61–70 of 325 posts
This type of input makes sense in certain applications/platforms but a phone isn't one of them - at least not with current phone usage patterns.
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?
[EDIT] to expand, the hate train is because they're the world's richest and best stalkers & peeping Toms. Any time they come out with new tech it's usually used to make them richer, even better stalkers & peeping Toms. It's intensely creepy and a little hard to see past.
I honestly don't get why you'd need a motion sensor on a handheld device. Let alone the limited application of such an input, you'd literally need to keep the device stationary for the motion sensing to be effective. It's a usability nightmare. > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnRbXWojW7c This ad not only fails to sell the feature but also makes using the touchscreen look easier.
One useful thing I could imagine is for cooking. If you got dirty hands you will (hopefully) be able to unlock the phone hands free and browse through a recipe.
Interestingly, this caused the Pixel 4 to get banned in India: https://www.androidpolice.com/2019/10/15/india-wont-get-the-...
Slightly off topic: Where can one find these minimalist cartoons/sketches of people for websites? Ideally free, but those options appear super cartoonish and limited.
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?
Directionally this is a great thing! If this was a DIYer or article about the human-computer interaction concepts of interfaces, I would agree with you. But it's not. It's about a device shipped by one of the most privacy-invasive companies on the planet.
IMHO privacy questions are exactly the right questions for a thread like this. No one gets a free pass because it's 'cool technology', nor should they.
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.
Or using the chip to try to provide a consistent music playing volume when you do something in a room that involves moving closer and farther from the speakers.
That said, I agree, I can't come up with anything that's truly useful and not just some over-engineered comfort thing.
They should use this technology to charge Youtube video ad views depending on how many people are watching the ad on a phone. Multi-user presence will be interesting to see how it gets used as an API.
> Private > Soli is not a camera and doesn’t capture any visual images. This is a privacy misconception that really needs to die (something also discussed in the W3C ambient light sensor thread recently on HN frontpage). Sensing involves privacy implications. By. Definition.
They describe the tech as "detect[ing] objects and motion through various materials". We're effectively talking about the equivalent of TSA full-body scanners. How's that for privacy concerns!?
Also, for a bit of pedantry, if this is literally "radar" as they say it is, then the argument that "Soli is not a camera and doesn’t capture any visual images" is arguing semantics at the level of splitting "which EM frequency ranges count as a camera and/or visual imagery" hairs.