Background Features in Google Meet, Powered by Web ML • Hacker News Board

Re: Background Features in Google Meet, Powered by Web ML

#211

Post by tantalor » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 2:36 PM UTC

rplnt wrote: post #119

kerng wrote: post #61

Interesting that this post made it to #1. It seems like Google marketing trick. Anyone who uses the blue realizes that it's far lacking in quality from other offerings and Google Meet UI is very bad also. Zoom, Teams, even WebEx are superior quality and usability wise.

Google Meet UX is the worst. Except WebEx which is somehow even worse. But WebEx is at least "complicated" and bad, Meet is just bad. Out of these I'm really surprised how "not as horrible" MS Teams are. Loads of functionality and the UX is bearable.

Can you elaborate your criticism? Meet seems fine to me.

Re: Background Features in Google Meet, Powered by Web ML

#212

Post by thinkloop » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 2:43 PM UTC

kerng wrote: post #61

Interesting that this post made it to #1. It seems like Google marketing trick. Anyone who uses the blue realizes that it's far lacking in quality from other offerings and Google Meet UI is very bad also. Zoom, Teams, even WebEx are superior quality and usability wise.

> Zoom, Teams, even WebEx are superior quality

Are they able to change the bg in the browser?

Re: Background Features in Google Meet, Powered by Web ML

#213

Post by polpo » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

callmeal wrote: post #166

kenhwang wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Canon did too! Definitely a huge upgrade over a typical webcam. I'm using my old T1i which can be had for less than $50 these days, plus you can pick up a 18-55mm kit lens for like $20 and the video quality blows away any webcam, especially for the same price. Also recommend battery->power adapter.

The T1i is not listed on their compatibility page. Which version of the utility did you get for it?

I have a T2i that I use with the EOS Webcam Utility and it works just fine despite not being listed as compatible.

Re: Background Features in Google Meet, Powered by Web ML

#214

Post by howlgarnish » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:07 PM UTC

neilpanchal wrote: post #32

Aside: Imagine you’re driving down the road and you need to make a right turn. Well, for some reason the steering wheel is stowed away and disappeared! You need to hover your hand around the center console in a specific area to be able to expose it. Out comes the steering wheel and now you can make a right turn. Google UX/UI team: Please fucking make the mute/unmute button visible at all times.

Press Ctrl-D to mute/unmute.

Doesn't excuse the UI, but at least this lets you avoid using it!

Re: Background Features in Google Meet, Powered by Web ML

#215

Post by nexuist » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

tantalor wrote: post #211

rplnt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Meet UX is the worst. Except WebEx which is somehow even worse. But WebEx is at least "complicated" and bad, Meet is just bad. Out of these I'm really surprised how "not as horrible" MS Teams are. Loads of functionality and the UX is bearable.

Can you elaborate your criticism? Meet seems fine to me.

My team does weekly Google Meet meetings along with WebEx. The biggest complaint I'd have is that Meet sacrifices functionality for cleanliness; everything useful is hidden behind some menu or popover, and you can only open one popover at a time (otherwise whatever you had open closes). This contrasts widely with WebEx, where most things (participants, controls, chat) can be shown at the same time, but also hidden if you don't want to see them. Meet seems complicated in comparison because views that are 0 clicks away on WebEx require 1-2 in Meet.

Re: Background Features in Google Meet, Powered by Web ML

#216

Post by acdha » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

It’s funny how Google pours time into things like this but the last person I know who uses a Google chat product just stopped because it’s less reliable than Zoom. Losing 15 minutes with someone trying to get the sound working counts more than a gimmick many people never notice, not to mention now even normal people don’t want to yet install another app because they expect it to be cancelled soon.

Re: Background Features in Google Meet, Powered by Web ML

#217

Post by sjs7007 » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:13 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #216

It’s funny how Google pours time into things like this but the last person I know who uses a Google chat product just stopped because it’s less reliable than Zoom. Losing 15 minutes with someone trying to get the sound working counts more than a gimmick many people never notice, not to mention now even normal people don’t want to yet install another app because they expect it to be cancelled soon.

Most corporate employees probably don't even have a choice of which app they can use though. They are tied in by whatever their company chose.

Re: Background Features in Google Meet, Powered by Web ML

#218

Post by tobr » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:19 PM UTC

oars wrote: post #71

tobr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah, yes, of course. D as in mute.

M is taken by minimise, hence the next closest thing is D (for deaf).

What would be the logic behind “deaf”? That “mute” is a homonym/polyseme of a word for a disability, so let’s just use the first letter of any disability?

Re: Background Features in Google Meet, Powered by Web ML

#219

Post by Orphis » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:24 PM UTC

hrktb wrote: post #76

I don’t understand this part: > In the current version, model inference is executed on the client’s CPU for low power consumption and widest device coverage. Naively I would think model inference done server side would have the lower CPU power (from the client point of view) and widest device coverage (client does nothing more), what am I missing ?

Some work needs to happen locally to show you a preview of what you're going to transmit, as it should for most video related work.

If the segmentation is done server-side, then you need to sync it to the sender and reflect that quickly in the preview. It's probably not a great experience, at least for a launch.

Re: Background Features in Google Meet, Powered by Web ML

#220

Post by tsycho » Mon, Nov 02, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

Having used both Zoom and Meet extensively now for the past 6 months, my experience is:

1/ Your internet connection, especially upload bandwidth and latency matter a lot.

2/ Zoom's desktop app performs very well, but its web version is atrocious. Not just because of the dark patterns they use to force you to install the desktop app, but also its performance is terrible compared to its desktop version, as well as worse than almost everything else. Unfortunately, I don't trust them and refuse to use their desktop app on anything but my iPad.

3/ Meet used to be bad like Zoom on web 6 months ago, but has improved a lot and is slowly approaching Zoom desktop in performance. I have noticed that Meet on my work GSuite calls at work perform much better than on my personal account. This might be explained by #1 above I.e. my family has worse internet connections than my coworkers, but I am not sure if all improvements have been rolled out to personal accounts.