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Project Tango

google.com

61–70 of 353 posts

Re: Project Tango

#61
post #53

"Imagine measuring your room by just walking around in it." Yes, and imagine transmitting each of those footsteps in real time back to Google, so they can have a map of your room, too, in case they, or other parties, ever need it. I was just having a discussion yesterday with a friend who works at Google about what data they store when you query their search engine. Every single keystroke, including backspaces, is st…

I don't think it's a coincidence that every new product announced by Google involves surrendering more and more personal information to them.

Just once I would love to be proven wrong. But Google just seems like the neediest, clingiest, nosiest spouse one could ever have.

Re: Project Tango

#62
post #53

"Imagine measuring your room by just walking around in it." Yes, and imagine transmitting each of those footsteps in real time back to Google, so they can have a map of your room, too, in case they, or other parties, ever need it. I was just having a discussion yesterday with a friend who works at Google about what data they store when you query their search engine. Every single keystroke, including backspaces, is st…

>With this data, they can tell if you are regularly more impaired (fine motor control) at some times than at others, or if you're growing more impaired over time and match that against the content of your queries, etc.

Not that this does them much good when Google Now (or, as I affectionately refer to it, Google Later) grinds my phone to a screeching halt and plays mercilessly with touch input.

Re: Project Tango

#63
post #50

I wish I could go back to the time when I thought this kind of thing was awesome. Nowadays, it's just one more aspect of our private lives that'll be stored on Google's (or whomever) servers, sold to advertisers, harvested by the NSA, and abused by law enforcement. Add some object recognition to the 3D scanning, and you can start getting marketing messages about how much better [Featured Brand]'s refrigerator would s…

[deleted]

I think you meant dystopian. And those are all logical conclusions, based on the information we've learned in the last 8 months.

Re: Project Tango

#64

"- Johnny Lee and the ATAP-Project Tango Team" Johnny Lee was the guy with the awesome Wii Controller demos back in 2007 (can't believe it's been that long). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw edit: here's the full set of demos: http://johnnylee.net/projects/wii/ (also, I'm assuming it's the same guy, but his site says he's at Google now)

Pretty awesome to see what he's been up too.

Re: Project Tango

#65
Some of these applications sound more promising than the user input applications Leap Motion has been touting. I bet there are massive commercial opportunities for technology like this.

Re: Project Tango

#66
post #8

I'm looking forward to the first first-person shooter built on Tango. E.g. a ghostbusters game in which you walk around in your own house, the ghosts only being visible through your Tango.

This already exists for the 3DS. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_Camera:_The_Cursed_Memoi...

Re: Project Tango

#67
post #45

Here's the best idea I can think of with this technology. Imagine taking a scan of your pantry, refrigerator, and/or laundry room. Then mark everything as what it is (e.g. "box of cheez-its", "milk", etc). Then come back a few days and do the scan again and it'll tell you what's missing. Once you return from shopping, scan again saying what the new items are (even if they aren't what was there). The software would pr…

Isn't it much easier to just look into your refrigerator/pantry and keep a mental track of things? There are a few pitfalls to your suggested method: * It takes a good amount of time scanning and cataloging everything and we are taking about a world where people don't find enough time to scribble down these things on a piece of paper. * What if you pulled out cereal box A and cereal box B but switched places when put…

I think the automated fridge/pantry will be sort of useless right up until the point where it becomes seamless.

Then it will just be a nice convenience, not a big deal.

But that describes huge swaths of technology, so go figure.

Re: Project Tango

#68
post #60

I wonder if Google has a stack of experimental projects to release whenever a competitor announces some headline grabbing news.

PR works better when you don't compete with competitors for attention. You either beat them to the headlines, or you wait a couple of days to find a clearing. This announcement is interesting, but not nearly the scale of WhatsApp/FB. An exception might be if you have a very similar announcement. Doing so would get you included in the same articles as your competitor.

>announcement is interesting, but not nearly the scale of WhatsApp/FB.

Wait, what? Why would Google view the WhatsApp news as competitive? Other than it setting an insane price and inflating bubbles more, how is the FB acquisition really useful news to anyone?

This tech will have far more impact on the world. Apart from the few people doing startups, FB buying WhatsApp will have almost zero impact in day-to-day lives.

Re: Project Tango

#69
post #50

I wish I could go back to the time when I thought this kind of thing was awesome. Nowadays, it's just one more aspect of our private lives that'll be stored on Google's (or whomever) servers, sold to advertisers, harvested by the NSA, and abused by law enforcement. Add some object recognition to the 3D scanning, and you can start getting marketing messages about how much better [Featured Brand]'s refrigerator would s…

[deleted]

> All your doing is slippery sloping your way into a cynical Utopian future which exists only within your own psyche. Your comment reeks of paranoia and baseless conspiratorial fear. If all you can think of in relation to the uses of cool and new technology is someone taking advantage of you than this is most likely the wrong industry to be participating in.

What you label as "paranoia" and "baseless conspiratorial fear" is better described as "examining the potential consequences of the things we build". You are advocating that we examine only the positive potential uses of the technology we develop and that we ignore the potential consequences, because "we'll work it out and everything will be awesome!", or something.

Perhaps the potential consequences will never come to fruition--but it's still very important that we examine them. There's a real shortage of that going on, which is why some people post negative reactions to these developments rather than something more balanced. Stop trying to dismiss those concerns and that conversation--if you're not interested in hearing it or taking part in it, this is likely the wrong discussion forum for you to be participating in.

Re: Project Tango

#70
post #53

"Imagine measuring your room by just walking around in it." Yes, and imagine transmitting each of those footsteps in real time back to Google, so they can have a map of your room, too, in case they, or other parties, ever need it. I was just having a discussion yesterday with a friend who works at Google about what data they store when you query their search engine. Every single keystroke, including backspaces, is st…

I feel like it would be foolish to pass up the opportunity to be studied by algorithms. I hope that the rich data about me one day becomes useful in even more fantastic ways than simply marketing advertisements to me.
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