Slashdot Mirror
NYT Working On 'Magic Mirror' For Bathroom Surfing
MrSeb writes "If the New York Times Research & Development Lab has its wicked way, you will soon be able to stop taking your mobile computer of choice into the bathroom — and use a 'magic mirror' instead. On average we spend an hour in the bathroom every day, and the magic mirror — which is built from a 'data-bearing' mirror, Microsoft Kinect, and a healthy dollop of ingenuity — is designed to capitalize on that time by letting you surf the web and increase the New York Times' advertising revenue."
That doesn't sound very hygienic.
More traffic for chatroulette.com :)
Stop using advertising revenue as a business model.
I can surf the web AND still look at myself?!?!? Shit, that will sell *really* well in L.A.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
A camera in every bathroom, what a great idea!
Would you really want to touch one of these if it was in a public restroom?
I don't know about the "average person", but while I am in the bathroom shaving, washing, showering, bathing, trimming, using the toilet, etc, I have neither the time nor inclination to somehow stare at (or maybe interact with) text and graphics on a mirror over the vanity...
Perhaps I am just not geeky enough?
Listening to music would be OK, I suppose :)
The summary didn't make any sense. I still have no idea what this is about.
A whole damn hour in the bathroom every day? Even counting a 15 minute shower that seems like a lot. Might I recommend a change in diet?
A hidden Kinect camera to 3D record what I do in the bathroom! Finally!
Wow, they invented glossy screens! Not like we had these in laptops since forever.
Was it not just a few months ago that the New York Times was complaining about how they had to protect their revenue stream and start enforcing a pay wall? Where did they get the money for such a pointless project?
Palm trees and 8
Women might spend an hour a day in the bathroom, but what straight man does? 10 mins shower, 2 mins brushing teeth, 5 mins shaving and maybe 5 mins taking a crap.
How many of us have a mirror positioned to watch us use the toilet?
Is there some reason to think that gay men don't also spend 10~ minutes showering, 2~ minutes brushing their teeth, 5~ minutes shaving and 5~ minutes taking a dump? I didn't realize that sexual orientation determined how long those things take...
Palm trees and 8
Sounds more like a healthy dollop of Purell is required. Yuck.
...because I spend most of my time in the klo either away from the mirror or in the shower. Now a shower safe web-radio is a real improvement; we have a rack in our shower (and, yes, it's a nice one) so tomorrow's solution, today, consists of a 7" tablet and a 1qt zip-lock freezer bag.
Maybe some ad blocking toilet paper :-)
"Magic Mirror-mirror on the wall hacked by anonymous, pictures and facebook passwords posted to www.haxalot.org/mirror_exploit"
Finally I have a better excuse to use the basin to pee...
This mirror will make my life better
...so he's always found women suspiciously effeminate.
Shake it more than three times and Clippy pops up. "Looks like you could use some help with that. Shall I find you some good porn?"
Have gnu, will travel.
So this is just another way to entice me into staying longer in a room that smells like crap and touch a mirror that's been likely touched by a douchebag that doesn't wash his hands after he touches himself? No thanks...
Damn, people! Eat more fiber!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The NYT engineers had been working nonstop for months without success trying to get their iPhone app to stop freezing. Eventually they decided it would be smart to work on something different and less strenuous for a while and then return to their important project with fresh minds.
Sorry, I forgot there are ads on the Web; I use Lynx.
Why does this idea of putting computers in public restrooms keep surfacing? Perhaps we should flush twice.
Will it respond to the only important question: Who in the land is fairest of all?
And when it pure mirror mode, will it respond the truth or an augmented reality?
... I call it iPad
I stayed in an upscale hotel in Europe once where the TVs were disguised as fancy mirrors (with frame and all). When the screen was off it was a perfectly usable mirror and you could only tell the difference if you looked carefully.
To me, this seems about as useful as those "internet on your refrigerator!" things that Bestbuy carries. Who wants to surf the web in the bathroom?
I read the internet for the articles.
I know this is an average, but someone out there must be spending an awful lot of time in the bathroom to compensate for me being on the far left of the average.
