• Boozilla
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    2806 months ago

    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.

    • @forgotaboutlaye
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      766 months ago

      Google Maps already provides this, and it’s pretty handy.

      • @dexa_scantron
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        496 months ago

        I believe they do this the same way they do traffic jams, by seeing how many android phones are at the location vs. average.

        • deweydecibel
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          166 months ago

          iPhones will report it too if they have Maps open.

    • @Hackworth
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      76 months ago

      /stares in smart glasses

  • @NOT_RICK
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    1116 months ago

    Silicon Valley once again solving a problem nobody actually has.

    • Jesus
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      286 months ago

      I don’t know about nobody. Did you see what “one horny user” wrote?

    • @NeptuneOrbit
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      66 months ago

      Where’s my husband? - desperate housewives of silicon valley

    • @Lost_My_Mind
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      66 months ago

      Inverted alcoholics have this problem…I guess…

      • @pdxfed
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        46 months ago

        You have to drink a lot to become inverted.

    • @Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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      46 months ago

      Finding a place that’s not too crowded and nice for you is a problem I’ve often had with people.

  • @woelkchen
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    586 months ago

    So San Francisco just invented the webcam? (Btw, Google Maps already shows how busy establishments are.)

    • @howlingecko@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      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?

        • @Buddahriffic
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          16 months ago

          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).

      • @woelkchen
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        156 months ago

        “Busy”, “More busy than usual”,… Not absolute numbers.

  • sp3ctr4l
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    476 months ago

    They could very easily just implement some rudimentary person identification algos and output only a headcount.

    Pretty sure you can do that with OpenCV.

    • @CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      306 months ago

      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.

      • @IamAnonymous
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        6 months ago

        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.

        • @CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          16 months ago

          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.

      • sp3ctr4l
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        56 months ago

        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.

        • @infeeeee@lemm.ee
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          56 months ago

          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

          • sp3ctr4l
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            16 months ago

            Well dang, I did not know that.

            Thank you for correcting me!

      • @Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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        16 months ago

        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

    • Saik0
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      166 months ago

      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.

    • @Fedizen
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      56 months ago

      pretty sure they could just pull the number of open tabs

      • sp3ctr4l
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        36 months ago

        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?

  • @Kusimulkku@lemm.ee
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    386 months ago

    “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

  • @Pacmanlives
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    316 months ago

    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

    • @RememberTheApollo_
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      56 months ago

      Bar Code was one. Cameras streaming patrons in other franchises in other cities so you could kinda interact with them.

  • @Teal@lemm.ee
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    286 months ago

    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.

    • Lemminary
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      96 months ago

      Same thing I thought at first. “Oh, so like that one feature from Google Maps” Nope, just some shitty tech bro tech.

    • @return2ozmaOP
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      136 months ago

      Yeah, I would walk right back out of the bar if I saw they had this.

  • @podperson@lemm.ee
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    276 months ago

    Easy choice now of which bars to avoid. Hopefully they lose business over it but I doubt it.

    • Jesus
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      336 months ago

      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.

      • Liz
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        156 months ago

        Beans do be pretty good though.

        • @catloaf@lemm.ee
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          26 months ago

          I was just thinking the other day about how I haven’t had some good baked beans in a while.

      • @techt
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        56 months ago

        I fucking love beans

        • Jesus
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          46 months ago

          It’s your one year anniversary. Happy bean day.

      • @fubo
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        36 months ago

        I quit software but I still grow beans!

  • @qx128
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    166 months ago

    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.

  • Jo Miran
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    126 months ago

    Everytime I see a Gizmodo link I get Gen-X vertigo and feel like Robin Williams in the Jumanji meme.

  • @Grimy
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    6 months ago

    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.

  • AutoTL;DRB
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    66 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    A weird new app lets San Francisco residents monitor local bars via live video feed to see what’s happening there and to check how busy the venues are.

    2Nite, which launched earlier this year, uses a network of cameras at various Bay Area establishments to provide remote insights into what’s happening at those locations.

    In fact, some local bar patrons have predictably been a bit perturbed (creeped out, even) by an app that remotely monitors them and streams their drunken revelry to an unknown amount of strangers on the internet.

    “You should be able to let loose in a bar where Big Brother isn’t watching you,” a young woman told the Standard when asked about the app.

    Lucas Harris, the co-founder of 2Nite, has said that businesses that partner with the app are in control of the cameras and that the feeds are mainly meant to “offer a glimpse of live shows at bars, clubs, and other event venues,” the Standard writes.

    Harris and his co-founder, Francesco Bini, also told the outlet they had introduced live stream blurring to anonymize the feeds and keep individual partygoers from being identified.


    The original article contains 356 words, the summary contains 189 words. Saved 47%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • @NaoPb@eviltoast.org
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    56 months ago

    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.