Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN mostly uses it as a reference point for how much better video calls could get, with some skepticism about what the demo leaves out.
What it is
Google's short promo for Project Starline, a booth that shows a life-size, three-dimensional view of the person you are talking to. It presents the technology as a magic window for friends, families and co-workers who are far apart.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2021 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Recommends mindover · 2023-01 · on “Apple headset leak reveals new details and confirms earlier rumors”
We might just not know what we are missing. I used to think that video calls is a solved problem until I saw Google's Project Starline [0]. Video calls in AR could be vastly better, not just a little bit, but basically a completely different experience/relationship. [0] [this video]
Recommends jonas21 · 2023-03 · on “Who is still inside the metaverse?”
I think the most promising Metaverse technology might be something like Starline [1]. No headset to wear. No disorientation. You just sit down and you're there with somebody else. [1] [this video]
Cites alanwreath · 2021-11 · on “Apple has a new work-from-home policy, but it’s still not what employees want”
WFH vs No WFH vs Hybrid WFH has become the new emacs vs vi vs vscode (order not important), but I wonder if it will all go away when projects like [this video] become as available as a web browser
Cites esafak · 2024-01 · on “We need technology that is less immersive, not more”
This is true of games, but not other applications. You need photorealism to have immersive video calls -- as if you are meeting in person. Here is a tech demo by Google; see how users respond to the realism: [this video] So we do need more immersive technology; just maybe not for games.
Critical achow · 2021-05 · on “Project Starline: Feel like you're there, together”
If you watch the video of it: [this video] 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.