Flutter (YC W12): The Startup That Wants To Put The World’s Webcams To Good Use | Hacker News Reader

Flutter (YC W12): The Startup That Wants To Put The World’s Webcams To Good Use

techcrunch.com

24 pointsdiggan19 comments

Say you’re sitting at your laptop, listening to music while responding to emails, writing code, or reading blogs. Then your phone rings, and the typical scramble ensues: You minimize your browser, maximize your music app, and search frantically for the pause button or volume control — all, hopefully, before you miss the call. Sound familiar?

Wait, am I really the only guy who just hits the mute button?

Cool technology, but that's a strange use case.

I don't have a mute button. Actually, my laptop has one, but I'm usually on an external monitor with the laptop lid closed, so I couldn't get to it anyway.

There's always the speaker menu that I can pop up and select mute, but it's unnatural enough that my brain goes into panic mode when it needs to shut off the sound quickly. I'd probably just slap the power switch on my external amp.

So, this strikes me as a much, much more natural user interface than what I assume most people have on their existing system.

I have a similar setup (external monitor with the Macbook lid closed) But in my case (and possibly for other Macbook users with the same setup), closing the lid makes the webcam inaccessible as well.

Ha, that's a rather obvious thought that didn't even occur to me. I have a Logitech webcam on my external monitor, too, though, so it wouldn't be a problem. :-)

Maybe if I primarily used a laptop directly, I'd have a different opinion, but having played with alternative input devices (e.g. Bluetooth remote control), I really like having a unified method of muting all my media, and in a familiar form factor. Since holding my hand up seems very natural and familiar to me, I imagine that I'd like this hand-recognition system.

Hi Guys, we just hated using our keyboards and mouse to control music. Especially, when it's in the background or when we're few feet away. We're just in alpha and launched one gesture - we hope to add many more soon. Thanks for your kind comments and feedback!

"as evidenced by the 11,000 people who downloaded Flutter in the first 11 days it was available, and the 400,000 gestures the app logged from those users ... "

Anyone have it installed? It would be cool to get a review of how tolerant the gesture recognition is.

edit: from watching the whole embedded video it's an interesting kind of "gesture" they look for based on the signature of your hand rather than the movement. Really interesting.

Also: Can you opt out of having data generated from a webcam pointed at you at all times uploaded to some dudes server?

Now that we're swinging back to local/native apps are we (the people who make the apps) really going to give up the data we get from the web model? Or are we going to normalize spyware completely to keep our dashboards full of metrics?

Boy, if people got pissed over the pickpocketing of contact details by an app they installed on their phone imagine how fun the rhetoric will be when someone starts "data mining to increase user engagement and product penetration" with webcam data.

Great points and feedback for us. The app works locally on you machine, so no video data is leaving your laptop. Nothing to opt-out when we're not collecting anything.

It is only available for Mac right now. We will have that info on our site as soon as we can. Thanks!

That's great. Also what I assumed at first, the gesture count triggered some alarm bells I guess.

I think it looks pretty cool, but I feel like outside of maybe some of the webcam games and at home applications they demo'd ...it might suffer from the "social awkwardness" (I don't know a better word) that comes w/ new stuff like this.

Siri was about my limit. I wouldn't be caught using these gestures in a public place, kind of like trying to take photos with your ipad.

We hope that at some point gestures become small enough that you don't have to feel socially awkward. At some point, in future, we will interact with machines just like we do it with other humans - through voice, touch, vision... we hope to enable vision, and if it is natural then it is not socially awkward. We love your feedback. thanks!

Skype/iChat video automatically mute my music.

The big thing for me will be trying to get past the webcam light being on all the time, and could something be recording?

They should really come up with filters that obfuscate people to some extent, but still pick up motion, then this would feel better...

Yup, I agree. Also it would add extra CPU usage at all times. Of course, you could make it like Siri in that you have to press some key to turn it on. That solves all 3 problems, though I wonder if the webcam activates fast enough for the intended immediately-stop-the-music use.

Great point. CPU usage was a concern for us, that is why we spent months optimizing it. It right now uses on average ~5% of your CPU. (20-30% when you do a gesture, 2-3% otherwise). Please try the app if you have Mac and send us more feedback, we would love to hear from you!

Great feedback. Luckily, entire app works on your computer so, there's not video data going to server. Only thing we track is non-video usage data. Hope that alleviates your concerns!

That's basically Kinect for Windows, but using your built-in webcam, right? And targeting gesture controls for apps, vs. games.

I can't find system requirements on their web page, but the demo video shows it running on a Mac.

Yes, again, it is for Mac, and we are sorry it's not more obvious. We will add system requirements page as soon as possible.

Why not an app tied to the mic that recognises your ringtone and mutes everything? That means I reach for my phone rather than have to make any gestures first.

Another practical use of the technology in Shazam! Just gotta make it fast enough, which you probably could considering you just check it against one song vs. every song.

That's a great idea. We refer to those as passive gestures, and we will enable those in future too. Right now, starting simple and solving small problems first.

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