This is yet another solution looking for a problem.
What the fuck? My shower is at most 30 minutes, if I feel like relaxing (avg 15 min). Other than that, a couple of minutes here and there to pee and wash my hands and a couple of minutes to poop, wipe and wash my hands. What the fuck is everyone else doing in there?
15 minute shower, 5-10 minutes for number 2, and 5-10 minutes for number 1. And that's being generous. I don't see how you can spend an hour per day in the bathroom, and I certainly don't understand how half the population can spend more than an hour a day in there.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
That time spent looking in the mirror is usually already busy, shaving, tidying hair, checking teeth and the like. As adept as some people are at multitasking I don't think looking at facebook while shaving is a great idea, especially with a straight razor and most people's smartphones already amply handles the 'squat and surf'
Well it'll save sneaking the magazines from the bedroom stash into the bathroom. Not to mention avoiding getting the pages stuck together.
to not use a public bathroom.
As if we needed more.
Simple. We've been assaulted with so much advertising in our lifetimes that we've become numb to it. It's white noise. The billions companies are spending to get our attention is going down the toilet (pun intended). What they're looking for now is a "captive" audience. Someplace where we can't ignore them or quickly get away from them. Where do we go everyday, multiple times a day, that we can't skip or go someplace else... the bathroom. They know it and they're trying to find a way in that won't be automatically rejected or cost so much that they can't get a return on their investment. Right now they have the static posters but, they want Flash ads... with sound... and preferably vibration (wait, maybe not a good idea)... you get the point.
The arms race for our attention continues. There's a reason that the younger generations have the attention span of a gnat.
Yea, yea... get off my lawn.
"Be particularly skeptical when presented with evidence confirming what you already believe." -
Now there is nowhere you can hide!
Hopefully it doesn't run Skype, since "I told you never to call me on this wall! This is an unlisted wall!"
The only moment someone is in the bathroom and is able to use a computer is either sitting on the "white throne" or laying in the tub.
In both cases I see the magic mirror at least out of a reach, if not completely useless.
What's burning into your mind that requires you to use a PC while brushing your teeth, shaving the cheeks or putting your contacts on?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
1) What happens the first time somebody is in the shower and reaches out to hit the next page?
2) Most bathrooms have the mirror on the same wall that the toilet is because most people don't like to look at them self while sitting there.
3) Lots of germs if one is going to the bathroom and reaching over to a touchscreen, unless the wash their hands first, in which case item one comes into play.
4) In most households and public restrooms the goal is to get people out of the bathroom quickly so others can use it.
5) Hopefully, such a device won't include a webcam!
If you are a voyeur, that magic mirror is a must, provided that you install it at your favorite targets' bathroom and it has a hidden wide angle webcam.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
1.Make all the beta testers pretty girls.
2."Leak" a security hole.
3.???
4. Profit!
It has to be a really magical mirror, if it allows you to surf in the bathtub:
- Magic mirror on the wall, who is the best surfer of the flat?
- You are indeed a good surfer, master, but Snowwhite surfs even better than you.
- Dammit! I'll immediately ban her from the Wave!
In the movies there exist this amazing invention, perfect AI. This perfect AI will give you your tasks of the day as you are shaving in an easy to digest manner that requires no user interaction with shaving foam covered fingers (for the ladies) or make up (for the men) (Yes I am from Amsterdam, how did you know).
In reality, what will be displayed is your gmail account and that ain't easy to navigate at the best of times let alone when you are hung over and can't handle any light at all let alone your own reflection.
Same with tablet, in the movies they just swipe and voila, what they want appears in large enough text you can read it over their shoulders. In reality? Finicky settings, wifi or 3g that isn't in range and touchscreens that seem designed for people with smaller fingers then I have.
It is the idea of the cue-cat again, that people are so organized that they can even be bothered to go through all this hassle even if they were motivated to do so. Like QR codes. What do they expect, I am going to stop my car, search for my phone, install an app, try to get a picture of the code, wait for it to look it up, wait for the page over 3g and .... I LOST INTEREST!
