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Comment by pivo | Hacker News Reader

Oh boy: "Listen to me, do you want to use a computer that is always looking at your hands?" It took a second for that warning to sink in.

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Someone at Apple had to design the watch to detect certain hand motions and purposely ignore them. That's a thing that someone had to do, otherwise false positives would be embarrassingly pasted across the Internet for to be laughed at.

Shouldn't the watch be on your non-dominant hand?

Wouldn't your dominant hand be on your mouse?

There's actually data on this!

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1357650X.2021.2...

lol, it doesn't show in the shortened url. I clicked this and read other things then went to that tab and went "wtf was I looking up here?"

possibly nsfw if you work for the puritans and love kelloggs

There's either got to be a big generational gap on preference for this, or a lot of folks out there have developed mousing ambidexterity.

I'm a lefty through and through in my sixth decade going around the sun. Mousing with my left hand is weird. Like completely wrong. Even on a touchpad I tend to "mouse" with my right hand.

Some lefty's do. I use the mouse right handed and even hold a guitar right handed. Some things you just train yourself to conform to society with. Kind of a shame I'm not an artist because I can have an amazing setup with a drawing tablet, keyboard, and mouse that is all at my beck and call.

(and... that, with my off hand as well. No clue why. I guess I hold a screen with my dominant hand?).

Why? (I switch wrists every six weeks ago because I think the tan line starts to look weird, it's similar usable from either)

Because it allows you to use your dominant hand to control it, and also your non-dominant hand is more often free than your dominant hand, so it's free to swing around when you walk and better count your steps.

That's all very well for the folks who only need one hand...

No, it’s all ML models. It is very unlikely that an ML model trained on wrist motions for walking and running would falsely report steps for… other activities.

They possibly had to include training data tagged with "inactive" though, including that.

One of the reasons I got rid of my apple watch is because it would congratulate me for successfuly completing my exercise for the day just from turning over on the sofa. It would also tell me how good I slept when I forgot to wear it to bed. So, at least for me, that ML doesn't work

I didn't give it up, but I did laugh one morning at 2:30AM, laying in bed, dozing off and getting startled by the watch telling me I've been sitting for awhile and it suggests I get up and move a bit.

It's rare, but I've been woken up at least once by a "congratulations on completing your stand/exercise!".

Definitely weird, pretty sure that’s not what most people experience. But such is the statistical nature of ML; your particular movements on that particular sofa fooled it.

I think we're past that. Our phones have already seen so many things we could find embarrassing.

One smart thing Apple usually does when using cameras for sensing (see Face ID) is never showing you the image, making it feel a lot less creepy.

A good point. Going into a supermarket I know I'll be filmed, but will avoid self-checkouts where I'm shown a live video of my exciting checkout experience as it does make it feel a lot creepier.

I’d wager most people take their phones in into the bathroom with them and use them on the toilet. I’ve even seen people on video calls in public restrooms!

I honestly don’t think the general public is all that concerned.

(But I am)

The video also offers a solution. Obscure the view of your hands from the camera(s).

“Hands”

Yeah, but at least Apple focuses on privacy

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