4 ms·

Interesting video. A bit dark at the end, though. It bothered me seeing how disengaged both characters were when they were on their date. It's considered poor m

Interesting video. A bit dark at the end, though. It bothered me seeing how disengaged both characters were when they were on their date. It's considered poor manners to have your smartphone out during a date, but what would happen if there was no visual signal to indicate that you were checking your social networks during dinner? To me, these thought experiments put us close to the realm of 'post-scarcity'. What happens when first-world society can replace physical goods and entertainment with virtual ones? It's fun to think about.

simondlr 14y ago
While an interesting approach, the interface way too distracting. And like using cellphones in conversation is considered rude, so will these things be. For example, how would the girl know he is using a dating app? She won't, so its more acceptable to somehow "disable" it? I liked juxtaposition between the room being overwhelmed with virtual items, but in real life actually being rather empty and dull. The most interesting challenge about these interfaces is the question of UX and norms. For mainstream adoption, the interface is going to be the most interesting facet.
- joe_the_user 14y ago
  "how would the girl know he is using a dating app?" My guess would be the guy was so clueless he left this dating app on the list of his active apps that he kept on the equivalent of his Facebook wall. It's a "script kiddie mistake", like the burglar who post his exploits to his Facebook page. And in this future, everyone's become an idiot through doing everything by prompt, so this kind of mistake would be what you'd expect.
joe_the_user 14y ago
Honestly that video seemed from the start like a horrific distopian nightmare. If anything, the end distracted from the empty and idiotic quality of the characters normal activities - prompted for every task, "congratulated" on every "victory". The guy's "sport coat" comment was just painful in revealing someone who knew and had nothing to say. I did seem like a realistic scenario to boot.
- samstave 14y ago
  >Honestly that video seemed from the start like a horrific distopian nightmare. I think that was the point. Personally I thought it was superb and extremely well acted. As someone who has been a cyberpunk fan my entire life - I am 100% against implant augmentations, for specifically this reason. Even something as seemingly innocuous as an in-eye-HUD turns you into a complete robot... something no longer human. The sad thing is that we will get to this reality, and it is from our current outside view that we can see this is not a good thing. When the ops are available to everyone, their view will become shrouded in digital lies. I have two small children. The biggest thing I can do for them as a parent is to teach them as much as possible to be connected to their humanity. I loved the vid - for its creativity and its warning. I still love the idea of all that is cyberpunk, just not so much the reality...
  - sreyaNotfilc 14y ago
    "Even something as seemingly innocuous as an in-eye-HUD turns you into a complete robot... something no longer human" Spot on! I was thinking the same thing. Who needs to worry about robots turning on us and ruling the world when we are turning humans into robots! Mindless, soulless robots. I thought the opener was cool, but then seeing a guy on his couch looking at a blank wall was so cold and isolated. Everything is in his head and he's not using his other senses. Yes, the characters in this film could just connect to others who have liked technology, but its still missing that aspect of having a warm body next to you. Also the constant searching of apps that will help out the date is just painful. Relying on technology just to do well with the interview/hanging out process of the date seems so detached. Its like the girl wasn't dating that man. She was dating his technology. This was a good video. Could this actually be the future? Perhaps, but we've always had that "red flag" moment where we thought "Wait a second, this is going too far!". Then again, how can you detect someone who has this technology on them? I don't have an answer for that.
