[HN Gopher] Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
___________________________________________________________________
Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
Author : ra7
Score : 569 points
Date : 2021-05-18 18:54 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.google)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.google)
| ashekara wrote:
| So cool. Anyone have more information about tonari
| (https://tonari.no/)? They were/are working on solving this "feel
| like you're there" problem.
| machello13 wrote:
| Reminds me of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2prsYbV1TkM from
| Silicon Valley. I imagine the real-world experience will be
| pretty similar for a long time.
| LightG wrote:
| Haha, thanks ... worth hanging on until the second half ...
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I feel like this is the kind of thing I'm going to have to
| experience in person to appreciate. The video just isn't
| conveying anything meaningful to me.
|
| Still, the concept is exciting, and if the execution is there,
| it'll be one of the most important leaps in communications
| technology in decades.
|
| And I'm looking forward to a company named something like
| InstaPresence (TM) applying filters and making us all
| photorealistic cat people.
| ricopags wrote:
| Looks like tonari[0] will have some heavy competition sooner than
| expected. This seems to have a lot more attention paid to the
| sensation of depth than the tonari offering. Could see this being
| popular at high end senior care facilities.
|
| [0]https://tonari.no
| achow wrote:
| If you watch the video of it:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q13CishCKXY
|
| Interesting thing to note is that they don't show the
| participants touching the glass pane 'separating' them, whereas
| for that kind of situation it would be very _very_ natural thing
| to do.
|
| I guess doing so (reaching towards the 'glass pane') would make
| the imagery distort/degrade real fast as you would start going
| out of camera's FoV, which that would break the magic.
| sneak wrote:
| A bit ironic that this promo video maxxes out in 1080p, despite
| YouTube supporting 4K and this tech pumping 8K+ res.
|
| There is so much more we can do in terms of quality and
| immersion that we're not doing simply because bandwidth and
| connectivity are so low-quality and overpriced at most of our
| leaf nodes in the USA.
| draw_down wrote:
| Pretty cool! Seems about as real as a concept car, though.
| whymauri wrote:
| please don't get google glass'd
| fungiblecog wrote:
| Am I the only one that thinks one-on-one video is already fine,
| and what we actually need is to improve the experience so that a
| group of people feel like they're meeting in the same place?
| piyh wrote:
| The inexorable march of technology will continue, curmudgeon or
| not. There's no reason this approach won't scale to groups or
| larger areas.
| vbsteven wrote:
| There's a funeral scene in Upload (on Prime Video) that does
| something like this. It felt like a window into another room and
| I loved that concept. It looks like the tech for actually doing
| this is closer than I thought. Exciting!
| crooked-v wrote:
| This is a really interesting project, and I wonder how long until
| Google unceremoniously cancels it and drops support for anyone
| who's bought into it.
| barbazoo wrote:
| And have they announced yet how they're planning to invade my
| privacy with this?
| acdha wrote:
| This is getting downvoted but it really is a valid concern.
| Google's been losing users on each discontinuation and only the
| most pro-Google techies I know are still jumping in to
| something new, especially given the trend towards one cool
| feature and a bunch of "QA is boring" stuff which will take a
| year to get fixed. Given their past reputation, it's really
| cautionary as a shareholder to hear C-level questions about
| services like GCP questioning the risks of not going with
| AWS/Azure and getting stranded.
|
| That's a big deal for anything which requires hardware you
| wouldn't otherwise own. Once you hear "custom-built hardware
| and highly specialized equipment" that sounds like something
| you really want a commitment to not just begrudgingly patch but
| to continue to seriously invest in the product.
| annoyingnoob wrote:
| Looks like an electronic prison visit.
| spurgu wrote:
| I.e. ecstatic since you're generally not allowed to see people.
| eamon_cas wrote:
| Reminds me of Teliris (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teliris)
| which I got to demo 15 years ago. That product ran on dark fiber
| with special hardware to simulate two sides of a conference
| table. Really uncanny and unsettling etiquette-wise. One-on-one
| feels better all around.
| spurgu wrote:
| Thought: This could bring back phone booths.
|
| If this tech turns out to be too expensive (for normal people) we
| could still use it on a pay-per-use basis, like with a "video
| conferencing booth". You'd schedule your call and reserve a local
| booth for both participants through an app. And most companies
| should be able to afford having one of these in the office.
| paxys wrote:
| It would have to be _really_ futuristic to convince people to
| coordinate timings, reserve a slot, pay and drive to some
| location for a video call. FaceTime /WhatsApp are still good
| enough for most.
|
| The office use case is probably more realistic, but some other
| related products (Surface Hub, Jamboard) haven't become as
| ubiquitous as originally imagined.
| bitcoinmoney wrote:
| Remote job interviews.
| interestica wrote:
| I hate to say it but my first impression of this was that it
| looked like a visiting area for a prison. (Something about the
| bleak colour palette and minimalist display). But, I think that
| presents a similar long-distance use-case as the 'phone booth.'
| I wouldn't be surprised to see this as a pay-per-use option for
| prisoners/families. It's probably only a matter of time before
| the 'Echo Shows' capitalize on it.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| That was my first thought as well.
| whymauri wrote:
| it would certainly sit comfortably in a black mirror episode,
| lol.
| agumonkey wrote:
| Totally unrelated but on the radio there was a company talking
| about making internet pods to be able to communicate without
| being in the open like in starbucks.
|
| It seems we're seeing a second coming of distributed private
| comms.
| dgudkov wrote:
| This could bring fax machines back too. Draw something on a
| piece of paper, put it into the receptacle, and voila - it's
| instantly printed on the other side.
| tiagod wrote:
| I agree with you, I'm also imagining these in public libraries,
| retirement homes, small village community centres. I just hope
| we don't end up with a bunch of incompatible, proprietary
| appliances that can't talk to each other.
| drusepth wrote:
| I get similar vibes to demoing VR the first time. My first
| thought was, "My tech-illiterate dad would have his mind _blown_
| by this."
|
| Unfortunately, even an already-set-up VR experience was too
| strange/unnatural for him so he never got to experience it.
| However, this looks easy/natural to use and set up and feels like
| it'd have a similar mind-blowing effect for many of the older
| generations, which I think is a good indicator of being
| revolutionary tech (assuming it can be made available/cheap
| enough for most people to try it out).
| mhh__ wrote:
| I got my Dad to play SUPERHOT VR for a bit, he liked it, but I
| suspect the "Shoot yourself in the head to start the demo" bit
| was possibly a bit on the nose considering he spent quite a few
| years manning suicide helplines.
| williesleg wrote:
| Why is it the white guys build it but aren't in the video using
| it? So sick of this bullshit.
| Simulacra wrote:
| That is really interesting but I can't shake the feeling of it
| being like visiting hours at the jail.
| [deleted]
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Some fun backgrounds and filters will alleviate that feeling.
| adrianmonk wrote:
| Yeah, on a certain level it's frustrating if a technology can
| seem to bring far away to an arm's length away, but not
| actually any closer.
| AppleCandy wrote:
| No, just needs some onlyfans optimization. Step aside VR,
| there's a new medium in town, revolutionary engagement if
| casters can pony up.
