I like being able to check how busy a place is, but not like this. Simple head count or an average wait time is good. Using web cams is creepy overkill. Typical tech bro invasive shit.
Google Maps already provides this, and it’s pretty handy.
I believe they do this the same way they do traffic jams, by seeing how many android phones are at the location vs. average.
iPhones will report it too if they have Maps open.
/stares in smart glasses
Silicon Valley once again solving a problem nobody actually has.
I don’t know about nobody. Did you see what “one horny user” wrote?
Finding a place that’s not too crowded and nice for you is a problem I’ve often had with people.
Where’s my husband? - desperate housewives of silicon valley
Inverted alcoholics have this problem…I guess…
You have to drink a lot to become inverted.
“Just go to a fucking bar,” she added, seeming to balk at the purpose of the app. “And if it’s not cool you go to another bar.”
I’d rather not. A way to find a nice bar without having to visit several would be nice, not sure having it all live streamed online is the solution
So San Francisco just invented the webcam? (Btw, Google Maps already shows how busy establishments are.)
Doesn’t Google Maps show trends instead of live numbers?
Edit: I used “numbers” because I wasn’t sure how to end my question. Stats? Values?
It has both.
It also doesn’t have numbers, it has unlabeled columns.
It wouldn’t surprise me if the way it determines how busy places are would be considered a bigger privacy violation than these webcams (which only show people in their areas while Google somehow can report on how busy many arbitrary locations are vs their usual).
“Busy”, “More busy than usual”,… Not absolute numbers.
Depends on the area (maybe), but I think it can do either.
They could very easily just implement some rudimentary person identification algos and output only a headcount.
Pretty sure you can do that with OpenCV.
I think Google does this with your phone. I can see how busy various places are by looking them up on Google maps. Really useful for my local Costco.
So when is your Costco not busy? Genuine question as I have gone there mid-day during the week and it will still be packed. One day I went 30 min before close and the parking lot was still full.
There’s busy and there’s “checkout lines literally to the back of the store”
I’ve noticed usually in the middle of the afternoon, before 4. Otherwise you’ll get the people who left early to go to Costco.
Weekends near the end of the day, oddly enough, usually are quiet as well.
I think you’re correct, but wouldn’t this only work if you are running either android, or google maps, and have location on?
Its accurate enough but still an estimate, is the point i am getting at.
Conceivably a webcam + opencv headcount would be more precise, if the cameras covered the whole space and could account for viewing the same person from a different angle.
Its like how google can give you an estimate of bus times, but if there is a local city app that specifically interfaces directly with the actually city busses, it’ll be more accurate.
Your example with the buses is wrong. There is a standard called GTFS and public transport companies publish their fleet status and timetable according to this standard, Google just reads and displays this data. Nowadays you should see the same data in the official apps and gmaps. There are even foss solutions displaying the same thing like transportr.app
You can browse this data worldwide on https://www.transit.land
Well dang, I did not know that.
Thank you for correcting me!
Doesn’t work that well in my experience. A place that’s mostly empty on weekdays often shows it’s really busy during weekend evenings because it is, comparatively but it’s not crowded or anything
I have this capability with my home assistant/frigate setup. Literally have a camera pointed at my back patio right now that says “Cats: 2” Cause my cats are sleeping on the couch out there.
Nice!
pretty sure they could just pull the number of open tabs
I have no experience with the software involved in that, but I do know that generally, anything connected to a POS system probably should not be connected to a publicly accessible… anything.
Does this software even have APIs to do something like that?
Or could you just point a webcam at a screen or portion of a screen that the default software indicates open tab count on lol?
I know of a few bars that have/used to have web streams of the bar. Most of them started in the 90s and 00s and I can’t remember if they shut them off after a certain hour or not. Buddy of mine in Florida would go to one of these locations have a cocktail in front of the camera and wave at us while we would freezing our asses off in the northern Midwest
Bar Code was one. Cameras streaming patrons in other franchises in other cities so you could kinda interact with them.
I’m not one to praise Google often but I think their Popular Times feature can be handy to see how busy a place might be. This live feed video stuff is way over the top and invasive.
Same thing I thought at first. “Oh, so like that one feature from Google Maps” Nope, just some shitty tech bro tech.
Easy choice now of which bars to avoid. Hopefully they lose business over it but I doubt it.
As the article indicates, it’s catering to the crowd that wants a packed bar fully of people infatuated with whatever is trending in pop culture.
Lemmy’s user base of bean loving software engineers is not that crowd.
Beans do be pretty good though.
I was just thinking the other day about how I haven’t had some good baked beans in a while.
I mean I do like beans, but it’s not love. It’s a mutual feeling of appreciation. I think.
I fucking love beans
It’s your one year anniversary. Happy bean day.
I quit software but I still grow beans!
Gross
Yeah, I would walk right back out of the bar if I saw they had this.
Good news, looks like they have an app that you can check and see which bars to avoid! Hahaha
If you wanted to see how busy they are, you could just use a rating from 1-5. From what I understand they will be using cameras and streaming that. I don’t really see the value of that.
This is such a drunk, stupid tech bro idea.
This app got me laid,” says one five-star review on the Apple App Store. “Best way to buy tickets for events. 2nite is the truth and the future,” the horny user wrote.
This author knows what’s up. Most glorious ending to a news article I seen in a while.
Everytime I see a Gizmodo link I get Gen-X vertigo and feel like Robin Williams in the Jumanji meme.
I remember walking into bars and even paying the entry fee just to walk right back out 2 minutes later and waste my time going to the next one. Sometimes, it would happen multiple times in a row. It never made the experience better.
I mean the camera is already there I guess the issue is it being publicly available and people being creeps.