potatolicious 14y ago
Meh, alarmist tripe. People aren't that stupid, and as with any new technology there will be a period of adjustment. When smartphones first hit the mainstream, people had them out everywhere, and yeah, you had a lot of cases where people checked their email during dinner with friends and whatnot. But now that the technology has matured some, and we've gotten used to it, we've developed etiquette around its use. We can no openly frown when someone whips a phone out at dinner, we even play phone stacking games to make fun of the phenomenon. So sure, when something like Glass comes out we will go through a brief period where we're abusing the uses and social acceptability of this device to no end. But that too will pass and will settle into a steady state that is nowhere near as dystopian as these alarmist videos would have us believe.
- CrLf 14y ago
  You are suggesting that people picking up their phones and playing games or checking out the social networks during dinner or other social situations is a thing of the past. It is not. Not only that, it is becoming more and more frequent. As people get used to this, it becomes more and more difficult to support awkward periods of silence and people resort more and more to their mobile devices to fill them. Which only worsens the problem. This is one of the reasons why I don't get excited about anything related to smartphones. They are a tool of social disconnection, and that's not going to get any better in the future.
  - potatolicious 14y ago
    It still happens, but anecdotally it's dropping and fast. In the last couple of years we've seen people actually turn against such behavior, and that's the first step. Like another poster brought up, you don't hear phones ring in theaters any more - it took time, but the new etiquette is catching on. > "They are a tool of social disconnection" Balderdash. On the whole smartphones have been a net gain for socialization. Remember, certain people also lamented the loss of the hand-written letter, or the telegram, and predicted grave consequences for the nature of human interaction. None of which has come true. The need for social contact in humans transcends any technological imposition we can place upon it. Look at Facebook, which is a favourite whipping boy of HN's, but they have changed the face of socialization. You are now capable of keeping up with many more people than ever before - and I call shenanigans on people who would claim this form of interaction is "cheating" (like a rolodex is cheating), or somehow less genuine (elitist bull). To pre-empt an incredibly facile and common argument that relates to this: keeping up with more people is a good thing, and the whole notion that having fewer, tighter friends is unequivocally better is arrogance in the extreme, not to mention a huge case of false dichotomy. So, back to smartphones. It has enabled a new, lower-barrier-threshold communication form (SMS/IM) that is not as intrusive, it has enabled incredible ability to keep in touch with a category of acquaintances which previously got no attention at all (Facebook/G+/etc), it has given us tools by which organizing large events is easier than ever before (GroupMe, Facebook), and finally realized the dream of vid-calling (FaceTime/Skype), as well as the tools by which we stay informed about important news of relevance to our daily lives (Twitter, Facebook), and hell, it's even helping us make friends and date (Meetup, OKCupid, Match, etc, all of which have deep mobile integration). So what's that about smartphones been a net negative again?