| helen___keller wrote:
| It looks like magic, when I saw the video I briefly thought it
| was a joke (ha-ha, they're actually in the same room!). I wonder
| how much of the magic is software and how much is hardware?
|
| The video certainly plays up the software, but I've never used
| zoom or FaceTime in an 8k video call booth before, so I suppose I
| don't have a point of comparison.
| dbbk wrote:
| It's not just an 8K video call, it also has 3D depth.
| nynx wrote:
| I wonder if this uses a microlens display.
| notyourday wrote:
| Will be canceled within two years.
| Pxtl wrote:
| This is cool as hell, but I have to say I feel like we're solving
| top-level problems when most consumers don't even seem to be
| getting solutions to the most basic pain-points.
|
| For me, the problem with video-calling isn't the image-quality.
| It's all the much more mundane technological problems - high
| latency, lag-spikes caused by bad ISPs, failed noise-cancellation
| for people who don't use headsets for audio, bad wifi routers
| cutting out, etc.
|
| First thing I did when I realized we were going to be WFH long-
| term was buy myself a $100 gaming headset. Next thing I did was
| get all my home computer stations wired with Cat 6.
|
| That stuff is far more fundamental and far less interesting than
| 3D telepresence, but it's the real unsexy problem that so many
| people are suffering through this pandemic.
|
| Even simple things like latency make simple, natural reactions
| agonizing. Talkcover and crosstalk is incessent and I've
| developed a filthy habit of just talking over people because
| otherwise it's a solid 20 seconds of "you go no you go" caused by
| awful latency. I've had to defuse angry reactions by co-workers
| who feel they're being interrupted by other co-workers and
| explain to them that the latency makes interruptions feel worse
| than they are.
|
| I've tried to push friends to join me on my private Mumble server
| where the latency is near-nil and the call-quality is excellent,
| but there's always one person who doesn't have a working headset
| and wants to just use a laptop or tablet mic with no feedback-
| cancelling that destroys the conversation through echos (plus
| Mumble's auth system is needlessly bewildering).
|
| Then with video, problems are similar but less impactful - cheap
| cameras, poor lighting, compression artifacts, poor sync with the
| audio, etc. And it's infuriating because every person has a
| wonderfully powerful camera in their pocket _right now_ - and
| there 's software to connect them but it's just too tricky for
| most people.
|
| Good on Google for taking an interest in the subject, but I feel
| like they're decorating the apex of the technological pyramid
| while most people are pushing stones around at the bottom.
| julienb_sea wrote:
| Both problems are worth effort and energy. It is worthwhile to
| push the envelope at the top because that technology, if it
| really works and can be developed in a more consumer friendly
| way, will eventually become vastly more accessible.
|
| Solving gigantic scale problems requires a completely different
| kind of innovation than what you can achieve by pushing the
| pinnacle of what's possible.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| I mean Google also has Meet for regular videoconferencing
| that's available to normal humans for free, so it's not like
| they're ignoring the mainstream.
|
| The issues with connection stability and latency are very real,
| but I don't know if it's reasonable to expect Google to fix it;
| the issues there are probably more political than technical.
|
| edit: Also, I think they did mention using AI for noise
| cancellation while videoconferencing in the keynote today.
| sammalloy wrote:
| The biggest selling point of this technology is its ability to
| reduce business travel and cut down on carbon emissions.
| hirundo wrote:
| My dad used to tell a story about my grandfather's first
| experience with television in the late forties. There was a buxom
| woman on the screen, and he walked up to it, trying to look down
| her cleavage. It didn't work.
|
| Does Starline give you a different view when you change your
| perspective? It looks like it does to some extent. If so, it
| might work before long, but grandpa died about fifty years too
| soon for it.
| sneak wrote:
| My understanding of the existing tech that's out (3d displays)
| is that it allows for such on the X axis (different view per-
| eye) but not on the Y, so a scenario such as you described
| (looking downwards) might still remain sci-fi for the moment.
| Perhaps this does something entirely new/novel with display
| tech but there's nothing to suggest that at the moment.
| blastro wrote:
| Great story re: your grandfather. Thanks for sharing.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| On the topic of buxom women, my first thought about this tech
| was, it'll be the next frontier for OnlyFans/porn accounts on
| Snapchat.
|
| Before you laugh or be prude, porn content was what made VHS
| and BluRay succeed (or are these urban legends?) and they were
| pioneers in stuff like online video streaming.
| agumonkey wrote:
| maternal grandfather had trouble adjusting to tv too, he never
| stopped greeting female tv hosts on screen
| yakkityyak wrote:
| That would really take it to the next level if it had that
| feature, even with very few degrees of freedom.
|
| The (New) Nintendo 3DS has head tracking, but it doesn't change
| your perspective into the view port, which gives a very
| dizzying effect when you deliberately test the feature.
|
| I would imagine its possible to extrapolate perspective if they
| had an array (N > 2) of cameras.
|
| This is super cool tech, and can't wait to see an array of
| these installed in the secret undisclosed board rooms for the
| illuminati.
| ibrahimsow1 wrote:
| If this uses fully fledged lightfield[0] it might be able to.
|
| [0]
| https://www.google.com/amp/s/techcrunch.com/2020/06/23/googl...
| paxys wrote:
| The biggest barrier to virtual healthcare today is that patients
| find it hard to connect with and trust doctors over a screen.
| This seems like a perfect product fit, especially among older
| people.
| homedepotdave wrote:
| Is there evidence of this? This is not what I would guess the
| greatest barrier is to virtual healthcare
| nemonemo wrote:
| I think another good use case for this sort of hardware/service
| could be for youtubers/streamers/performers who want to provide
| immersive interaction to the viewers. If I am a fan of a singer,
| I'd definitely pay for an opportunity to watch the person singing
| right in front of me, instead of going to the concerts where I
| watch them singing miles away.
| asim wrote:
| This is actually groundbreaking technology. If this gets widely
| deployed and then evolves we're looking at telepresence as the
| next step in ambient computing. When the technology fades into
| the background that's when you know things are going to be
| remarkably different. This is quite honestly going to be as close
| to teleportation as we get.
| Pxtl wrote:
| If it got widely deployed onto infrastructure not owned by
| Google, real-world internet conditions would ruin it with
| latency and lag-spikes.
| the_gipsy wrote:
| Can't wait to see ads in 3d
| xwdv wrote:
| Wow, will be great to make recordings of people that you can sit
| and watch long after they're deceased. Maybe with some deep
| fakery even create AI versions that can respond to conversation.
| airstrike wrote:
| _This_ , my friends, is how business travel becomes nearly
| irrelevant.
|
| This is a beautifully executed idea and if the demos live up to
| expectation the hype may even be warranted. But on a much more
| fundamental level (i.e. fancy 3D imaging and spatial audio
| aside), this also possibly suggests people would benefit from
| dedicated videoconferencing hardware. TVs and telephones do one
| thing really well (or at least historically they did), which is
| why even my legally blind grandpa could call his friends or
| watch^W listen to the news. There's a market for having a plug-
| and-play videophone now that we have the software to go inside
| it.
|
| What are Zoom, Facebook or Apple waiting for?
| adam wrote:
| I immediately thought of business travel as well. Project us
| all in to a virtual conference room and give us a suite of
| collaboration tools to use while we're all there.
