7 ms·

It's weird that they called it Hyperlapse two weeks after Microsoft Research published a paper on the exact same topic, with the exact same name: PDF here: htt

by davidu 12y ago

It's weird that they called it Hyperlapse two weeks after Microsoft Research published a paper on the exact same topic, with the exact same name: PDF here: https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/paper/hyperlapse.pdf https://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hyp... Examples here: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapse/ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hype... It's even more weird that the WIRED writer didn't mention this. It was major news all over the place two weeks ago. Good PR folks at Instagram / FB.

MRSallee 12y ago
Microsoft did not coin the term. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlapse http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlapse
- coldtea 12y ago
  Apple did not coin the term Yosemite either, but if a new product from Google came and was called "Yosemite" (and it was also an OS) it would be a little awkward and worthy of a mention.
  - Crito 12y ago
    Don't be obtuse. "Hyperlapse" is an established and accepted industry term. "Yosemite" is not. This is more comparable to if Apple made an application called "Camera" and then Google did the same.
    - donkeyd 12y ago
      I see what you did there!
  - MRSallee 12y ago
    It's not just that "hyperlapse" is a pre-existing word (despite my spell-check underlining it right now), but that "hyperlapse" is exactly what this app does. Microsoft did not invent hyperlapse last week. They showed off a method of producing a hyperlapse. Instagram now has another method of producing a hyperlapse. Here's a video that, coincidentally, was also published last week about shooing a hyperlapse with a DSLR. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcylVx2ex78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcylVx2ex78
  - timdiggerm 12y ago
    If Ford made a vehicle which was capable of powered motion, and General motors did the same thing, they could both say "automobile" and it'd be okay.
- lambda 12y ago
  Interesting. I think that the confusion arises because the Microsoft paper was many people's first exposure to the term, which led people to assume that they had coined the term. Based on the Wikipedia article, it looks like it is a relatively new term, with the first usage I could find in 2011, but that it does predate the Microsoft paper. It looks like Dan Eckert coined the term for this video: https://vimeo.com/19441262 https://vimeo.com/19441262 then later used it to refer to the general technique, for which he registered http://www.hyperlapse.com/ http://www.hyperlapse.com/ in 2012. Other people started using it, like https://vimeo.com/50238512 https://vimeo.com/50238512, and now Microsoft and Facebook are both developing applications that both use the term to automatically create hyperlapse sequences.
smackfu 12y ago
>It's even more weird that the WIRED writer didn't mention this. It was major news all over the place two weeks ago. Good PR folks at Instagram / FB This article seems like an exclusive that Wired got, probably been in the works for ages and timed for the release date. Fine line between this kind of thing and just letting the company write the article themselves (aka "native advertising".)
- eob 12y ago
  Agreed. After reading several paragraphs about how speed as the only toggle was a brilliant feature, I started wondering, "Wait a minute. Am I reading reporting or an aggressive attempt at framing the lack of features by a PR team?"
- davemel37 12y ago
  Am I the only one bothered by the misuse of the term Native Advertising. Why not use advertorial, which is more accurate and descriptive. Yes, an advertorial is a type of native ad...but paid search ads are also native ads. Turning atomic consumption units into an ad units (actual definition of native ads) is good for users. It creates a seamless experience and puts the onus on advertisers to engage authentically in a native way. It encourages content creation and doesn't interrupt our lives. Yes, advertorials have a foul taste about them and seem more manipulative than anything else...but its time we stop bashing native ads, advertorials are a very small piece of the native ad world.
izendejas 12y ago
I was using Instagram Hyperlapse before the MSR paper was published. It came out of a Hackathon project at Facebook. And yes, the concept existed well before both. Note: FB employee.
higherpurpose 12y ago
I'm confused. So is this the same technology/project, or are they completely different?
- tfinniga 12y ago
  Different technology to get results that are in the same category.
- theworst 12y ago
  Different. Microsoft's technology only requires the video stream. Instagram is sniffing the gyroscope sensor data on the phone so it doesn't have to do all that expensive image processing.
- stdgy 12y ago
