8 ms·

MakeSpace – Virtual Spatial Chat

136 points by theanirudh 6y ago

mkchoi212 6y ago
Looks so awesome. The spatial audio feature would be a game changer if implemented correctly. The hold caps lock to broadcast your voice globally seems like a super power that should be limited to the admin or something though :O
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
caiobegotti 6y ago
It was surprising to find Aza Raskin involved in the project, but it seems they are not really after users at this point given the whole complicated Get Involved thing. Very nice and interesting landing page though, I would love to use it right now!
sjf 6y ago
The same thing as https://spatial.chat/ https://spatial.chat/?
- ktpsns 6y ago
  Wow, that site really misses a demo (which does not require giving them my email address). Ironically the same way as Makespace misses a way to try out the advertised features.
- Stevvo 6y ago
  Also https://www.highfidelity.com/ https://www.highfidelity.com/
jtwaleson 6y ago
Super cool! Having spent so much time in Meet in the last months really makes me think about the future. We should have technology that outperforms face to face meetings, rather than just getting as close as possible to the "real thing". Why can't I do the following: - see who's who (bio) - have pre-determined roles in the meeting (Mary is here as technical specialist on x.y.z.) - have a set goal, agenda and timers per section - have a feedback form after/during the meeting - have stats about the meeting (who was actively participating, maybe via gaze tracking or seeing whether the tab is in view). We're they speaking aggressively, friendly, etc. - give automatic feedback about your own sound quality (hey, you should really invest in a good headset) - allow in-system meeting notes, such as decisions made and actions to be taken. Maybe even automatic? - have voting / polls - give audible feedback (claps) rather than the wall of mute icons - have a button to add participants to the call if they are late (it would call their phone, pull rather than push). - sub-rooms and spatial audio are also a great idea But no, instead we get virtual backgrounds and the never ending "sorry, I was on mute". My prediction: In 5 years, online meetings will be so much better than they are today.
- jpindar 6y ago
  Many of those things already exist and are popular in virtual worlds and in social games. In software in general there's a lack of knowledge of what's already been tried. This looks like a great start though.
  - AbenezerMamo 6y ago
    Definitely agree! League of Legends and TF2/CS:GO stand out as games that have a huge community that builds a lot of analytics tools for in-game activity data. Most times, the community tools are way more feature rich and comprehensive than game dev tools. Definitely a lot to learn from games
  - jtwaleson 6y ago
    I've seen some demos of VR based virtual worlds and it's really really cool. Downside is not being able to see facial expressions, and no one I ever have meetings with has a VR headset.
    - lksslr 6y ago
      I already commented below, but that's pretty much what we are aiming at with https://laptopsinspace.de https://laptopsinspace.de It's not VR (on purpose), but instead it has facial expressions and some gaming feel to it
- lyonlim 6y ago
  The biggest challenge is background noise cancellation... it can severely degrade the quality of a group call. Most of the others can already be done... and in this case, embed of q&a/polls, document.. can be defaults when setting up a new call.
  - jtwaleson 6y ago
    We run a pretty strict "mute when not speaking" policy and it's working very well. I think giving users automated feedback about the quality of their sound is a much simpler problem to solve. Not as sexy as AI powered noise cancellation, but I think it would be much more effective in the short term.
monkeydust 6y ago
Looks interesting. Been trying out spatial.io that does feel like where this is heading. You hear people differently dependkng where they are in the virtual room - like you would in the real world - also when avatars got close to each other it felt awkward (in a cool way).
- imglorp 6y ago
  That doesn't sound terribly difficult to do with 2 channel audio and a handful of participants. I imagine you just assign each person a location around a circle and do the 2-1/2 D sound mixing, eh? Why don't current group conference things do this out of the box? https://ask.audio/articles/creating-a-3d-mix-with-two-speakers https://ask.audio/articles/creating-a-3d-mix-with-two-speake...
  - Stevvo 6y ago
    It's a somewhat limited approach. For more convincing positional audio you can use a HRTF; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA
sdan 6y ago
How’s the performance? I’d love to use it, but I’m afraid my low-end MBP will turn its fans to 1000%
ctvo 6y ago
Is this an idea or a product? The site is wordy, dense and has no link to a download. I can't find a release date, pricing, a business model -- anything worthwhile except very fancy mockups.
kwethor2006 6y ago
Is this less a videoconferencing system, and more of a first draft of a shared multiuser (and given Aza Raskin's previous tech demos, hopefully also multiscale/zoomable) desktop environment with videoconferencing built in? Because that would be super cool.
gavribirnbaum 6y ago
I loveee the concept of drawing rooms with a mouse to enable spontaneous conversations. the site is incredibly wordy and doesn't drive a CTA, but that is really nice. when can I use it?
- fermienrico 6y ago
  No everything on the internet needs to be about pixel trackers, A/B testing, micromanipulating users, conversion rates, ARPU, analytics and all that boohoo. Can we just pause for a second and be honest with our users? May be respect them? Try to make insanely great products that people have no other option than to fall in love with them? In fact, I want to go to sites that don't lie to me and backstab me, treat me like some kinda of a ephemeral datapoint consuming their giant wad of VC cash. I call these people sales-assholes or salesholes.
  - abalduevan 6y ago
    A/B testing is in fact often used to make insanely great product, how would you otherwise know what your users actually want
    - thih9 6y ago
      > how would you otherwise know what your users actually want E.g. with regular user testing. Probably not applicable everywhere, but could replace a/b testing for some products.
    - fermienrico 6y ago
      Perhaps understanding the problem deeply, thoroughly and putting yourself in the shoes of the customer insteading throwing a bunch of semi-random iterations over the fence and squeezing every last bit of data from the customer's private behavior? Imagine if I buy tomatoes from the grocery store, but they run an A/B testing on me to see what the customer wants - may be I prefer the 85% ripe ones over 95% ripe ones, the farmers watch the reaction of their users as they cook and taste tomatoes in a live video stream from their customer's home. WTF, get out of my house (browser). It is my private property. I just want a goddamn tomato (send an email or post a photo or read news). What happened to user's privacy? That last mile optimization is bothering me as a user.
lksslr 6y ago
We are developing a similar idea, but in 3D instead of 2d https://laptopsinspace.de https://laptopsinspace.de (No mobile support yet)
- baldomo 6y ago
  This is super cool, though I get stuck on "waiting" after giving the website access to the camera and mic (and reloading)
  - lksslr 6y ago
    that normally only happens if your webcam is already in use, but we surely need better user feedback for that... I'd be happy to trouble shoot it with you on twitter, dm me at @neeshstudio
hliyan 6y ago
Really liked the idea of the "room" metaphor over using mute buttons. Also using the CAPS to broadcast your voice at full volume to get attention (a feature best reserved for respectful teams).
likeandshare 6y ago
Resembles trember.me/video/
- carpenter 6y ago
  Yeah, know this one too. Easy to gather people there. They keep on adding features.

