Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

PolkHighBundy's

macrumors newbie
Mar 22, 2012
8
0
It would be pretty sweet playing a Walking Dead zombie apocalypse type game in your own neighborhood/town/city with full 3D maps of inside and outside. You could even maybe link it with others and try to make it a survivor colony, do battle with other neighborhoods, etc. Lots of possibilities.

If Apple had made this for interior designing, it would suggest your home have an all glass front with only wooden tables and uncomfortable stools.
 

MahBoi

macrumors newbie
Feb 20, 2014
23
0
If this thing is useful, it's not useful for games. Would be useful in cars with advanced suspension maybe? Other than that, it's just fuel for magazines like Popular Science. Still cool though.

----------

If I can ask my phone where I lost my keys, and it tells me where they are because of this technology, then that is awesome.

The only people that should be afraid of Google (and the NSA) information gathering are terrorists and pedophiles, so if you don't count yourself part of either or those groups there is nothing to worry about.

But honestly there must be a lot of pedophiles and terrorists out there the way people always complain about this stuff.

It's just because people here get a pride boner screaming that their American freedom is under attack by tyrants. Now, the legitimate problem is that people in other countries might start avoiding American technology.

----------

So Apple had 3 "wows"- all at least 3 years apart. And also, the ipad isn't as a big of a "wow" as you think buddy

It created a whole market. Plenty of companies were "wowed" enough by it to make copies.

----------

I have to admit that's one of the most infuriating attitudes I run across, and I hear a lot of it. Personal privacy is the foundation of the US constitution.
At most, one amendment of the Constitution, the 4th. Considering the context, I doubt even that.

As far as Google, Facebook, etc spying, it's why I try not to use them any more than absolutely necessary and I minimize the personal info I give them whenever possible. I am not a commodity.
Things like this don't give you any more credibility. So you live under a rock? Meanwhile, I've got my Facebook account with a fake name and picture and plenty of friends so I can talk to them on Facebook chat through iChat. If I closed my account and told my friends that I'm concerned about my privacy, they'd give me a weird look and ask me what I'm smoking (I don't smoke).
 
Last edited:

Analog Kid

macrumors G3
Mar 4, 2003
8,810
11,259
"What if Google knew even more about you than they already do?"
I think the privacy concerns on this article are misplaced. This is raw technology.

The only people that should be afraid of Google (and the NSA) information gathering are terrorists and pedophiles, so if you don't count yourself part of either or those groups there is nothing to worry about.

But honestly there must be a lot of pedophiles and terrorists out there the way people always complain about this stuff.
Or a civil rights leader:
J Edgar Hoover vs Martin Luther King, Jr

Who knows-- maybe you find yourself with an opinion one day, or an ambition, and see all the data you've generated in a lifetime used to undermine you.

Privacy isn't just for the wicked.
I get the value of 3D mapping. I don't get the purpose it serves on a phone.
To sell phones... I think Google's goal here is to see if it will.
 

Malbrute

macrumors member
Aug 5, 2013
34
17
poogle

All this hardware will be the end of google. :eek:
please go back to making bold new web services. :D
pretty much every hardware endeavor has been a beta product. ;)
like google wave, free and experimental. :confused:
eventually they should figure out, and state their future goals. :rolleyes:
 

Parasprite

macrumors 68000
Mar 5, 2013
1,698
144
Do you notice your iCloud Backups?

No, because I turned them off in favor of local backups. I don't remember the reason why I did, but it didn't have to do with data usage or fear of iCloud security/snooping.

Besides iCloud backing up of iDevices is a widely documented feature. If iOS was updated with a silently added feature of uploading backup data without adding documentation, choice, or announcement...yeah somebody would notice eventually.
 

osaga

macrumors 6502
Jun 11, 2012
454
170
I bet this was born out of Google's desire to bring streetview indoors, but without costly equipment, bandwidth, or employees. I also bet that their goal is to imbed it in google glass.

But honestly, what's the point? The only somewhat valuable thing I can think of, is if it were a high resolution photo-realistic indoor "streetview" of public spaces, that was three dimensionally navigable on your computer, via Google maps. If that's the case then it'll be a decade or more before the technology is good enough to do that.
 

Viantef

macrumors member
Jun 20, 2013
67
0
There's nothing innovative about vapourware.....

Uh, this isn't a "on-the-shelf" consumer product. It's a project that is being developed in house by Google and scheduled to be released to developers. You can't really call this 'vapourware'.
 

b166er

macrumors 68020
Apr 17, 2010
2,062
18
Philly
I dream of a day that something like this will tell me exactly where in Home Depot the item I need is located.
 

krravi

macrumors 65816
Nov 30, 2010
1,173
0
I get the value of 3D mapping. I don't get the purpose it serves on a phone.


You map your home... then you go to a store and then scan the object in the store and see how it fits in your home? Like not the dotted video shown, but once the dev kits are out and developers write CAD like apps?