Every futuristic sci-fi movie tends to have a scene where the hero wakes up and has an intelligent house that makes the process go smooth, reads the news, shows the mail and orders a new carton of milk... in reality? The only tech in my house itself that people didn't have a hundred years ago is the light-switch and that is just because only rich people had them but cleaning staff would still have seen them in the houses they worked at.
Oh yes, I got a computer but they are not part of the house are they now? How smart is your house? Really?
How smart could you make it, with todays tech in a way that is actually helpfull? For instance, get a weather report? Detailed enough to be usefull but not annoying to hear everyday even if you got a day off?
The idea is that shaving and such are wasted moment, a rich director would have his secretary to fill him in, it is sci-fi to have a computer/robot do it. It looks great in every movie I have seen. In reality? Do you want to blue screen your mirror? Have to wait for an essential update before you can flush your toilet?
No? Me neither. My fridge is dumb, my washing machine is dumb, my lights are dumb. Maybe that makes me dumb but it works for me.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I await the reports of a poorly secured mirror that someone gets a hold of and ends up broadcasting their pill information (possibly more) and webcam all over the internet.
"which is built from an LCD display-cum-mirror,"
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Scrape pics for Google
Of my balls.
If you could connect this mirror to a cable outlet maybe hidden behind it this could help get rid of all of the shower radios and bathroom TVs currently in place...otherwise, stupid idea...who spends that much time in the bathroom where they can actively browse the web...listening to radio or TV is passive which is possible while you shower, shave, brush teeth, do makeup, whatever....but using it like a computer....don't think so...nice try but it's just another gadgety toy...
Oh yes, they must be looking at all the guys who disappear into the mens room with a copy of the local rag under their arm... You know the type of guy.. he sits there in the stall, trousers around his ankles, doing the crossword puzzle and reading the sports. And sometimes using it as a phone booth too.
What could be better for that guy, than having the news already there waiting for him....
Ugh... I just realized, sometimes the news IS there waiting for him... folded up behind the piping or stuffed into the paper spool....
Huh?
I love the thinking behind this, technology ubiquitously deployed so that it's everywhere: available, literally, instantaneously. The article mentions that we, and I'm assuming we means the average American in the USA, spend an hour in the bathroom every day. And the New York Times intends for us to use some part of that time to read their newspaper. hmmm...
People spending that hour in the bathroom are busy doing their daily grooming which pretty much ties up their active eyesight and participation.
The very first thing I thought about the product was, a mirror that lets you surf the web while you're grooming? The idea is good geeky fun, but is it really useful and usable?
Now that I have read the article and watched the first video, I can see that some good thought has been put into how people may want to use it.
Yes, people's hands are busy while they're in the bathroom, (and they should wash their hands before they touch anything...), So a mouse interface is not a good idea. The innards of the mouse would soon be gunked up, rendering it useless. Between hairspray, steamy water vapor, and makeup powder, even an optical mouse would be inoperable. And a women's bathroom would be just as bad. :-)
The way to make this product successful is to put a much better voice response interface on it. The user should be able to have a conversation with the product and have it act as their agent. In the demo the system is responding by changing what it displays on the screen. You should be able to "chat" with it. If you're shaving, or if your putting on false eyelashes, you should be able to ask the system a question, and have it respond to you by voice rather than forcing you to go look at something. Any time you're waving a sharp blade near your face, or gluing anything on your eye, you don't want to take your eyes off what you're doing....
And the read back voice has to be natural and pleasant sounding, and naturally, customized to the user's preferences. Of course the Kinect system should recognize each individual it has been set up with and switch to their user profile as soon as they recognize them.
For example, if the user says "where is the movie the way you were showing today?" Notice that the user doesn't put the movie title in quotes or specially delineate it in any way verbally. The user has to be able to rely on the system to successfully parse the verbal utterance when it is the normal and natural way people speak.
The system needs to respond with "that movie is showing at 4 different theaters that are near you" (if the movie was only showing at one or perhaps 2 theaters, then the system would immediately say the names of those theaters, as in "that movie is showing at the Strand, and the Cinemax".
