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I think the lack of eye contact is a big problem, possibly the biggest. Right now, when you look at the camera, the other person sees you looking them in the ey

I think the lack of eye contact is a big problem, possibly the biggest. Right now, when you look at the camera, the other person sees you looking them in the eyes. And when you look them in the eyes, they see you looking somewhere else. And when you move around, the other person's gaze doesn't track your position in space. The body language dimension of communication gets all messed up. Here's an example of tech that could fix this, using gaze tracking and 3D reconstruction to make the screen behave as a stable "artificial window" from your room into the other person's room, changing the view as you move your head. That way you can look at the other person and make eye contact naturally: https://www.fastcompany.com/90498000/move-over-zoom-this-magic-interface-is-the-future-of-videoconferencing https://www.fastcompany.com/90498000/move-over-zoom-this-mag...

dang 6y ago
I couldn't agree more. It's the biggest problem that I experience, and certainly the lowest-hanging fruit for a technical solution. Surely the current vendors know this and are working on it? Is there something that makes it harder than it seems?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- pvg 6y ago
  Errol Morris's device for this is named 'Interrotron' so maybe it's a careful-what-you-wish-for situation: Q: The Interrotron? Did you make up the name? A: No, it was named by my wife, Julia Sheehan. She liked the name because it combined two important concepts — terror and interview.
  - srtjstjsj 6y ago
    That's a pun on the name
kace91 6y ago
Wouldn't under-display cameras be a better solution?
- ydant 6y ago
  They, at least on a laptop, make for really unflattering angles.
  - chrisseaton 6y ago
    If you're at home, put your laptop on a stand (they're cheap) and then the middle of the screen is at the middle of your eye line.
    - 082349872349872 6y ago
      I don't know about you all, but I have plenty of thick technical books that make excellent laptop stands.
  - libraryatnight 6y ago
    I had a laptop from work with a webcam beneath the display and hated it. Never used it as I never wanted to force people to look up my nose. When it was refresh time, the guys were telling me all about how much more RAM and processing power I was getting, all I asked was "Where's the webcam?" (It was up top, they'd fixed it.)
  - 7ewis 6y ago
    I think they mean literally underneath the screen, like what phone manufacturers are trying to achieve to avoid having a black dot or notch. Not having the camera physically at the bottom of the screen (closer to the keyboard rather than at the top) like I believe the Dell XPS 13 has (or had?).
- theshrike79 6y ago
  Dell tried this with one of their models with ultra-mega thin bezels. It just mostly shows the inside of your nose to people. Dunno how that got through QA.
wenc 6y ago
NVIDIA just announced this AI-based video conference system that addresses the problem of gaze correction and 3D reconstruction, as well as a bunch of other stuff. https://developer.nvidia.com/maxine https://developer.nvidia.com/maxine The 3D reconstruction piece is interesting -- it ends up being a video compression algorithm as well. It replaces a video codec with a GAN algorithm. It takes an initial high-res snapshot your your face (keyframe), maps out a set of keypoints which gets transmitted to the other end. The algorithm at the destination uses a GAN to reconstruct the face. Because keypoints (vectors instead of raster) are an order of magnitude smaller than images, this results in a very high level of compression and very low latency video conferencing on low-bandwidth connections. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqmMnjJ6GEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqmMnjJ6GEg This idea is not unlike Apple's Memoji which uses facial recognition to create an animated emoji, except this reproduces real faces over the wire.
partyboat1586 6y ago
I usually make the zoom window small and place it right under the camera so looking at the person is indistinguishable from looking at the camera. This doesn't solve the problem of making eye contact with individuals though, you can only make eye contact with the current speaker.
spicybright 6y ago
On that note, why on earth does Google meet always put other people's webcams at the bottom of the screen? Such a dumb design decision.
- crgwbr 6y ago
  I’d wager that most people tend to look at their own video more the the other person’s. And if that’s true, their layout choice would make it appear more natural for the other party.
  - haihaibye 6y ago
    If they ever look!
iso1210 6y ago
Output zoom or whatever through a teleprompter setup
- cousin_it 6y ago
  Newer phones will have a selfie camera positioned behind the screen. I guess one solution for video calls is to make sure the other person's eyes overlap the camera of your phone (using eye tracking and a perspective transform). Then, as long as both people keep eye contact with each other, the phones can be moved and rotated freely. I wonder if this exists already.
burntoutfire 6y ago
> I think the lack of eye contact is a big problem, possibly the biggest. Interestingly, we do audio-only calls in my company and I don't miss the video at all. Maybe that's because the implementations I've seen so far have all the issues listed in this thread and if it the video was actually good enough it would prove to be an enhancement.
srtjstjsj 6y ago
Seems unlikely in the tech biz where eye contact is rare and usually uncomfortable.
nativespecies 6y ago
We need Errol Morris's "Interrotron" but for Zoom - https://www.errolmorris.com/content/eyecontact/interrotron.html https://www.errolmorris.com/content/eyecontact/interrotron.h...

dang 6y ago

I couldn't agree more. It's the biggest problem that I experience, and certainly the lowest-hanging fruit for a technical solution. Surely the current vendors know this and are working on it? Is there something that makes it harder than it seems?