|
| The only thing missing is the after meeting drinks and dinner,
| but there will inevitably be services to put us all in a
| restaurant/bar environment, pipe in some bar white noise, have
| food sent from a local restaurant, etc. for an "in-person"
| virtual happy hour...
| unethical_ban wrote:
| That "the only thing missing" is the main reason to go to
| many conferences.
|
| A lot of people (those with less social desire/social skills)
| seem to resent it, but it is true: Networking and casual
| technical conversations that happen afterhours are _the_ draw
| for many technical conferences. Talks can be good, and
| occasionally there are well-constructed lab sandboxes. But
| mostly, it 's going and speed-dating with peers and sales
| teams to talk about your needs and architecture, and building
| a good web of contacts.
|
| I also believe fully remote technical/collaboration work,
| without any periodic physical meetups, will be awful for a
| lot of people. Sure, those who bought into it pre-pandemic
| prefer it, and that's fine. But I really think there is
| concern to be had for the fraying of social bonds and
| teamwork that can be done, even (or especially) with people
| you have a tough time working with.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, the last year has shown us that streaming videos with
| some side chat is the easy part. Heck, maybe it's even
| better than in-person a lot of the time. I can re-record
| stuff when I screw up and do some things I can't do in
| front of a room of 50-100 people.
|
| And it's even good that people who just go to sessions for
| the content will be able to do so--for a lot less money and
| effort. But I'm planning to go back to in-person
| conferences as soon as possible.
| ghaff wrote:
| Better videoconferencing hardware is not a solution to people
| wanting to get together socially and serendipitously at events.
| And, by the way, how many people are going to turn a room in
| their house into a work videocall room?
|
| Personally, I find that--for most people--the idea that working
| remote shoves a lot of cost onto employees vs. commuting
| probably off-base. (With some exceptions for people living in
| small city apartments near offices.) But installing a room-
| sized videoconferencing setup at home even for people with
| decent-sized houses is pretty silly.
| nicoburns wrote:
| > how many people are going to turn a room in their house
| into a work videocall room?
|
| Very few while it's $20k+. But I can imagine a lot of people
| would want one if the price was reasonable. I'm sure you
| still use the room for other things.
| IshKebab wrote:
| Who said anything about a room in your house? This will be
| for offices first.
| ghaff wrote:
| Sure. But given that this sort of thing has been discussed
| many times before it's hard to ignore the context of remote
| work.
| sigstoat wrote:
| > This, my friends, is how business travel becomes nearly
| irrelevant
|
| the business trips i've been on either involved the
| installation of equipment, or were an excuse for somebody with
| budget to burn it on travel and expensive food/alcohol. or
| both.
|
| i think plenty of business travel will survive just fine.
| nmca wrote:
| Entertainingly, the technology to real-time impersonate someone
| over zoom photorealistically is also rapidly approaching - the
| window of irrelevant travel might be small.
| hbosch wrote:
| Unfortunately, this stage of the Google product cycle is the
| hardest for me to start getting excited for. I hope for better,
| but I cannot resist the nagging feeling that this will 1) be
| very, very cool, 2) be sold to enterprise customers who are OK
| streaming business calls through Google's cloud, 3) suffer from
| having no support, 4) be renamed and reclaimed by another team
| inside Google, 5) sunset.
|
| Is "Starlink" going to be a Gmail or a Wave? Hard to say.
| alwayshumans wrote:
| From my experience business travel is as much about sharing an
| experience as it is the discussion or dissemination of
| information. That's a hard thing to replicate
| agumonkey wrote:
| My theory is that physical proximity means danger or love to
| our animal brains .. and knowing it's tech will disengage
| your brain from feeling close and will change your emotions
| and engagement to the other person. Now something more
| natural than a LCD screen might make video calls a bit more
| lively and efficient.
| ilaksh wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereoscopy
|
| Which type of autostereoscopy is it?
| riffic wrote:
| HP did this at least 15 years ago with their "Halo" conferencing
| systems:
|
| https://www.networkworld.com/article/2258553/inside-the-halo...
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TC4sNztp8dk
| LogicCowboy wrote:
| HP's Halo conferencing system had several studio quality
| cameras that would change the video feed based on who was
| talking. There were also specially placed mics on the
| conference table to keep audio crisp. The video quality was
| impressive, however you had the same issues that you have with
| current web-cam based systems. Eye-contact was non-existent.
| While the camera placement was above the middle-top of the LCD
| screen, you'd never feel like the person was making eye-contact
| with you unless they looked directly at the camera. I had
| several team meetings in Halo rooms, and for the time, it was
| the next best thing to having a meeting in person. It also
| worked well for groups of 4 on each side of the link.
|
| From watching the video, Google's conferencing setup is
| creating a 3D rep of the people talking and adjusting rendered
| view based on where the participants are seated. This is
| blending AR with videoconferencing. It would be interesting to
| see how their conferencing system works with multiple-people on
| each side. I know the video had a mother and baby in one
| segment, however is the 3D rendering based on the eye-level of
| the main participants?
| com2kid wrote:
| > Eye-contact was non-existent.
|
| Potentially a solved problem, just fix it in post. :)
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/windows-10-microsoft-
| finally-l...
|
| I wonder how well it works, and how much latency (if any) it
| adds to the feed.
|
| I'm also sad it isn't rolled out more generally, a very
| strange feature to lock behind a small-ish volume hardware
| product.
| percentcer wrote:
| Halo was just a big video screen. I worked at DW for six years,
| it was nice but it didn't feel like you were there in person.
| mrfusion wrote:
| I'm confused what the 3d display screen is? I thought we didn't
| have technology like that without glasses?
| AdamTReineke wrote:
| Appears similar to the tech in the Nintendo 3DS: lenses over
| the screen so each eye sees a different picture. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autostereoscopy
| jayd16 wrote:
| Why does it appear similar to that tech other than you get a
| 3d image? As far as I can tell there's no info on the display
| other than it uses "Light field technology" which would make
| it different than the parallax barrier display on the 3DS.
| gmueckl wrote:
| The term light field technology is broad enough to cover
| lenticular arrays in displays. The 3DS had the major
| limitation that it only rendered two views. If you increase
| the resolution to be able to display more views for more
| viewing directions within a wider cone, you already have a
| light field display - simply because all these views
| combined form a sampled light field representation by
| definition. This is exactly the same as glassless 3d
| displays for multiple viewers of decades past. But advances
| in display pixel density and computing power apparently
| make the resulting illusion much more convincing these
| days.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Isn't it clear glass and not a layer over a traditional
| display like the 3DS? Glasses would either actively time
| slice with shutters, or spectrum slice with passive
| filters on the lens and of course you need the glasses.
|
| How could any of those technologies be what is used here?
|
| E: Looking again, perhaps it could be some layer over a
| traditional screen. You see through some of the
| broadcasts but that could just be the digital far plane
| that shows through.
| gmueckl wrote:
| I'm not sure I'm following. If this is based on a flat
| panel display, there must be a lens array in front of it.
| There is no other way to achieve this effect without
| requiring the users to wear glasses. The lens array can
| be covered by a protective flat glass pane without issue.
| chis wrote:
| I think it's something like
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pI__qNx8Gdk
|
| Track both eyes, and then project an image to each eye based on
| its image in the room. The part I don't really understand is
| how it's possible to target the image to each eye. Maybe we
| have displays now which are like the 3DS screen, but with
| variable focal locations?