simondlr 14y ago

While an interesting approach, the interface way too distracting. And like using cellphones in conversation is considered rude, so will these things be. For example, how would the girl know he is using a dating app? She won't, so its more acceptable to somehow "disable" it? I liked juxtaposition between the room being overwhelmed with virtual items, but in real life actually being rather empty and dull. The most interesting challenge about these interfaces is the question of UX and norms. For mainstream adoption, the interface is going to be the most interesting facet.

joe_the_user 14y ago
"how would the girl know he is using a dating app?" My guess would be the guy was so clueless he left this dating app on the list of his active apps that he kept on the equivalent of his Facebook wall. It's a "script kiddie mistake", like the burglar who post his exploits to his Facebook page. And in this future, everyone's become an idiot through doing everything by prompt, so this kind of mistake would be what you'd expect.

joe_the_user 14y ago

Honestly that video seemed from the start like a horrific distopian nightmare. If anything, the end distracted from the empty and idiotic quality of the characters normal activities - prompted for every task, "congratulated" on every "victory". The guy's "sport coat" comment was just painful in revealing someone who knew and had nothing to say. I did seem like a realistic scenario to boot.

samstave 14y ago
>Honestly that video seemed from the start like a horrific distopian nightmare. I think that was the point. Personally I thought it was superb and extremely well acted. As someone who has been a cyberpunk fan my entire life - I am 100% against implant augmentations, for specifically this reason. Even something as seemingly innocuous as an in-eye-HUD turns you into a complete robot... something no longer human. The sad thing is that we will get to this reality, and it is from our current outside view that we can see this is not a good thing. When the ops are available to everyone, their view will become shrouded in digital lies. I have two small children. The biggest thing I can do for them as a parent is to teach them as much as possible to be connected to their humanity. I loved the vid - for its creativity and its warning. I still love the idea of all that is cyberpunk, just not so much the reality...
- sreyaNotfilc 14y ago
  "Even something as seemingly innocuous as an in-eye-HUD turns you into a complete robot... something no longer human" Spot on! I was thinking the same thing. Who needs to worry about robots turning on us and ruling the world when we are turning humans into robots! Mindless, soulless robots. I thought the opener was cool, but then seeing a guy on his couch looking at a blank wall was so cold and isolated. Everything is in his head and he's not using his other senses. Yes, the characters in this film could just connect to others who have liked technology, but its still missing that aspect of having a warm body next to you. Also the constant searching of apps that will help out the date is just painful. Relying on technology just to do well with the interview/hanging out process of the date seems so detached. Its like the girl wasn't dating that man. She was dating his technology. This was a good video. Could this actually be the future? Perhaps, but we've always had that "red flag" moment where we thought "Wait a second, this is going too far!". Then again, how can you detect someone who has this technology on them? I don't have an answer for that.

potatolicious 14y ago

Meh, alarmist tripe. People aren't that stupid, and as with any new technology there will be a period of adjustment. When smartphones first hit the mainstream, people had them out everywhere, and yeah, you had a lot of cases where people checked their email during dinner with friends and whatnot. But now that the technology has matured some, and we've gotten used to it, we've developed etiquette around its use. We can no openly frown when someone whips a phone out at dinner, we even play phone stacking games to make fun of the phenomenon. So sure, when something like Glass comes out we will go through a brief period where we're abusing the uses and social acceptability of this device to no end. But that too will pass and will settle into a steady state that is nowhere near as dystopian as these alarmist videos would have us believe.

CrLf 14y ago
You are suggesting that people picking up their phones and playing games or checking out the social networks during dinner or other social situations is a thing of the past. It is not. Not only that, it is becoming more and more frequent. As people get used to this, it becomes more and more difficult to support awkward periods of silence and people resort more and more to their mobile devices to fill them. Which only worsens the problem. This is one of the reasons why I don't get excited about anything related to smartphones. They are a tool of social disconnection, and that's not going to get any better in the future.
- potatolicious 14y ago
  It still happens, but anecdotally it's dropping and fast. In the last couple of years we've seen people actually turn against such behavior, and that's the first step. Like another poster brought up, you don't hear phones ring in theaters any more - it took time, but the new etiquette is catching on. > "They are a tool of social disconnection" Balderdash. On the whole smartphones have been a net gain for socialization. Remember, certain people also lamented the loss of the hand-written letter, or the telegram, and predicted grave consequences for the nature of human interaction. None of which has come true. The need for social contact in humans transcends any technological imposition we can place upon it. Look at Facebook, which is a favourite whipping boy of HN's, but they have changed the face of socialization. You are now capable of keeping up with many more people than ever before - and I call shenanigans on people who would claim this form of interaction is "cheating" (like a rolodex is cheating), or somehow less genuine (elitist bull). To pre-empt an incredibly facile and common argument that relates to this: keeping up with more people is a good thing, and the whole notion that having fewer, tighter friends is unequivocally better is arrogance in the extreme, not to mention a huge case of false dichotomy. So, back to smartphones. It has enabled a new, lower-barrier-threshold communication form (SMS/IM) that is not as intrusive, it has enabled incredible ability to keep in touch with a category of acquaintances which previously got no attention at all (Facebook/G+/etc), it has given us tools by which organizing large events is easier than ever before (GroupMe, Facebook), and finally realized the dream of vid-calling (FaceTime/Skype), as well as the tools by which we stay informed about important news of relevance to our daily lives (Twitter, Facebook), and hell, it's even helping us make friends and date (Meetup, OKCupid, Match, etc, all of which have deep mobile integration). So what's that about smartphones been a net negative again?