Slashdot Mirror
Lenovo To Build Google's First Project Tango Phone (pcworld.com)
Press2ToContinue writes: Google and Lenovo announced plans Thursday night in Las Vegas for the first Project Tango phone to be released this summer for less than $500. Project Tango is Google's vision to bring augmented reality to phones by enabling devices to be able to sense where they are and what is around them. During the announcement, Google's Johnny Lee demonstrated measuring a room using a prototype Project Tango tablet and then shopping at Lowes for furniture that would fit it. Google also announced an app incubator for Project Tango, which they hope will encourage developers to start building apps that make use of the AR technology.
As if Android didn't already have a big enough issue with user privacy...
What kind of sypware/malware will Lenovo be including into this tech?
Many people will probably scan their whole home and store it on Google servers which will be accessible by governments that can force Google to stay silent
Augmented reality doesn't really interest me. Just let me do quality 3d scans with my phone and download the models, and I'm sold ;)
If they want "apps" that would interest me, they'd be apps to auto-process the scanned 3d data and try to make sense of it - tracking how individual objects move/transform between time steps, autoconstruction of deformable armatures on moving objects, separation objects from the surface that they rest upon (which requires identifying where an object ends and the "ground" begins), identifying what objects are and filling in properties or building/refining fine detail that can't be gotten from the scan (say, threading on a screw, the behavior of hair, etc), calculation of all material properties (not just shape and simple texture maps, but also reflectiveness, surface roughness, transparency, etc), and so on down the line.
Basically, what I want out of a phone that can easily build models of its environment is... said models of its environment. In as refined and easy to work with of a form as it can give.
Shiny New Australia.
Imagine a new tech idea that wasn't used to enhance my shopping or ad-consuming experience...
This should be awesome, Lenovo and Google, two companies I totally trust with my privacy and security.
No, wait, the other one ... Lenovo who installs spyware and Google who wants to monetize every fact about you, tied in with whatever other ad and alaytics they can jam into this.
Hell to the no.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
All of this comes across to me as knee-jerk. Your phone isn't going to sit around and scan without you telling it to. And since the processing is done in-phone, there's no need to store everything on the cloud.
That said, the things that people want stored could build Google up a pretty impressive database. Picture, say, the AR equivalent of a car repair manual (ignore what I wrote below about AR not really interesting me, there are some subsets that I find neat ;) ). Everything in your car, you can pull up images of what it should look like, how it's attached (make the other objects in front of it "disappear"), connect to parts suppliers and order replacements, order 3d prints or lasercut/CNC parts of things that no longer are available or whose shape the user wants to modify, etc. Such a database could certainly be populated my manufacturers and interested third parties wanting to sell parts, but these sorts of databases could also be populated by enthusiasts (of pretty much any topic), wiki-style or curated with managers. And it's not just the products of mechanical engineering that applies, but civil engineering, industrial processes, architecture/city planning, geology, GIS, forestry management, oceanography, biology, and pretty much anything else on the planet.
Google could have a massive database, comprised of data entirely from willing parties who are happy to have it there, and users who are happy that it's available. They could, and almost certainly would, make data access free and open - that's Google's MO. But as the owners of the database, there's all sorts of ways that they could monetize its analytics. Ford wants to know what percentage of user-submitted scans of driveshafts from 8-year-old F-150s in coastal areas are heavily rusted vs. those far inland? Google's got that data. The local Department of Transportation wants to know if anyone's submitted a scan of a bridge with heavy concrete spalling that they didn't know about? Google's got that data. Etc. Data can be exchanged freely and fully willingly, with all parties content with the arrangement - but Google still remains in a very good position from an analytics perspective. So long as others can't just download their entire servers as a whole, that is.
The actual issues I see aren't "Google secretly taking scans without the user's knowledge" - I find that highly unlikely. It's the fact that people will constantly be - even if inadvertently - scanning other people and their possessions. And recognition of individuals in 3d is much easier than in photos, and every scan is geolocated and contextualized. And the system is designed to capture motion as well. You know, if you go to a concert or sports event or anything like that, there's certainly going to be people almost constantly taking scans that capture you. So I certainly hope they're going to have a very good "do not track" system for people who don't to be able to be tagged. That said, I personally want just the opposite - I want to be tagged everywhere that I'm captured, I'd love a 3d trail of my life and all of my experiences. I thus hope that they don't take privacy controls and automatically anonymize everyone with no option to opt-in.
Shiny New Australia.
Apparently you're under the impression that every bit of data collected by an android phone gets transmitted straight to Google.
Shiny New Australia.
No, it also gets transmitted straight to Google Analytics.