136 points by theanirudh 6y ago

Looks so awesome. The spatial audio feature would be a game changer if implemented correctly. The hold caps lock to broadcast your voice globally seems like a super power that should be limited to the admin or something though :O

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

caiobegotti 6y ago

It was surprising to find Aza Raskin involved in the project, but it seems they are not really after users at this point given the whole complicated Get Involved thing. Very nice and interesting landing page though, I would love to use it right now!

sjf 6y ago

The same thing as https://spatial.chat/ https://spatial.chat/?

ktpsns 6y ago
Wow, that site really misses a demo (which does not require giving them my email address). Ironically the same way as Makespace misses a way to try out the advertised features.
Stevvo 6y ago
Also https://www.highfidelity.com/ https://www.highfidelity.com/

jtwaleson 6y ago

Super cool! Having spent so much time in Meet in the last months really makes me think about the future. We should have technology that outperforms face to face meetings, rather than just getting as close as possible to the "real thing". Why can't I do the following: - see who's who (bio) - have pre-determined roles in the meeting (Mary is here as technical specialist on x.y.z.) - have a set goal, agenda and timers per section - have a feedback form after/during the meeting - have stats about the meeting (who was actively participating, maybe via gaze tracking or seeing whether the tab is in view). We're they speaking aggressively, friendly, etc. - give automatic feedback about your own sound quality (hey, you should really invest in a good headset) - allow in-system meeting notes, such as decisions made and actions to be taken. Maybe even automatic? - have voting / polls - give audible feedback (claps) rather than the wall of mute icons - have a button to add participants to the call if they are late (it would call their phone, pull rather than push). - sub-rooms and spatial audio are also a great idea But no, instead we get virtual backgrounds and the never ending "sorry, I was on mute". My prediction: In 5 years, online meetings will be so much better than they are today.