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| If it's that, why does the camera see a gradually different
| image as it pans around?
|
| See: https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-uniblog-publish-
| prod/ori...
|
| Notice how the angle of her face changes as the camera moves:
| first you only see her left ear, at the end of the animation
| you only see her right ear.
| beefman wrote:
| Why does the copy on this page read like something out of
| dystopian novel?
| drumhead wrote:
| Nice promotion project, I wonder how long it'll last.
| pc2g4d wrote:
| Make an entire wall out of this, now you are virtually colocated.
| rmccue wrote:
| The capture and compression part might be related to this Google
| Research:
|
| https://augmentedperception.github.io/deepviewvideo/
|
| Interview about the SIGGRAPH paper here:
| https://blog.siggraph.org/2020/08/how-google-is-making-strea...
| helios_invictus wrote:
| Doesn't look like these people are in a prison visit center at
| all.
| asenna wrote:
| On a related note, I wanted to share my amazing experience with a
| similar but lo-fi tech.
|
| My mom and dad for the past 2-3 years have mostly lived in two
| separate countries (due to work reasons) and I could tell they
| miss each other quite a bit.
|
| I got both of them an Echo Show 10" device each and set it up for
| them. I don't think I can explain how our lives have changed for
| the better, just based on this simple piece of tech.
|
| The Echo Show is now pretty much constantly on video call for
| 14-16 hours a day in the living room of both houses and it has
| become an extension of the one another; a window into the other
| house. The audio and mics are good enough that at times you
| genuinely forget the other person is not in the same room. This
| has truly helped them, especially during Covid times.
|
| It's actually good enough that my parents have their morning tea
| together practically almost the same way they used to when they
| were physically together. They've told me multiple times "I don't
| know how we could've lived without this Alexa thing".
|
| If Google can eventually get the prices down to reasonable
| levels, I really think people would be shocked at how fast this
| thing becomes part of our daily lives.
| pinko wrote:
| I can echo (no pun intended) this experience with the Echo
| Show, but I would love something much bigger and higher-def. My
| family is separated long-distance, and I would pay big money
| for a higher-def "window to another home" product.
| [deleted]
| thesausageking wrote:
| Does 3D make that much of a difference?
|
| I feel like you get 99% of the way there with a great camera,
| high-end lighting setup, and a very large display. And having
| that setup on both ends so its consistent and well-configured.
| agumonkey wrote:
| google reinvents the uncanny valley ?
|
| I thought it was some stereographic encoding on layered displays
| but the second they mentioned 3d mapped videos I started to see
| pixar like characters. Very odd.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Much simpler idea but I think I'd get a good sense of being
| together to play table tennis over the quest with a friend.
| (Sadly none of my friends will buy a quest.)
| bradneuberg wrote:
| I agree I love my Quest, and the sense of presence is amazing.
| Can't wait until more of my friend social network has them so
| we can meet up and do things like table tennis.
| jonas21 wrote:
| There's a bit more detail in this Wired article (though it's
| still quite vague):
|
| https://www.wired.com/story/google-project-starline/
|
| > _What I'm actually looking at is a 65-inch light field display.
| The Project Starline booths are equipped with more than a dozen
| different depth sensors and cameras. (Google is cagey when I ask
| for specifics on the equipment.) These sensors capture photo-
| realistic, three-dimensional imagery; the system then compresses
| and transmits the data to each light field display, on both ends
| of the video conversation, with seemingly little latency._
|
| > _All of the data is being transmitted over WebRTC... What
| Google claims is unique is the compression techniques it has
| developed that allow it to synchronously stream this 3D video
| bidirectionally._
| [deleted]
| ProAm wrote:
| Id just be really uncomfortable with google monitoring, recording
| and analyzing my personal communications to sell me ads or worse
| later. Everything google does now feels.... invasive for lack of
| a better word. This is something Id like to see from Apple, and
| Im not an Apple fan at all.
| silentsea90 wrote:
| Do you pay for youtube?
| breakingcups wrote:
| It's interesting to see the compression artifacts affecting hair
| specifically.
|
| I guess we're going to get used to different kinds of compression
| artifacts in the coming years because we're switching to spatial
| information being transmitted as opposed to just pixels. Hair is
| so much harder to get right than a face.
| d3ntb3ev1l wrote:
| The ads will be amazing
| homedepotdave wrote:
| The porn industry is about to be reinvented
| oars wrote:
| This is a game changer. Much better than VR/AR.
| dzhiurgis wrote:
| Indeed. Business needs screen sharing, screen annotation and
| audio (Slack covers 99% of this). Home users are relatively
| happy with what they have already (although no 4K streaming yet
| and cameras in laptops are kinda tragic). That leaves porn.
| LightG wrote:
| When can I try this on my phone?
|
| Imagine gaming on this.
|
| I assume the porn industry will be early adopters (sorry, it's
| probably true).
| Jach wrote:
| Inferior to VR for gaming or pron.
| varispeed wrote:
| It seems like this could be used in the future dystopian economy.
| Workers sleeping in little capsules next to a screen where they
| can choose to see their partner in another factory or AI driven
| escort. On a serious note likely everyone is going to have at
| least one at home at some point to use for work meetings, pairing
| or for home inspections by the government.
| aerovistae wrote:
| This reminds me of the devices described in the short story "The
| Story of Your Life", which is the basis of the movie Arrival.
| Excellent, excellent story and very different from the movie, if
| anyone's into that kind of thing.
| Jommi wrote:
| Literally some of the best modern short stories there is.
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| I definitely got vibes of the "viewing" tech from Asimov's "The
| Naked Sun", always exciting to see sci-fi tech reach the real
| world.
| tomduncalf wrote:
| Seconded, I've really enjoyed all of Ted Chiang's books and
| wish he was more prolific as I've read them all! An excellent
| writer and I think his style would appeal to the HN crowd as
| it's kind of sci-fi, kind of based in science, and many of his
| stories are quite thought provoking and unique. Also they're
| all short stories so great if you struggle finding time to take
| on a whole book or whatever!
| paxys wrote:
| I recently read Exhalation, and was blown away by how
| engaging and thought provoking the stories were. Would highly
| recommend it to anyone with even a passing, high-level
| interest in sci-fi.
| [deleted]
| tomduncalf wrote:
| Same here. I'm quite picky when it comes to sci-fi, a lot
| of it I don't really like, but he nails a really unique
| sweet spot where sci-fi is just the framing device used for
| some beautiful stories. Might reread his books next
| actually!
|
| Edit: I'd love any recommendations of other authors people
| think of when discussing his books. Doesn't necessarily
| have to be the same style but more just that level of
| quality and uniqueness.
| Jommi wrote:
| I'd love to do a Clubhouse room just chatting around his
| stories.
| shriphani wrote:
| The first story in Exhalation is written in the style of
| the Arabian Nights (Thousand and One Nights). Get the
| unabridged, original translation by Richard Burton - it
| is some of the most beautiful literature ever written -
| comes in 16 volumes so there will be no shortage of
| reading material!
| tomduncalf wrote:
| Awesome! Thanks very much.