  Very different. Microsoft Research was manually computing a motion map using heavy image-processing techniques that they then used to decide which frames to use and how to align them. Their work can do things like throw away a series of 'noisy' frames that wouldn't fit the overall scene motion. For instance, if you had a head mounted camera and were riding around on your bike, it could throw away the moments where you look both ways before crossing the street. Instagram's technology utilizes extra sensor data to make their frame corrections. As far as I can tell from the brief article, the technology doesn't do much besides stabilization. That's not to belittle it, as it's a really neat application demonstrating the benefits of mobile sensor integration. And you might be able to create a similar motion map using the gyroscope data that the folks at Microsoft create through their image processing techniques!
  - lyndonh 12y ago
    A "motion map" ? I think you'd better read the paper again. They compute a full 3D reconstruction. Much much more computationally expensive. You would not "be able to create a similar motion map using the gyroscope data".
    - stdgy 12y ago
oneweirdtrick 12y ago
Maybe Instagram saw the Microsoft project and decided to push their product out as soon as possible, hence no Android version yet. Also helps them give them an edge over Horizon, although a similar tactic failed to have them squash Vine. Full disclosure: I have no idea what I am talking about.
- omarforgotpwd 12y ago
  they probably wanted to push it out as soon as possible because time lapse is being added to the camera app in iOS 8.
  - oneweirdtrick 12y ago
    So a user will be able to combine the powers of a native time-lapse feature and stabilize it through Hyperlapse. Now that I have actually taken the time to think about it I'm truly impressed.
  - arrrg 12y ago
    It’s not the same. To be honest, with this product out I’m struggling to see the usefulness of the time lapse feature. In isolation it’s maybe somewhat useful in some cases, but in a world with Hyperlapse out Apple should just remove it from the camera app and concentrate on the basics with their apps and leave the cool stuff to other people. The usefulness (or at least coolness) of Hyperlapse is immediately obvious upon using it and it’s a good fit for smartphones, unlike the time lapse feature. Smartphones are small and light. Standing them on an edge is in the best case precarious and in the worst case impossible (because the edges are sometimes rounded). Depending on where you prop them up (e.g. stone walls) it might also be damaging to the phone. Also, since they are so small and light (or not so much small, just not really ergonomically shaped for steady holding) holding them steady is a real challenge, especially when moving. Hyperlapse tackles these problems with time lapse on a phone very well. It’s much more thoughtful and considerate of the hardware it’s running on than a simple time lapse feature. (Plus, that UI is fucking amazing. One button to record, one slider to adjust the speed. This is inside the bounds of complexity Apple lets in their own very basic camera app. The slow motion feature Apple offers has similar UI complexity. So this isn’t even a super-complex feature from a user perspective.)
weka 12y ago
My exact though. I was like.. wait... didn't Microsoft release the SAME thing a week or so ago?
JoblessWonder 12y ago
I also find it weird that they chose a name that was already taken in the Apple App Store. If I search for "Hyperlapse" they are the second result. I bet you the developer of that $0.99 app is seeing an exponential increase in revenue!
- latchkey 12y ago
  Earlier today it was free instead of $0.99, so that developer is pretty smart.
  - hrrsn 12y ago
    Hah, can't blame them at all.
  - EStudley 12y ago
    Would that be against the App store rules? I know there's rules about making fake apps with similar names, but what if yours was there first? The price change makes it obvious that he wants to make money off this opportunity.
  - JoblessWonder 12y ago
    Wow... I know there are services that track apps in the app store... I wonder if someone has the data (besides the developer) on the amount of downloads they received.
- ghshephard 12y ago
  I almost bought the wrong application myself. But - I bet the store reverses the positions of the apps within 24 hours. Apple store is not great on launch day for new hot products - but almost always within 24-36 hours, the proper app gets moved into position #1. (For some definition of proper)
  - JoblessWonder 12y ago
    You are right. I checked just now (22 hours later) and they did indeed switch them.
Recoil42 12y ago
Microsoft didn't coin the term. It's been in use for at least the last few years. See T&L's online Google Maps Hyperlapse tool, from 2012: http://labs.teehanlax.com/project/hyperlapse http://labs.teehanlax.com/project/hyperlapse
jianshen 12y ago
For folks who haven't seen the Hyperlapse technique before, here's a great example of the style done professionally blended with traditional timelapse: https://vimeo.com/53043267 https://vimeo.com/53043267
omouse 12y ago
Yep I was thinking that as I saw this but we all have to remember that Facebook and Microsoft have a partnership. Maybe Microsoft has finally been kind enough to let all the good stuff from the Research division to be implemented into consumer-ready products! A welcome change! :D
aflinik 12y ago
Is it also weird that Apple called their maps, well, "Maps", when Google has been developing their own product called "Maps" for so long?
- chillingeffect 12y ago
  Is it facetious to ironically conflate a portmonteau with the 2,324th most common word in English? [0] [0] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists/TV/2006/2001-3000 http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists/TV/...