The system will need to know what theaters the user is already familiar with. That is the kind of information it learns over time from interacting with the user. As further training for the system, as the system interacts with users from all over, it should tokenize the interaction sequences, remove all the personal identifying information, and upload the tokenized interaction sequence to a central repository. That way the central repository can learn all the different ways users have of interacting with different named things and improve the number of things the agent side know how to do. For example, an object named "movie" has its own name, [title], and each movie can be associated with one or more theaters. Each theater is associated with a physical address, and a phone number, and of course its own name. And the relationship between movie and theater has associations with multiple show time/sub-theater pairs. The show time/theater pair that is associated with the movie-theater relationship has 2 properties associated with it, the 1st is the time the movie will be shown, and the 2nd one is which sub-theater at that theater the movie will be shown in at that time. Since the system understands all these relationships, when the user asks "what t
In Soviet Russia, mirror reads YOU .
Huh?
Just another gadget to waste money on...I guess if you can use it to listen to the radio or TV news it could help get rid of other smaller electronics in the bathroom but HOW freaking' long are people staying in there anyway....ridiculous.
You might want to listen to the news on the radio when you are in the bathroom.
have the ability to stop taking our mobile computer of choice into the bathroom?
JADBP
I once house-sat for a wealthy family in my parents' neighborhood. One of their bathrooms was all mirrors: Every vertical surface was a mirror.
"Hey, this is cool, I thought."
Yeah, then I used the bathroom once and realized that wherever I looked I got a eyefull of myself. I used the other bathroom the rest of the week.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
On average we spend an hour in the bathroom every day...
Is this stat accurate? Because it would explain many things to me.
Personally, I spend maybe 15 mins in the bathroom / day, and that includes shaving and showering. When I have to use the bathroom, I go in, do my business, and leave. Unless I am having some kind of "digestive issue", I am in and out of there in 1 minute, tops. I have always wondered why so many people want all this reading stuff by their crapper. If people actually spend this kind of time in there (doing god knows what??? Am I abnormally efficient at using the crapper???), then it explains plenty.
Such a device, controlled and branded by the NYTimes (or any other single source media company) mmm... Nah...
Take it apart and use the display with Chumby guts.... I see potential there.
In the bathroom, I might be showering, shaving, or shitting, but I'm not just sitting around wishing I had something to do until my official bathroom time is up. I'm busy. I'm pretty sure that's normal. The old idea of a TV or phone or microwave in the bathroom is comical, but that is not actually my favorite room in the house to hang out.
Wait ... I didn't see this gem:
[...] you will soon be able to stop taking your mobile computer of choice into the bathroom [...]
What the hell?
On average we spend an hour in the bathroom every day
Am i the only one who thinks this is grossly overstated ? I'm only getting to like 15-20 minutes a day maximum.
Slipping shoelaces ?
I've always liked the idea that the bathroom is a refuge from technology. I don't want to be obligated to answer emails when I'm in there. Bad enough my boss can get me after hours on my phone. Never mind that it sounds profoundly unsanitary, we've traded away so much of our ability to just think and be still and not rush thanks to work and technology that there are some things that should be sacrosanct. Like using the toilet, or having a bath or a shower. If you're constantly shoving information in, you never get to process how it really impacts you. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take my laptop outside and do some gardening.
Woody Allen's Sleeper was an early-1970s flick about a guy who wakes up 200 years in the future, and lo, there are video/Internet bathroom mirrors (to great comic effect). :p
Please add front facing camera. This will save us from the crappy cellphone photography skills of most teenage girls who are posing for their secret facebook pictures.
Get out and start working. World economy needs you!
Privacy is terrorism.
I spend most my time on the toilet or taking a shower.
I spend very little time in front of the mirror.
And, I would think if your spending time in front of your mirror, it's because your maybe shaving, grooming, putting on makeup, or watching yourself masturbate. Oh, now i see what the "magic mirror" is for, my bad...
Be seeing you...