| shriphani wrote:
| And of course I feel I have to mention Richard Burton
| himself who led possibly the most interesting life in his
| time:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Francis_Burton
| allenu wrote:
| Really cool execution.
|
| I wonder what the lag is like. I can imagine that's one thing
| that would break the illusion. I know with something like Zoom
| I've gotten used to managing the lag over time by taking turns
| with the other person. However, with the "live" feel of this,
| there could be an uncanny valley effect if the lag is subtle, but
| perceptible.
|
| Another thought: this is being presented as ongoing research. I
| wonder what the corporate thinking is in presenting it now when
| it's still being tried out. Does Google want capitalize on remote
| meetings while it's still hot? If the pandemic wanes and we have
| more in-person meetings, this might not make as big a splash. I
| remember when I worked at Microsoft, I often noticed research
| announcements we'd make in public often wouldn't translate to
| actual product, so I got a bit jaded on any cool new thing that
| was announced without a product timeline.
| xnx wrote:
| It's advantageous to announce when you have a good working
| prototype so that when a competitor (e.g. Apple) announces
| something similar, the world is less impressed/amazed.
| MetalGuru wrote:
| Advantageous even if you don't have a working prototype. See
| Microsoft vaporware
| sneak wrote:
| Zoom lag is an issue with Zoom, not the network generally. If
| you actually do wired, p2p on the same side of the same
| continent you can get rid of most of the lag. Current lag comes
| from services that aren't p2p and bad networks (e.g. wifi).
| Pxtl wrote:
| Yeah, I honestly hate how much Zoom has won because I've
| found it's the _worst_ for latency. I have a mumble server
| running on a pi that blows the doors off Zoom for audio-
| quality and latency but it 's unusable for casual groups
| because nobody wants to wear a headset and feedback destroys
| it.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Google has plenty of dark fiber. I'm sure they could get
| something close to land line levels of lag for an office to
| office connection.
| skybrian wrote:
| The longer the project exists and the more people there are who
| get to try it, the more likely it is to leak.
|
| To speculate, here are some reasons why keeping it secret
| longer might be hard: - They're going to do
| wider testing within Google. - They're going to start
| bringing outside testers in to try it. - They're going to
| start working with manufacturers. - Some newspaper got
| wind of it and is about to publish a story. (I think this
| happened with driverless cars?)
|
| Apple is better at keeping secrets, and even they leak.
|
| Also, it's nice for the people working on it when they no
| longer have to keep what they do a secret.
|
| Edit: although, in this case, the timing mostly has to do with
| Google I/O starting today.
| dbbk wrote:
| If they wanted to capitalise on remote meetings, I assume they
| would have shown one in the demo video. Instead they focused on
| family members reconnecting.
| twobitshifter wrote:
| With the amount of data needed, one on one is probably
| easiest. We saw teams and zoom struggle to support more
| people in a call last year. It's also nice to have them be
| true to size. Mini people might be somewhat uncomfortable.
| apinstein wrote:
| If you want to get a sense of what this "feels" like and you have
| 6DoF VR, try a VR 180 video. I've not experienced the Google
| Starline project, but I can tell you that when I saw some of the
| really well-produced VR180 videos it was so realistic I felt I
| was invading someone's privacy.
|
| Of course this won't be the interactive feeling but it was pretty
| mind blowing to "feel" how intimate real 3d telepresence could
| be.
|
| They have some demo's here:
|
| https://arvr.google.com/vr180/
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| While cool for the top 5% wealthiest people, I'd be more
| interested in tech for the other 95% that will actually be
| affordable.
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| Such an unnecessarily pessimistic comment. How do you think
| tech becomes affordable? It has to start somewhere and then we
| go from there...
| OminousWeapons wrote:
| New tech typically debuts at a high price point only wealthy
| people can afford, then as it get commoditized it becomes more
| affordable. Wealthy early adopters willing to pay high prices
| for novelty or business applications are what enable the fast
| pace of innovation that we have become accustomed to.
| microtherion wrote:
| Think of it as "The future is already here -- it's just not
| very evenly distributed."
|
| Quite a bit of the technology used there seems destined to get
| more affordable as it's getting more widely adopted.
| noir_lord wrote:
| William Gibson quote I think.
|
| And yeah, insane prices at the start funds development for
| everyone else, I remember when the first 4K screens came out
| and they where exotic, now they are just normal.
|
| Same thing happened with phones and hell computers, I was the
| first kid I knew with a computer back in the 80s and we where
| not wealthy, that think cost more than my dad made in a week,
| an actual IBM PC was unattainable til I was I was 10.
|
| Now I have hilariously more powerful single board computers
| shoved in a drawer because I can't find the time to do
| anything with them.
| dpratt71 wrote:
| What is an example of important technology that did not start
| as something only available to the affluent/connected?
| bsanr2 wrote:
| Penicillin. But then, he wasn't trying to make money off of
| it.
|
| And basically anything Nintendo pushes as a console gimmick.
| It's not that the tech immediately goes from research to
| broadly accessible, but rather that they tend to take old
| tech that no one saw as having profitable consumer
| applications and find one for it. In that way, as far as
| consumers are concerned, it goes from unknown to widely-used
| without making a stopover in early-adapter purgatory.
| dpratt71 wrote:
| Penicillin, maybe? But I wonder how quickly it became
| readily available outside of the Western world.
|
| And I see that Nintendo has apparently sold an extremely
| impressive number of consoles (https://www.nintendolife.com
| /news/2019/11/nintendo_has_now_s...). But even if everyone
| only bought one console each, that's only about 10% of
| world population.
|
| This may be a little unfair, but I do wonder if there isn't
| a tendency to consider a technology to be widely available
| when it becomes available to you and the folks farther back
| in the line don't count or aren't relevant.
| bsanr2 wrote:
| To say that a single company's products being used by
| even a single digit percentage of the world population
| doesn't meet the requirements to ve considered "widely
| available" is a stretch.
|
| In any case, you said "important," not "widely
| available," and yes, Nintendo's products are hugely
| important. Many of today's technological advancements can
| be traced back to their proving that a given use case for
| a primitive version of a given technology was viable.
| varispeed wrote:
| A wheel
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Minecraft. Linux. (Really want to write GNU, but that's not
| true.)