by davidu 12y ago

MRSallee 12y ago

Microsoft did not coin the term. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlapse http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperlapse

coldtea 12y ago
Apple did not coin the term Yosemite either, but if a new product from Google came and was called "Yosemite" (and it was also an OS) it would be a little awkward and worthy of a mention.
- Crito 12y ago
  Don't be obtuse. "Hyperlapse" is an established and accepted industry term. "Yosemite" is not. This is more comparable to if Apple made an application called "Camera" and then Google did the same.
  - donkeyd 12y ago
    I see what you did there!
- MRSallee 12y ago
  It's not just that "hyperlapse" is a pre-existing word (despite my spell-check underlining it right now), but that "hyperlapse" is exactly what this app does. Microsoft did not invent hyperlapse last week. They showed off a method of producing a hyperlapse. Instagram now has another method of producing a hyperlapse. Here's a video that, coincidentally, was also published last week about shooing a hyperlapse with a DSLR. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcylVx2ex78 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcylVx2ex78
- timdiggerm 12y ago
  If Ford made a vehicle which was capable of powered motion, and General motors did the same thing, they could both say "automobile" and it'd be okay.
lambda 12y ago
Interesting. I think that the confusion arises because the Microsoft paper was many people's first exposure to the term, which led people to assume that they had coined the term. Based on the Wikipedia article, it looks like it is a relatively new term, with the first usage I could find in 2011, but that it does predate the Microsoft paper. It looks like Dan Eckert coined the term for this video: https://vimeo.com/19441262 https://vimeo.com/19441262 then later used it to refer to the general technique, for which he registered http://www.hyperlapse.com/ http://www.hyperlapse.com/ in 2012. Other people started using it, like https://vimeo.com/50238512 https://vimeo.com/50238512, and now Microsoft and Facebook are both developing applications that both use the term to automatically create hyperlapse sequences.

smackfu 12y ago

>It's even more weird that the WIRED writer didn't mention this. It was major news all over the place two weeks ago. Good PR folks at Instagram / FB This article seems like an exclusive that Wired got, probably been in the works for ages and timed for the release date. Fine line between this kind of thing and just letting the company write the article themselves (aka "native advertising".)

eob 12y ago
Agreed. After reading several paragraphs about how speed as the only toggle was a brilliant feature, I started wondering, "Wait a minute. Am I reading reporting or an aggressive attempt at framing the lack of features by a PR team?"
davemel37 12y ago
Am I the only one bothered by the misuse of the term Native Advertising. Why not use advertorial, which is more accurate and descriptive. Yes, an advertorial is a type of native ad...but paid search ads are also native ads. Turning atomic consumption units into an ad units (actual definition of native ads) is good for users. It creates a seamless experience and puts the onus on advertisers to engage authentically in a native way. It encourages content creation and doesn't interrupt our lives. Yes, advertorials have a foul taste about them and seem more manipulative than anything else...but its time we stop bashing native ads, advertorials are a very small piece of the native ad world.

izendejas 12y ago

I was using Instagram Hyperlapse before the MSR paper was published. It came out of a Hackathon project at Facebook. And yes, the concept existed well before both. Note: FB employee.

higherpurpose 12y ago

I'm confused. So is this the same technology/project, or are they completely different?

tfinniga 12y ago
Different technology to get results that are in the same category.
theworst 12y ago
Different. Microsoft's technology only requires the video stream. Instagram is sniffing the gyroscope sensor data on the phone so it doesn't have to do all that expensive image processing.
stdgy 12y ago
Very different. Microsoft Research was manually computing a motion map using heavy image-processing techniques that they then used to decide which frames to use and how to align them. Their work can do things like throw away a series of 'noisy' frames that wouldn't fit the overall scene motion. For instance, if you had a head mounted camera and were riding around on your bike, it could throw away the moments where you look both ways before crossing the street. Instagram's technology utilizes extra sensor data to make their frame corrections. As far as I can tell from the brief article, the technology doesn't do much besides stabilization. That's not to belittle it, as it's a really neat application demonstrating the benefits of mobile sensor integration. And you might be able to create a similar motion map using the gyroscope data that the folks at Microsoft create through their image processing techniques!
- lyndonh 12y ago
  A "motion map" ? I think you'd better read the paper again. They compute a full 3D reconstruction. Much much more computationally expensive. You would not "be able to create a similar motion map using the gyroscope data".
  - stdgy 12y ago

oneweirdtrick 12y ago

Maybe Instagram saw the Microsoft project and decided to push their product out as soon as possible, hence no Android version yet. Also helps them give them an edge over Horizon, although a similar tactic failed to have them squash Vine. Full disclosure: I have no idea what I am talking about.