jpindar 6y ago
Many of those things already exist and are popular in virtual worlds and in social games. In software in general there's a lack of knowledge of what's already been tried. This looks like a great start though.
- AbenezerMamo 6y ago
  Definitely agree! League of Legends and TF2/CS:GO stand out as games that have a huge community that builds a lot of analytics tools for in-game activity data. Most times, the community tools are way more feature rich and comprehensive than game dev tools. Definitely a lot to learn from games
- jtwaleson 6y ago
  I've seen some demos of VR based virtual worlds and it's really really cool. Downside is not being able to see facial expressions, and no one I ever have meetings with has a VR headset.
  - lksslr 6y ago
    I already commented below, but that's pretty much what we are aiming at with https://laptopsinspace.de https://laptopsinspace.de It's not VR (on purpose), but instead it has facial expressions and some gaming feel to it
lyonlim 6y ago
The biggest challenge is background noise cancellation... it can severely degrade the quality of a group call. Most of the others can already be done... and in this case, embed of q&a/polls, document.. can be defaults when setting up a new call.
- jtwaleson 6y ago
  We run a pretty strict "mute when not speaking" policy and it's working very well. I think giving users automated feedback about the quality of their sound is a much simpler problem to solve. Not as sexy as AI powered noise cancellation, but I think it would be much more effective in the short term.

monkeydust 6y ago

Looks interesting. Been trying out spatial.io that does feel like where this is heading. You hear people differently dependkng where they are in the virtual room - like you would in the real world - also when avatars got close to each other it felt awkward (in a cool way).

imglorp 6y ago
That doesn't sound terribly difficult to do with 2 channel audio and a handful of participants. I imagine you just assign each person a location around a circle and do the 2-1/2 D sound mixing, eh? Why don't current group conference things do this out of the box? https://ask.audio/articles/creating-a-3d-mix-with-two-speakers https://ask.audio/articles/creating-a-3d-mix-with-two-speake...
- Stevvo 6y ago
  It's a somewhat limited approach. For more convincing positional audio you can use a HRTF; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA

sdan 6y ago

How’s the performance? I’d love to use it, but I’m afraid my low-end MBP will turn its fans to 1000%

ctvo 6y ago

Is this an idea or a product? The site is wordy, dense and has no link to a download. I can't find a release date, pricing, a business model -- anything worthwhile except very fancy mockups.

kwethor2006 6y ago

Is this less a videoconferencing system, and more of a first draft of a shared multiuser (and given Aza Raskin's previous tech demos, hopefully also multiscale/zoomable) desktop environment with videoconferencing built in? Because that would be super cool.

gavribirnbaum 6y ago

I loveee the concept of drawing rooms with a mouse to enable spontaneous conversations. the site is incredibly wordy and doesn't drive a CTA, but that is really nice. when can I use it?

fermienrico 6y ago
No everything on the internet needs to be about pixel trackers, A/B testing, micromanipulating users, conversion rates, ARPU, analytics and all that boohoo. Can we just pause for a second and be honest with our users? May be respect them? Try to make insanely great products that people have no other option than to fall in love with them? In fact, I want to go to sites that don't lie to me and backstab me, treat me like some kinda of a ephemeral datapoint consuming their giant wad of VC cash. I call these people sales-assholes or salesholes.
- abalduevan 6y ago
  A/B testing is in fact often used to make insanely great product, how would you otherwise know what your users actually want
  - thih9 6y ago
    > how would you otherwise know what your users actually want E.g. with regular user testing. Probably not applicable everywhere, but could replace a/b testing for some products.
  - fermienrico 6y ago
    Perhaps understanding the problem deeply, thoroughly and putting yourself in the shoes of the customer insteading throwing a bunch of semi-random iterations over the fence and squeezing every last bit of data from the customer's private behavior? Imagine if I buy tomatoes from the grocery store, but they run an A/B testing on me to see what the customer wants - may be I prefer the 85% ripe ones over 95% ripe ones, the farmers watch the reaction of their users as they cook and taste tomatoes in a live video stream from their customer's home. WTF, get out of my house (browser). It is my private property. I just want a goddamn tomato (send an email or post a photo or read news). What happened to user's privacy? That last mile optimization is bothering me as a user.

lksslr 6y ago

We are developing a similar idea, but in 3D instead of 2d https://laptopsinspace.de https://laptopsinspace.de (No mobile support yet)

baldomo 6y ago
This is super cool, though I get stuck on "waiting" after giving the website access to the camera and mic (and reloading)
- lksslr 6y ago
  that normally only happens if your webcam is already in use, but we surely need better user feedback for that... I'd be happy to trouble shoot it with you on twitter, dm me at @neeshstudio

hliyan 6y ago

Really liked the idea of the "room" metaphor over using mute buttons. Also using the CAPS to broadcast your voice at full volume to get attention (a feature best reserved for respectful teams).

likeandshare 6y ago

Resembles trember.me/video/

carpenter 6y ago
Yeah, know this one too. Easy to gather people there. They keep on adding features.