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
pvg 6y ago
Errol Morris's device for this is named 'Interrotron' so maybe it's a careful-what-you-wish-for situation: Q: The Interrotron? Did you make up the name? A: No, it was named by my wife, Julia Sheehan. She liked the name because it combined two important concepts — terror and interview.
- srtjstjsj 6y ago
  That's a pun on the name

kace91 6y ago

Wouldn't under-display cameras be a better solution?

ydant 6y ago
They, at least on a laptop, make for really unflattering angles.
- chrisseaton 6y ago
  If you're at home, put your laptop on a stand (they're cheap) and then the middle of the screen is at the middle of your eye line.
  - 082349872349872 6y ago
    I don't know about you all, but I have plenty of thick technical books that make excellent laptop stands.
- libraryatnight 6y ago
  I had a laptop from work with a webcam beneath the display and hated it. Never used it as I never wanted to force people to look up my nose. When it was refresh time, the guys were telling me all about how much more RAM and processing power I was getting, all I asked was "Where's the webcam?" (It was up top, they'd fixed it.)
- 7ewis 6y ago
  I think they mean literally underneath the screen, like what phone manufacturers are trying to achieve to avoid having a black dot or notch. Not having the camera physically at the bottom of the screen (closer to the keyboard rather than at the top) like I believe the Dell XPS 13 has (or had?).
theshrike79 6y ago
Dell tried this with one of their models with ultra-mega thin bezels. It just mostly shows the inside of your nose to people. Dunno how that got through QA.

wenc 6y ago

NVIDIA just announced this AI-based video conference system that addresses the problem of gaze correction and 3D reconstruction, as well as a bunch of other stuff. https://developer.nvidia.com/maxine https://developer.nvidia.com/maxine The 3D reconstruction piece is interesting -- it ends up being a video compression algorithm as well. It replaces a video codec with a GAN algorithm. It takes an initial high-res snapshot your your face (keyframe), maps out a set of keypoints which gets transmitted to the other end. The algorithm at the destination uses a GAN to reconstruct the face. Because keypoints (vectors instead of raster) are an order of magnitude smaller than images, this results in a very high level of compression and very low latency video conferencing on low-bandwidth connections. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqmMnjJ6GEg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqmMnjJ6GEg This idea is not unlike Apple's Memoji which uses facial recognition to create an animated emoji, except this reproduces real faces over the wire.

partyboat1586 6y ago

I usually make the zoom window small and place it right under the camera so looking at the person is indistinguishable from looking at the camera. This doesn't solve the problem of making eye contact with individuals though, you can only make eye contact with the current speaker.

spicybright 6y ago

On that note, why on earth does Google meet always put other people's webcams at the bottom of the screen? Such a dumb design decision.

crgwbr 6y ago
I’d wager that most people tend to look at their own video more the the other person’s. And if that’s true, their layout choice would make it appear more natural for the other party.
- haihaibye 6y ago
  If they ever look!

iso1210 6y ago

Output zoom or whatever through a teleprompter setup

cousin_it 6y ago
Newer phones will have a selfie camera positioned behind the screen. I guess one solution for video calls is to make sure the other person's eyes overlap the camera of your phone (using eye tracking and a perspective transform). Then, as long as both people keep eye contact with each other, the phones can be moved and rotated freely. I wonder if this exists already.

burntoutfire 6y ago

> I think the lack of eye contact is a big problem, possibly the biggest. Interestingly, we do audio-only calls in my company and I don't miss the video at all. Maybe that's because the implementations I've seen so far have all the issues listed in this thread and if it the video was actually good enough it would prove to be an enhancement.

srtjstjsj 6y ago

Seems unlikely in the tech biz where eye contact is rare and usually uncomfortable.

nativespecies 6y ago

We need Errol Morris's "Interrotron" but for Zoom - https://www.errolmorris.com/content/eyecontact/interrotron.html https://www.errolmorris.com/content/eyecontact/interrotron.h...