omarforgotpwd 12y ago
they probably wanted to push it out as soon as possible because time lapse is being added to the camera app in iOS 8.
- oneweirdtrick 12y ago
  So a user will be able to combine the powers of a native time-lapse feature and stabilize it through Hyperlapse. Now that I have actually taken the time to think about it I'm truly impressed.
- arrrg 12y ago
  It’s not the same. To be honest, with this product out I’m struggling to see the usefulness of the time lapse feature. In isolation it’s maybe somewhat useful in some cases, but in a world with Hyperlapse out Apple should just remove it from the camera app and concentrate on the basics with their apps and leave the cool stuff to other people. The usefulness (or at least coolness) of Hyperlapse is immediately obvious upon using it and it’s a good fit for smartphones, unlike the time lapse feature. Smartphones are small and light. Standing them on an edge is in the best case precarious and in the worst case impossible (because the edges are sometimes rounded). Depending on where you prop them up (e.g. stone walls) it might also be damaging to the phone. Also, since they are so small and light (or not so much small, just not really ergonomically shaped for steady holding) holding them steady is a real challenge, especially when moving. Hyperlapse tackles these problems with time lapse on a phone very well. It’s much more thoughtful and considerate of the hardware it’s running on than a simple time lapse feature. (Plus, that UI is fucking amazing. One button to record, one slider to adjust the speed. This is inside the bounds of complexity Apple lets in their own very basic camera app. The slow motion feature Apple offers has similar UI complexity. So this isn’t even a super-complex feature from a user perspective.)

weka 12y ago

My exact though. I was like.. wait... didn't Microsoft release the SAME thing a week or so ago?

JoblessWonder 12y ago

I also find it weird that they chose a name that was already taken in the Apple App Store. If I search for "Hyperlapse" they are the second result. I bet you the developer of that $0.99 app is seeing an exponential increase in revenue!

latchkey 12y ago
Earlier today it was free instead of $0.99, so that developer is pretty smart.
- hrrsn 12y ago
  Hah, can't blame them at all.
- EStudley 12y ago
  Would that be against the App store rules? I know there's rules about making fake apps with similar names, but what if yours was there first? The price change makes it obvious that he wants to make money off this opportunity.
- JoblessWonder 12y ago
  Wow... I know there are services that track apps in the app store... I wonder if someone has the data (besides the developer) on the amount of downloads they received.
ghshephard 12y ago
I almost bought the wrong application myself. But - I bet the store reverses the positions of the apps within 24 hours. Apple store is not great on launch day for new hot products - but almost always within 24-36 hours, the proper app gets moved into position #1. (For some definition of proper)
- JoblessWonder 12y ago
  You are right. I checked just now (22 hours later) and they did indeed switch them.

Recoil42 12y ago

Microsoft didn't coin the term. It's been in use for at least the last few years. See T&L's online Google Maps Hyperlapse tool, from 2012: http://labs.teehanlax.com/project/hyperlapse http://labs.teehanlax.com/project/hyperlapse

jianshen 12y ago

For folks who haven't seen the Hyperlapse technique before, here's a great example of the style done professionally blended with traditional timelapse: https://vimeo.com/53043267 https://vimeo.com/53043267

omouse 12y ago

Yep I was thinking that as I saw this but we all have to remember that Facebook and Microsoft have a partnership. Maybe Microsoft has finally been kind enough to let all the good stuff from the Research division to be implemented into consumer-ready products! A welcome change! :D

aflinik 12y ago

Is it also weird that Apple called their maps, well, "Maps", when Google has been developing their own product called "Maps" for so long?

chillingeffect 12y ago
Is it facetious to ironically conflate a portmonteau with the 2,324th most common word in English? [0] [0] http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists/TV/2006/2001-3000 http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Wiktionary:Frequency_lists/TV/...