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I think Minecraft and Linux are more like the content
| produced on top of the technology that is computers. It's
| like if a new book is written it's quickly available to
| everyone in the market who can afford a book. The book
| isn't really technology, but the printing, publishing, and
| distribution is and it's been around long enough to be
| distributed.
|
| Software seems less like technology and more like writing.
| The distribution cost, once the systems are in place, is
| marginal. The technology part is creating the systems that
| enable the software.
| munk-a wrote:
| IBM in the 90's strongly agrees with you - this software
| stuff is never going to be profitable and everything
| people pay for will always end up going through us!
|
| More seriously, I disagree about software being less
| important because there have been very real innovations
| for tooling accomplished in software alone. Email is a
| pretty classic example - but a more modern one might be
| Google Cardboard which can turn your smart phone into a
| rather underwhelming VR headset. There are plenty of
| hardware alternatives but the same basic functionality
| was accomplished on generalized hardware.
|
| Additionally, all this technology is only really possible
| due to other technology - we don't discount a new shiny
| computer just because it's just a dumb oddly shaped box
| if you can't supply it with electricity - but the costs
| to develop software are _generally_ lower than hardware
| so I think it 's fair to have a general notion that
| hardware is more innovative - it's just that you're
| conflating two different variables - cost and medium.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I think you're conflating technology with profitable or
| important. That is, you see me saying that software isn't
| technology and think I'm saying that software isn't
| profitable or important. That's not at all what I'm
| saying though. I likened software to writing. Writing can
| be important and it can be profitable, it's just not
| technology.
|
| Maybe we could agree on email as a technology. Maybe. I
| think it's a stretch. I hope we could both agree that the
| nth email client isn't technology though. It's not adding
| a new capability to humanity which is how I tend to think
| about technology. Refrigerator - keep stuff cold.
| Electricity - power to operate machines and light.
| Computers - organize, access, modify information. etc.
| New JavaScript library or new game... Not so much
| technology.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think that's fair yea - it might just be a matter of
| semantics. If you think software is included in
| technology then I stand by my point but, if your view of
| technology excludes software then you're quite correct.
| dpratt71 wrote:
| Is it not the case that having access to a machine capable
| of running either Minecraft or Linux in the early days of
| each (if not now) means you are (or were) fairly affluent?
| munk-a wrote:
| It depends on what you mean by the early days of each -
| in the really early days of Linux (1992) computers were
| probably going to cost north of a few thousand dollars
| and the type of computer Linux was designed for (a multi-
| user system for dumb terminals) would cost tens of
| thousands of dollars. By the time linux became a thing
| more than a handful of people in any given state knew
| about you could probably run it on a machine costing
| somewhere around 300$.
|
| Minecraft has never been demanding resource wise, I'm
| sure early versions had serious performance issues but
| running it on a cheapo laptop has always been totally
| reasonable - it's quite accessible (it was written in
| java even!)
| robertlagrant wrote:
| Minecraft wasn't an important technology. It's a game built
| with important technologies.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| Tell that to the mathematicians.
| munk-a wrote:
| I disagree - I would agree that Minecraft wasn't a novel
| technology, just like Linux wasn't a novel technology -
| it was an alternative version of Minix.
|
| Additionally Zoom isn't a novel technology, it isn't even
| particularly interesting technically when compared to
| other video conferencing solutions - but over the past
| year it's been incredibly important to a number of
| people.
|
| I think the OC slightly missed the mark in mentioning
| "important technologies" instead of something closer to
| "technologically innovative" technologies or, more
| accurately (but less interesting of a statement)
| "expensive to develop technologies". Things that are
| expensive to develop generally aren't cheap to begin
| with, while things that are cheap to develop need to be
| cheap to compete with other market entrants and clones.
| Additionally hardware (a limiting factor on cost for a
| lot of technology) tends to get cheaper over time and
| that rate of change is accelerated by a large market of
| interest (leading to more folks deciding to try and
| iterate new designs).
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| I think they meant hardware. For software, yes there are
| tons of examples (open source software is usually free,
| games are usually cheap).
|
| But for hardware, it's almost always some expensive thing
| first. The internet was once very expensive to access, cell
| phones were initially very expensive, DVD players were
| initially very expensive, computers in general, etc.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Install these in neighborhood libraries, or as phone booths!
| notyourday wrote:
| Nah, if Google actually went for it for _years_ it would have
| went down the wealth requirement. The problem is that Google
| has demonstrated time and time again that it cannot do
| reiteration grind.
| bellyfullofbac wrote:
| I was travelling a few years ago. Even Russian bus ladies (they
| collect your fare) and Mongolians living in traditional huts in
| the middle of nowhere (and without any signal!) have
| smartphones now. I found the idea funny that the "To plug in a
| USB cable, you need 3 tries" experience was maybe universal.
|
| So, 12 years (back then) after the iPhone, it's reached a lot
| more than 5% of the world.
| frakkingcylons wrote:
| I would pay a lot of money if this was commercially available.
| Very impressive
| abhv wrote:
| A good friend of mine at Google is the technical lead of this
| project (he has a Phd Princeton, and was a professor before
| joining Google).
|
| I've tried it in person and it was truly amazing. They used some
| very fancy tech when I saw the demo, so I'm thrilled it is
| finally being announced and possibly shared with a larger
| audience.
|
| Explanation of why it is amazing: It totally fools your
| perception. No glasses or goggles--but rather an 8k display with
| special glass that allows your different eyes to see different
| pixels (a light field).
|
| They also optimize the sound, and the rest, so as all the
| testimonials point out, you actually _feel_ like the person is in
| front of you.
|
| It also works for the "cube" around them, so if they hold up some
| object, it also feels like that is in front of you.
|
| Amazing...
| patall wrote:
| Interesting. Does the light field work only for one person or
| multiple (they show mother and baby in the video)?
| rejectedandsad wrote:
| That's very cool, but out of curiosity
|
| > project (he has a Phd Princeton
|
| Why is this part relevant? Was the PhD in light field
| technology?
| draw_down wrote:
| It does seem really cool but I don't see any reason to think
| they are sharing it with a larger audience.
| imiric wrote:
| It looks like they're doing photogrammetry in real time, which
| is mind boggling. I'm not familiar with this space, but
| building a 3D model, texturing it with live video, compressing
| and sending that over the internet, and doing it with minimal
| latency for it to be believable/enjoyable? Incredible technical
| achievement if that's the approach. Using state of the art
| tech, no doubt, and probably lots of ML magic to smooth the
| rendering. The 3D display is the icing on the cake, it must
| look amazing in person.
| shahar2k wrote:
| not that hard to do if you have actual depth sensing cameras,
| and even without those, something like the oculus quest 2
| does that exact task (generate a rough 3d volume based on
| several 2d video feeds) you can see a neat example when you
| draw your guardian space, and move objects (and notice how it
| updates the 3d volume representation)
| imiric wrote:
| Good point, I haven't followed the latest VR advancements,
| that does sound neat. Still, Starline's approach is surely
| much more sophisticated (the hardware obviously has a lot
| to do with that, these are prototypes of a desk-sized
| machine vs a headset). The 3D model looks reasonably
| detailed, and the final render has very few artifacts.
| Making it all work over a WAN link with latencies critical
| for teleconferencing is also impressive.
| jlebar wrote:
| My mind was also blown when I got to demo this a few years ago.
|
| You sit down and you forget that there's technology happening.
| The person is there, in front of you. I don't know how else to
| describe it.
|
| The testimonials in the video aren't exaggerating compared to
| my experience.
| rewq4321 wrote:
| Do you know if it supports multiple people on "screen" at
| once? Or does it rely on eye tracking of a single person
| (plus projection of some sort?) to be able to achieve the 3D
| effect?
| soylentgraham wrote:
| Is it lenticular, or something else?
| jayd16 wrote:
| Does it have perceptible regions where the view angles are
| ideal?
|
| If it's as seamless as it looks in the video that would be
| truly novel and exciting.
| amelius wrote:
| Was this display developed by Google, or did they buy it from
| elsewhere? Is it still on the market?
| shard wrote:
| I recall there being glasses-less 3D displays about 10 years
| ago, when the TV industry was trying to make 3D displays the
| next new thing. I wonder if this is the same technology.
