Project Tango • Hacker News Board

Re: Project Tango

#351

Post by Houshalter » Mon, Feb 24, 2014, 3:26 AM UTC

groby_b wrote: post #109

evanlivingston wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the application beyond gaming. The other applications discussed are basically shopping. Essentially this would make it much easier to represent the physical world digitally. But what use cases does a consumer or the average phone user have for digital representations of the physical space around them, particularly given that the user is already aware of the the physical space around them? How can t…

* Mapping the physical world Ever wanted a floor plan for your home? Just wave your phone around. * Visual annotation Add direction overlays, see the plan for a play your team is executing on the helmet HUD, highlight "dangerous"(weaving, too fast, whatnot) drivers on the car HUD. * Integrate sensor data to extend human perception Add an IR overlay. Sample sound across the room, do a volumetric display of noise level…

The technology is amazing, but honestly these applications don't really seem that valuable, especially to the average user. Facial recognition is the main application of machine vision I can think of, but even that has limited utility. And I'm not sure if it will actually benefit from this technology.

Re: Project Tango

#352

Post by moultano » Tue, Feb 25, 2014, 5:50 AM UTC

Silhouette wrote: post #344

moultano wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You described rules being violated or systems performing poorly. You didn't describe people being harmed.

You don't consider it harmful if someone is paying more for (or being effectively denied) insurance, being turned down for a mortgage, not getting a job, or being sent legal threats because they refused to pay a fine for a driving offence they never committed? You and I have very different ideas of what harm is, then. Of course, in reality it's often difficult to prove that a specific outcome was the result of a priv…

Wouldn't we rather remove the ability to make those unfair decisions? I don't see the data as being enabling here, because for most of the cases you are describing, it's the inaccuracy of the data that is causing the harm, not the data. Some of the classes of behavior you describe, we can outright make illegal, like health insurers discriminating among the people they insure. (Like the affordable care act just did.) Similarly, we could make it illegal for an employer to request access to any private information before hiring someone. That seems reasonable. Credit ratings are terrible and that whole industry needs reform, but I don't think the problem with it is that they have too much data.

First off, let me clarify what I'm advocating for so we aren't talking past each other. I would like for the public to be less skeptical of organizations collecting large amounts of data, and storing it to analyze in aggregate for a variety of purposes. Particularly, if access to the data is controlled, and if it is only used in a sufficiently aggregated form. Society will reap tremendous benefits from enabling things like this.

I don't think of most of the cases you are describing as being related to this.

Re: Project Tango

#353

Post by lotyrin » Thu, Feb 27, 2014, 8:14 PM UTC

JshWright wrote: post #350

lotyrin wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This just adds a depth camera to the phone and uses it and the visible light camera to map the space and orient the device. If a human is disoriented in a no-visibility situation due to smoke, the cameras will not likely be able to orient them either, except maybe something like a power outage, where visible light is unavailable but the depth camera can still function.

Why does it need to be a visible light camera? Why not infrared?

Depth camera isn't visible light, but will likely also be blocked by smoke.