encoders, sliders and togg…

you are an incredibly stupid person

Re: Soli

#160
Oh my god, extraordinary technical feat, but do not want. Seriously, someone go out there and charge $1000 for a dumb 50" television. Give me a phone that doesn't have an assistant or this Soli and I will give a premium for it.
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