OK, Google. We've got just the gesture for you: Hand-tracking Project Soli coming to Pixel 4 Google will include motion-sensing radar in the forthcoming Pixel 4 smartphone to enable gesture control by waving your hand. Project Soli uses electromagnetic waves to detect the size, shape, material, distance and velocity of nearly objects. The system is optimised for motion resolution to detect things like finger movements …
The article over at Ars Technica says Google had to ask the FCC to allow them to use more powerful transmitters.
Presumably the normal proximity sensor (which doubles as the ambient light sensor) lets the phone know when it is against someone's ear and disables the radar, just as it does the touchscreen. This both saves power and avoids accidental inputs. This is expected behaviour since the 1st gen iPhone.
The article over at Ars Technica says Google had to ask the FCC to allow them to use more powerful transmitters.
Now, you'd expect permission from a federal authority would ensure safety and the best interests of the customer at heart.
But with the current incumbents in the offices, this may no longer be the case.
It would have been more along Google's lines to have it built in and keep it on at all times, only to say "sorry we forgot to mention it, of course it is there and always on, why shouldn't it?" when caught. Because of course the gesture control is only there to comfort the easily misguided masses, the real purpose if better situational awareness and more complete coverage of the vast network of slurping devices.
Microsoft's AR Minecraft and Niantec's Pokémon Go are better examples of efforts to map real life environments - the user is encouraged to point the phone at the wider environment. This short range radar is only focused on the users' hands.
Google's applications for Soli seem limited - music control etc - since the data doesn't leave the dedicated chip ( that just exports a media control trigger or whatever). This keeps the permissions simpler and mitigates a data slurp backlash, but maybe later versions will have an API if 3rd applications seem worthwhile.
From Ars Technica:
"Google promises that its FaceID "image data never leaves your phone" and that the data is "never saved or shared with other Google services." Soli data will get the same on-device treatment."
Just to clarify, the FaceID is done with two IR cameras and projectors, not the radar bit. The radar bit merely tells the phone to scan for a face when the user reaches for the phone.
A loud clatter of gunk music flooded through the Heart of Gold cabin as Zaphod searched the sub-etha radio wave bands for news of himself. The machine was rather difficult to operate. For years radios had been operated by means of pressing buttons and turning dials; then as the technology became more sophisticated the controls were made touch-sensitive--you merely had to brush the panels with your fingers; now all you had to do was wave your hand in the general direction of the components and hope. It saved a lot of muscular expenditure, of course, but meant that you had to sit infuriatingly still if you wanted to keep listening to the same program.
Zaphod waved a hand and the channel switched again.
Yes, I remember when Samsung had (maybe they still have) the ability to detect gestures that you make near, but not touching, the screen. I tried it out for a week or so but ended up having to disable it because of all of the times it thought I was gesturing when really I was just moving my hand nearby.
See title.
My laptop had a terminal disagreement with the tiled floor recently so for the house I bought a mini pc that came pre loaded with Win10.
I surprised at how much crap there is to disable or flush, makes a Chinese phone look lightweight.
Googles insistence on a lot of the crap in Android gets short shrift too.
and your mugshot, taken at all possible angles, will end up in every possible (and impossible - you think) database.
p.s. Why would met police waste any money on their recognition system, when they can tap into google?
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