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Descriptive Camera: A camera that prints a description, not an image

mattrichardson.com

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Re: Descriptive Camera: A camera that prints a description, not an image

#41

Post by drostie »

huskyr wrote: post #22
drostie wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I? Would the point somehow be served if you took a self-portrait and the response back was "haha ur so ugly"...? (I should add that I know that Amazon offers a review process, but I am not sure how it integrates with the above camera, and I am thus assuming that the camera automatically has to accept a description as correct before printing it out. This might not be the case; and I don't know.)

You are. This isn't ment to be a completely realistic project ready to be shipped, it's a glimpse of the future, or maybe an art project. I think it's wonderful to see out-of-the-box stuff like this appearing on Hacker News.

My apologies; I suck at communicating.

I think I agree. This camera is cute but this particular implementation has flaws -- that's what I said before and what I hoped would be my take-home message, and I guess I didn't highlight that enough. I certainly didn't intend, "oh, fix this before it goes into production!" or anything like that.

Re: Descriptive Camera: A camera that prints a description, not an image

#42

Post by [deleted] »

nitrogen wrote: post #37
edw519 wrote: post #29

----------------------------------- | | | | | | This is a picture of | | | | 30-60% off top brand name | | | | shoes like Nike, Vans, | | | | Adidas, Toms, and more. | | | | Call 1-800-TURK-GAMER to | | | | find your perfect pair. | | | | | | | ------------------------------- | | | | | -----------------------------------

Why does the human race have to have griefers? Why can't we all just get along and have cool sci-fi tech without people trying to game it?

[deleted]

Re: Descriptive Camera: A camera that prints a description, not an image

#43

Post by hackermom »

PanMan wrote: post #17
hackermom wrote: post #14

I wonder how it holds up against a human being. They sould run a test on that.

Did you read the article? It is being done by a human being, trough Amazon's Mechanical Turk service.

Yes I did, Mr. serious face.

Re: Descriptive Camera: A camera that prints a description, not an image

#44

Post by jrabone »

edw519 wrote: post #29

----------------------------------- | | | | | | This is a picture of | | | | 30-60% off top brand name | | | | shoes like Nike, Vans, | | | | Adidas, Toms, and more. | | | | Call 1-800-TURK-GAMER to | | | | find your perfect pair. | | | | | | | ------------------------------- | | | | | -----------------------------------

Now you've ruined it for everybody. On the other hand, I shall get rich offering SAAAS (SpamAssassin As A Service) on Mechanical Turk...

Re: Descriptive Camera: A camera that prints a description, not an image

#45

Post by chime »

fdb wrote: post #8

Add speech synthesis and this would be an awesome camera for the blind.

http://vizwiz.org/

> VizWiz is an iPhone app that allows blind users to receive quick answers to questions about their surroundings. VizWiz combines automatic image processing, anonymous web workers, and members of the user's social network in order to collect fast and accurate answers to their questions.

Re: Descriptive Camera: A camera that prints a description, not an image

#46

Post by chime »

squirrel wrote: post #25
zoul wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with a six-minute latency?

Absolutely. for example, a big challenge for blind people is interacting with devices in the environment that report status via visual signals. For example, a blind coffee fiend I know can't tell what state his fancy espresso machine is in ("brewing", "out of beans") without sighted help to read the little display. He would happily wait a few minutes to get someone to tell him - it's quicker than waiting for his wife…

If he has an iPhone, ask him to check out: http://vizwiz.org/

Re: Descriptive Camera: A camera that prints a description, not an image

#47

Post by drostie »

nitrogen wrote: post #37
edw519 wrote: post #29

----------------------------------- | | | | | | This is a picture of | | | | 30-60% off top brand name | | | | shoes like Nike, Vans, | | | | Adidas, Toms, and more. | | | | Call 1-800-TURK-GAMER to | | | | find your perfect pair. | | | | | | | ------------------------------- | | | | | -----------------------------------

Why does the human race have to have griefers? Why can't we all just get along and have cool sci-fi tech without people trying to game it?

Well, let's draw a distinction here. The above isn't griefing, it's simple capitalism. It exists for some reason other than aggravating people and/or wasting their time. You might also have griefers who would put out text-photographs like:

     ________________________________
    /                                \
    |+------------------------------+|
    ||  This is a picture of how I  ||
    ||  just want to tell you how   ||
    ||  I'm feeling, gotta make you ||
    ||  understand, never gonna     ||
    ||  give you up, never gonna    ||
    ||  let you down, never gonna   ||
    ||  turn around and desert you, ||
    ||  never gonna make you cry,   ||
    ||  never gonna say goodbye,    ||
    ||  never gonna tell a lie and  ||
    ||  hurt you.                   ||
    |+------------------------------+|
    |                                |
    \________________________________/

Re: Descriptive Camera: A camera that prints a description, not an image

#48

Post by drostie »

squirrel wrote: post #25
zoul wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even with a six-minute latency?

Absolutely. for example, a big challenge for blind people is interacting with devices in the environment that report status via visual signals. For example, a blind coffee fiend I know can't tell what state his fancy espresso machine is in ("brewing", "out of beans") without sighted help to read the little display. He would happily wait a few minutes to get someone to tell him - it's quicker than waiting for his wife…

Thanks for this. Now I'm trying to think of ways that you could actuate thin metal rods, so that you could transform a greyscale picture into a sort of texture-photograph, so that you could "see" details by placing a hand atop it. If the rods are needle-thin you could probably get a reasonable resolution on it, and even have some brightness/contrast sliders on the side to help -- but it seems like the real problem is just moving all of those little rods automatically.
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