There are literally thousands of mundane and lame apps for anything imaginable these days and somehow you are not sure what this will do?
 

oopl

macrumors newbie
Jan 25, 2009
18
7
meh. but then again, I'm not the target for this.
I don't doubt that interesting software can come out of this project but at this point it doesn't do anything for me.
 

krravi

macrumors 65816
Nov 30, 2010
1,173
0
Wait, wait, wait. Lemme get this straight.

They already took pictures of the outside of my home with street view.

Now they want pictures of the inside of my home.

What is this chit?

Its called introspection. You discover yourself through Google.

----------

Ok, I watched the video two times and cant see why? You can make games using your enviorment and see how furniture fits your home. And then what? What is the idea? What is the purpose?

Questions that were probably asked when Steve said..."We need to design a touch screen phone with like say 10 apps on it"
 

entropys

macrumors 65816
Jan 5, 2007
1,226
2,327
Brisbane, Australia
It's pretty obvious that Apple is up to something in this space give its recent purchase history, but nobody outside the company has any idea what it might be doing! because Apple doesn't announce anything until it is ready for market.

Which would make things interesting when it does given so many people here have labelled it 'creepy'.

With Google, they announce tech ideas no matter how raw they are or even if it never becomes commercial. Even in the announcement they seem vague on its purpose. Completely different company philosophy.
 

IJ Reilly

macrumors P6
Jul 16, 2002
17,909
1,496
Palookaville
You map your home... then you go to a store and then scan the object in the store and see how it fits in your home? Like not the dotted video shown, but once the dev kits are out and developers write CAD like apps?

There are literally thousands of mundane and lame apps for anything imaginable these days and somehow you are not sure what this will do?

That's right, somehow I am not sure.

As you should be, not knowing how or even if it will work.
 

IJ Reilly

macrumors P6
Jul 16, 2002
17,909
1,496
Palookaville
To sell phones... I think Google's goal here is to see if it will.

You'd think so -- until you consider all of Google's products and projects that seem to lack any apparent method or purpose.

To see if it will sell phones. Imagine the reaction if Apple announced a product with the goal of seeing if it will make money.
 

thleeal

macrumors regular
Jun 24, 2009
106
0
what if you knew something they didn’t want you to know.

If I can ask my phone where I lost my keys, and it tells me where they are because of this technology, then that is awesome.

The only people that should be afraid of Google (and the NSA) information gathering are terrorists and pedophiles, so if you don't count yourself part of either or those groups there is nothing to worry about.

But honestly there must be a lot of pedophiles and terrorists out there the way people always complain about this stuff.

this is such stupid thought.
you think they can’t artificially input something into an image?
or do you think a white government is beyond it.

when Muslim, is the definition of terrorist. well you are the new nazis of the 21st century.
just look at the death tolls.
 

iMcLovin

macrumors 68000
Feb 11, 2009
1,963
898
Typically Google, announcing something that is just in a test phase. I wonder how many of those projects Apple has going on. Difference is, apple don´t share things until its ready. Google tend to release alpha software and it stays in that state for many years and make the company seem messy.
 

subsonix

macrumors 68040
Feb 2, 2008
3,551
79
I get the value of 3D mapping. I don't get the purpose it serves on a phone.

Probably to use crowd sourcing to 3D map the world at no expense for Google.

What if you could capture the dimensions of your home simply by walking around with your phone before you went furniture shopping? What if directions to a new location didn't stop at the street address? What if you never again found yourself lost in a new building? What if the visually-impaired could navigate unassisted in unfamiliar indoor places? What if you could search for a product and see where the exact shelf is located in a super-store?

Those later what ifs mentioned, presuppose that someone else already 3D mapped the area/building and made it searchable with Google.
 

Analog Kid

macrumors G3
Mar 4, 2003
8,810
11,259
You'd think so -- until you consider all of Google's products and projects that seem to lack any apparent method or purpose.

To see if it will sell phones. Imagine the reaction if Apple announced a product with the goal of seeing if it will make money.
The only method I see in Google's madness is to constantly try and look fresh and innovative so their brand doesn't go stale. They need Android in order to stay relevant in mobile search. There aren't many obvious things left to do with the mobile phone platform, but if there's only a few power-ups left, Google has to be sure Apple doesn't find them first. The two killer apps are games and navigation, and Tango supports both.

Google is being pretty up front about the fact that this is research, not a product. They built 3D imaging into a phone form factor and they want to see what people could do with it.

Apple bought Primesense, Microsoft/Nokia has Kinect. This is Google's move, and it's not a trivial showing. Microsoft would have put together that video and then buried the tech because they didn't know how to finish it or what to do with it. To Google's credit they're taking it public.

I'm not sold, but I'm interested in what happens next.
 

unixperience

macrumors regular
Jul 21, 2010
235
5
Great stuff. But not the first of it's kind at all. Qualcomm has been working on a similar thing. And have made far more progress (even a year ago) http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UOfN1plW_Hw. Just check out vuforia. But it's great to see more and more of this stuff. This is exactly what I want to work on when I'm out of school.
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.