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Soli

atap.google.com

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Re: Soli

#241

Post by GistNoesis »

arghwhat wrote: post #174
GistNoesis wrote: post #163

It is a nice piece of technology. It is a 60Ghz millimeter-wave radar. It is a privacy nightmare. It is already shipped. Radar uses electromagnetic waves (like Wifi but higher frequency) so it can go through walls, and even typical range for gesture recognition is less than meter, It probably can go at least 10 times as far by boosting the gain of the amplifier, it is not constrained like a theremin would be because…

> 60Ghz millimiter-wave radar > so it can go through walls 60 GHz RF doesn't really pass through anything , which is the entire reason that the frequency is used for radar. A radar needs powerful reflections to detect things. Penetration impedes its operation, and would be akin to a camera that is out of focus. I'm also unsure if the resolution of this chip is noteworthy.

I am not familiar with 60Ghz. I agree that it has more problem going through obstacles. But usually when going higher frequency we can compensate by using more bandwidth. (Terahertz antennas use this to do crazy stuff.)

The main reason it was chosen was to make it smaller to have everything integrated on a chip, and have an antenna array.

Walls are typically static, which means they won't appear in the hardware amplified Doppler-shift signal (below 100Hz) which detect moving objects. (Radar works by amplifying the low frequency beating that occurs when adding two signal of high but close frequency 60GHz and 60Ghz+50Hz, low pass filtering then amplifying.)

Typically the limits about power are dictated by how much attenuation (distance + obstacles) in dB *4 because inverse 4th power law, but as long as you are above the background noise you can amplify.

Also here it is not trying to form a focused image, it is just gathering some signal to run some pattern detection algorithm.

Even if there is a lot of noise we can integrate it with software fft over a long period of time, because we are trying to look for breathing movements (0.3Hz) which are even slower.

Re: Soli

#242

Post by mlyle »

GistNoesis wrote: post #223
mlyle wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, the range claims are silly, too. Radar has an inverse fourth power with distance, so to go 10x as far by adding power, you need 10000x as much power, which is quite a challenge at 60GHz.

You are right that Radar follows an inverse 4th power with distance (inverse 2th power for the light to go to the reflected object then 2th power for the reflected wave to go back to your antenna). For 3$ https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/32786483344.html a 6Ghz radar that goes 12meters using 30mA, so my range claims are not that silly. When there is no obstacle 6Ghz or 60Ghz doesn't matter.

> When there is no obstacle 6Ghz or 60Ghz doesn't matter.

Power amplifier efficiency for 6GHz and 60GHz is not the same-- not even close.

> For 3$ https://fr.aliexpress.com/item/32786483344.html a 6Ghz radar that goes 12meters using 30mA, so my range claims are not that silly.

This is a deflection and ridiculous. We're talking about spotting e.g. gestures. It falls apart with distance because of both angular resolution and inverse-fourth power.

I've been involved in the design of mmwave radars. If it was easy to spot and precisely track small objects at 10m, we'd be doing it...

Re: Soli

#243

Post by drusepth »

s_y_n_t_a_x wrote: post #64
danicgross wrote: post #32

Interestingly, this caused the Pixel 4 to get banned in India: https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/10/15/india-wont-get-the-...

Radar is just turned off in Japan. Wonder why India banned it.

Save you a click:

>The radar uses a 60GHz frequency band to attain the advertised accuracy, and that’s exactly where the problem lies. India has reserved this mmWave band only for military and government use for now and it needs to un-license this frequency before allowing civilian use for applications like Soli.

>The report adds that Google did consider disabling the radar for the units sold in India, but it still wouldn’t have guaranteed a sales permit, and removing the hardware wasn’t an option.

Re: Soli

#244

Post by veeragoni »

jasonhong wrote: post #119

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…

Didn't students ask about health affects? If not, consider me as a student and ask what affects it have on hand health with prolonged exposure at a closer proximity in your shirt or pant pocket.

Re: Soli

#245

Post by ppeetteerr »

I can't take Google seriously. Every time they add a new feature, my mind goes "and then they will sell you ads on this geospatial information".

Re: Soli

#246

Post by drusepth »

aantix wrote: post #82

I might start sweating if it takes that much energy just to move to the next track. Edit: Not sure why this got voted down? Hold your arm in an upright position, swat to the side a few hundred times, you would feel at the very least, muscle fatigue. For repetitive tasks, you want efficiency of movement, not dramatic movement.

I think you're getting voted down because "holding your arm in an upright position and swatting to the side a few hundred times" seems like an exaggeration of what's required to "move to the next track".

I would imagine to move to the next track in a song you'd be using an action from the "Active" demos at the bottom, which may require some kind of initial motion to enter the "active" state, but also seem like they'd work with your arms resting at their sides, and be literally almost no energy whatsoever to e.g. swipe your thumb along your index finger once.

Re: Soli

#247

Post by drusepth »

stefan_ wrote: post #27

So, um, where is the technology that lets my phone float in free space as I execute these gestures, like in the video?

Wait a few years for TVs to include the chip and rely on a little piece of levitation tech called "wall mounts". :)

Re: Soli

#248

Post by drusepth »

meowface wrote: post #83
melling wrote: post #22

Google finally ships a research project in a real product and people don’t seem to understand the usefulness. Human nature for some reason often devolves to “what’s the point?” Here’s the 2015 announcement. There’s a lot of potential. Maybe we’d all benefit from “imagine what’s now possible “ https://youtu.be/0QNiZfSsPc0

It's really cool and innovative technology, but I also struggle to see the point for the common user. If this were a computer monitor or projector screen, sure. But my phone is pretty much always in my hand if it's being used in any way. If it's already in my hand, what do I gain from this? I can see how it'd be very useful for people who mount their phones on some sort of distant stand. But I feel like that's pretty…

One thing that might help with the "imagine what's possible" mentality here if you're convinced your phone will always be in your hand (which is a totally valid assumption, btw), is to start imagining what other devices this chip could be inserted into, and what you could do with them "remotely".

Re: Soli

#249

Post by MildlySerious »

throwaway_bad wrote: post #94
daxterspeed wrote: post #44

I'd love to see PC devkits for this device. Something as simple as a USB 3 device you plug in and place under your monitor. Perhaps it will make its first "PC" appearance in a Google Chromebook? I can see a lot of eccentric users figuring out interesting ways of integrate many of these gestures into their workflow. Perhaps for navigating in 3d space or switching between workspaces? [edit] There used to be a developer…

It will just join the graveyard of gimmicky vr/ar motion controllers. Leap motion, Kinect, etc. Those can track precise skeletal gestures too. I think the differentiation here is low power always on and attached to the phone with high field of view.

Leap killed itself by shutting itself in with proprietary drivers and staying away from any sort of modding.

I ordered one the week it came out, went through quite a bit to get it through customs (for whatever reason) and paid almost twice the retail price because of it, just to be disappointed after the initial hype. Years later I thought I could use it for some stuff with the Pi, just to be disappointed again, as nothing had changed.

Since then I have been looking for replacements and I am really hoping for Soli not to take the same route.

Re: Soli

#250

Post by myth_buster »

lm28469 wrote: 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.

I believe it's a documented fact that most of breakthrough technology feels like dabbling in triviality.

I read somewhere (will look for source when I get time), that when Thomas Edison invented phonograph, he believed there wouldn't be no other use for it than to listen to sermons at home.

I believe this __could__ over time revolutionize HCI and perhaps gaming.

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