| bsanr2 wrote:
| IIRC those were displays that used sterescopy, while these
| simulate a light field instead.
| bullfightonmars wrote:
| If this was a consumer product I would buy two of these today,
| one for myself, and one for my parents. It is more compelling
| that any product I have seen for a long time.
| codeecan wrote:
| https://electronics.sony.com/spatial-reality-
| display/p/elfsr...
| ipsum2 wrote:
| How much would you pay? I expect the lower end to be around
| $20,000 from hardware alone, plus at least gigabit down/up
| connectivity.
| signal11 wrote:
| I suspect eventually this will percolate down, somewhat
| like Facebook's Portal TV (PS149) but possibly also
| integrated with something like a Google Assistant/Siri type
| smart device to power the software and do other smart-home
| type things in your home.
|
| Many ordinary folk already have 4k TVs at home and 8k will
| probably become commonplace in the future. The real
| bottleneck will be good low-latency broadband both up and
| down, but fibre to the home should make that easier. I
| wonder if ISPs in the future will offer QoS guarantees to
| enable really good videoconferencing?
|
| I mean, Zoom, Meet et al are much better than video
| conferencing solutions like Webex even from a few years
| ago, but it's hilarious how much drama there still is
| around video calls. "oh, sorry, I didn't realise I had
| muted myself", "can you hear me...?", "I think we just lost
| Steve", and so on. I'll be glad to see all of that just go
| away.
| eps wrote:
| Facebook Telescreen(tm)
| kbenson wrote:
| To be followed up by Facebook Telepresence(tm) and then
| Facebook Omnipresence(tm)? ;)
| fnord77 wrote:
| probably built into smartphones in 10 years.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| I doubt you need gigabit for an 8K stream. The real issue
| is the abysmal common network infrastructure. Latency will
| be a bottleneck if most ISPs don't care about treating your
| packets properly.
| cogman10 wrote:
| Agreed, 10Mbps is likely where it'll be, probably less.
| If I were to guess, they are going to apply a lot of
| smarts to texture mapping to avoid needing a lot of
| bandwidth.
| IshKebab wrote:
| You can't even do basic video calling on a 10 Mbps
| connection. You definitely need the reliability and low
| latency of fibre for this.
| [deleted]
| kbenson wrote:
| Doubtful, IMO. The fact that you need it to be both
| extremely low latency and with essentially zero
| compression artifacts (probably lossless, based on their
| goal). If the numbers listed here[1] are correct, then
| the most efficient lossy codec at that time was doing 100
| minutes of 8k video in ~37GB of data. From that we can
| intuit that it was using an average of 50 Mbps for that
| 100 minutes of video. For the most efficient codec, and
| I'm not even sure from that whether it was using lossy or
| lossless numbers, because apparently HVEC can do both
| (but I would assume lossy, since it's about streaming
| video in that case).
|
| You can't do weird texture mapping or lossy compression
| and expect people to really seem like they are there.
| Even if you don't notice that stuff normally watching a
| video, I think you'll notice it when you're interacting
| like someone is really in front of you, and that will
| throw off the immersion.
|
| 1: https://www.quora.com/In-regards-to-filesize-how-big-
| is-1-mi...
| paxys wrote:
| I imagine it isn't (yet) because of the price tag.
| bostonvaulter2 wrote:
| And it would probably be very difficult to install at the
| moment as well.
| Pxtl wrote:
| I'm still not understanding how the 3D works... is it like the
| 3DS? Because that required you position your head in a very
| specific place.
| Philip-J-Fry wrote:
| The "New 3DS" introduced head tracking and no longer needed
| your head in a fixed position by the way.
| somebodythere wrote:
| Sounds super cool. I can't wait for LFD tech to become more
| accessible to consumers.
| ortusdux wrote:
| I've been thinking about pre-ordering the Looking glass
| portrait. $250 for the unit, and I already have a leap motion
| laying around.
|
| https://lookingglassfactory.com/product/portrait
| bsanr2 wrote:
| It's neat and I'm waiting to see what creative things
| people come up with for it. A Japanese developer put
| together a Wizardry/Megaten-style dungeon-crawler demo:
|
| https://twitter.com/mizzmayo/status/1394171128491487234
| mywacaday wrote:
| I have wondered in the past if a similar result could be
| achieved using a 3d headset with some tracking/cameras and
| removing the headset from the view through a real-time deep
| fake that could be achieved through a short scan before the
| call. Would this even be feasible?
| Valgrim wrote:
| It sounds like they are using this technology or something
| similar:
|
| https://lookingglassfactory.com/8k
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| hathawsh wrote:
| Does anyone know whether they're using that tech, something
| similar, or something else? I've always been interested in
| light field technology.
| tengbretson wrote:
| Wouldn't there also have to be some kind of head tracking
| involved? Otherwise you're still limited to just showing a
| fixed perspective in 3d.
| wesleyy wrote:
| No, that's what the lightfield does. You see different
| physical images depending on your angle to the screen
| defaultname wrote:
| Fascinating. So not only is it feeding it an 8K / 30 (60?)
| FPS image, it's feeding it numerous incident angle
| variations and displaying all of them simultaneously?
|
| Sounds like a monster data rate.
| zaptrem wrote:
| I only know what I saw from the IO stream, but I think it
| might send a compressed 3D mesh + texture across the
| network and render the light field locally.
| dialogbox wrote:
| I think that is where the custom compression algorithm
| comes in. If you think the fact that human body and face
| doesn't change much, and the fact that it's a 3d model
| based, the compression ratio could be very high.
| hiharryhere wrote:
| Good point. Also the very neutral background would
| contribute to that.
| ithkuil wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23316225
|
| > the 8K is their Input Resolution. > That resolution is
| then divided into the 45 viewing directions:
| datameta wrote:
| Is existing Looking Glass Factory tech the same though?
| Not so sure about that. Those displays are typically
| monitor-sized at the largest and not really aimed at
| displaying a live feed of a person. This looks to be a
| more seamless experience on a larger screen.
| [deleted]
| weird-eye-issue wrote:
| Do you think it's possible 90% of this is due to the studio
| quality lighting, large high quality screen, good mic/speakers,
| and low latency network? It seems like those factors alone
| would get most of the way there and the 3D aspect is just a
| bonus. Obviously I haven't used it in person but this was just
| a thought since most people are used to video calls on their
| small phone/laptop with poor lighting, mics, etc
| abhv wrote:
| NO WAY.
|
| It is impossible for me to explain how/why it works so well.
| shahar2k wrote:
| I imagine they are using lightfield type displays like the
| ones made at this company -
| https://lookingglassfactory.com/
| ArtWomb wrote:
| It looks like it came out of the high-fidelity Immersive
| Light Field Video presented at SIGGRAPH 2020. Quite
| impressive that within a year it's now a consumer product
|
| https://augmentedperception.github.io/deepviewvideo/
|
| WebAssembly SIMD is coming to Chrome as well. 2D images and
| video that only consisted of RGB and Alpha channels may
| appear downright primitive to future generations as depth
| camera rigs gain distribution ;)
|
| https://www.chromestatus.com/feature/6533147810332672
| sneak wrote:
| I am sure that the immersion of the experience is higher.
| My question (and perhaps that of GP) is: is this greater
| immersion actually beneficial to communication?
|
| I think this is cool tech, and valuable. I'm just not sure
| that it offers a communication benefit over well-lit, well-
| miced, wired, low latency, 8K videoconferencing.
|
| Maybe there's some 3D emotional perception face processing
| stuff that we have deep in our brains that can immensely
| benefit from this, but I'm skeptical. I think simply doing
| 4k or 8k low latency high quality videoconferencing might
| be a 90 or 95% solution without needing special
| cameras/displays.
| imiric wrote:
| I think you might be underestimating the value of viewing
| a 3D model on a no-glasses 3D display. This is one of the
| basic aspects of in-person communication we take for
| granted that current 2D technology can't replicate. You
| can move your head and actually see a different angle of
| the person in front of you. This can even be subtle, our
| brain will still pick up the effect, and it makes the
| experience beyond what we usually consider as
| "immersive".
|
| Yes, having low latencies and high definition video is an
| important aspect of this, but the 3D part is no gimmick.
| Once the technology improves and gets affordable this is
| a game changer for how we communicate online. The step
| after that are holographic displays, and since we'd be
| used to 3D models and smart displays, it probably won't
| feel like such a big jump.
|
| I'm _super_ excited about this project. Hopefully Google
| doesn't axe it. (:
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Being able to feel like another person in the room is
| enough for me to reconsider working from home. As of
| right now I strongly have a preference for in person, but
| I do acknowledge most people prefer commute and cost
| benefits over productivity.
|
| The state of video conferencing today is a poor one and
| I'm very excited for something that can change the
| industry like this.
| sneak wrote:
| I'm right there with you, and I use a 4k camera and a
| boom mic and headphones and wired ethernet to
| videoconference now: I have been regularly complaining
| about the low resolution and framerates of current
| videoconferencing systems (10-15fps, 720p, low bitrate -
| and that's the _highest_ quality setting available!).
|
| If Google wanted to make me believe they care about
| videoconferencing quality, they'd have a 4k 60fps option
| that auto-enables in Meet if it detects everyone on the
| call is on wired gigabit with a 4k camera.
| michaelbuckbee wrote:
| I've spent a decent amount of time and money to make this
| happen and it helps less than you would hope.
|
| Partially there are just affordance issues of things like eye
| contact which are physically out of alignment unless you
| start using two way mirrors [1].
|
| https://hackaday.com/2020/05/29/two-way-mirror-improves-
| vide...
| porcc wrote:
| Eye tracking is the core feature here--the rendered
| "hologram" is correct from every possible angle. The things
| you mention are probably closer to 2% of the final result.
| plokiju wrote:
| Source on the eye tracking? The light field displays I've
| seen (https://lookingglassfactory.com/) don't need eye
| tracking to work
| akersten wrote:
| My intuition is that a great lighting+microphone+speaker
| setup is necessary, but not sufficient, for this demo.
|
| Even from viewing the short demo, the stereo display alone is
| an entirely new dimension that no amount of studio lighting
| will recreate. While better lighting and audio setup would
| certainly improve the average person's videoconferencing
| experience, this looks to be a genuine step beyond.
|
| That said, we've been seeing holographic-display prototypes
| for the better part of a decade, and it'll be interesting if
| this actually pans out or fizzles.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| What I think you're trying to describe already exists as a
| product from Cisco called "telepresence". It is/was insanely
| expensive, was a permanent installation that only Cisco
| contracted techs could install, and did what you describe: It
| is a series of large, curved HD displays with desks at an
| appropriate distance from the screens/cameras, and copious
| amounts of indirect lighting from behind the setup to make
| each party look good.
|
| It seems like the imaging/rendering technology that Google is
| using is much more advanced.
| ElliotH wrote:
| I've used such a Cisco system. Compared to regular video
| calls the latency and quality was light years ahead, much
| more natural conversations were possible. By which I mean
| it was possible to laugh, interject, and generally have a
| realistic conversation with a colleague in another country
| without having to compensate for video lag in that very
| careful way I find necessary on Meet and Zoom.
|
| That said, there was no "emotional connection" like the
| Google one is described as offering. It was still a video
| call. There was no forgetting that. I suspect the 3D and
| the apparent physical closeness to the display add a lot.
| noveltyaccount wrote:
| Wow I forgot about Telepresence. I used it a decade ago at
| a Fortune 500 company. With all of the cameras and displays
| perfectly positions, everyone was life-sized on video, felt
| like you were sitting around a roundtable. Now I'm
| imagining that with higher resolution and 3D light field
| display, wow.
| wpietri wrote:
| The question for me is how much it matters after the novelty
| wears off.
|
| I count at least 5 waves of 3D technology starting in 1851 with
| the Brewster Stereoscope. Each time there's a surge of
| popularity driven by the legitimately amazing initial
| experience. And each time people slowly stop caring. People
| were incredibly excited about Avatar, and many thought it would
| change the movie industry. But how many people now go out of
| the way to see something in 3D?
| suyash wrote:
| Exactly, it's just a fancy FaceTime technology, I would be
| bored after few days. Tell me a problem that it solves.
| speeder wrote:
| I want to try this just to see what happens, if I will have
| again the feeling something is more real than reality.
|
| Because optometrists are illegal in my country (here only
| medics can decide what glasses you can use), currently I don't
| have stereoscopic vision, although my brain CAN do it, if I had
| the correct images sent to my eyes somehow. (one of my eyes
| muscles is slightly shorter than the other side thus the images
| on that eye are shifted unless I had an optometrist design me
| glasses with a prism).
|
| So when I watched Avatar, an actually well made 3D movie, it
| literally felt more real than reality, despite it being obvious
| fantasy with aliens, floating rocks and all that stuff.
|
| EDIT: for those wondering, I am from Brazil, here medical
| professionals often sue the shit out of anyone offering any
| service remotely similar to an optometrist, they are quite
| aggressive about it, some attempted to make even discussion of
| the subject illegal. And when I was trying to get the prism and
| asked around my medics about it, one of them went really
| ballistic, I honestly thought the guy was going to punch me. I
| believe the reason for that is that for many medics, designing
| glasses is their only source of income, a guaranteed one, since
| here is ALSO illegal to buy glasses without a medic desining
| them for you first, even if the new glasses are supposed to be
| identical to the old ones!
| djrogers wrote:
| Sounds like a great reason to do a little medical tourism
| once the present situation is under control.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Similar tech in the display of the nintendo 3ds?
| XnoiVeX wrote:
| Sony has it's own version of the light field display.
| https://youtu.be/KrLMnQM0_Ps
| leokennis wrote:
| My first thought: in 2030 when I'm calling grandma with this, I
| will first need to accept cookies, then accept the new Google
| privacy policy, then sign in to my Google account, then watch 2
| 20-second long pre roll ads.
| booleandilemma wrote:
| Google will have definitely discontinued this project by then
| of course :)
| silentsea90 wrote:
| We're witnessing magical tech and innovation, and here we are
| back to making fun of signing in, ads and cynicism about Google
| shutting down projects.
| meibo wrote:
| Especially because most of Google's productivity apps don't
| even have ads. I think it's just Gmail on mobile at the
| moment.
| vicary wrote:
| That looks amazing
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