A Detroit Airport's 'Parallel Reality' Display Shows 100 People Different Things (mlive.com) 50
"As many as 100 people could be looking at the board and see something different," reports the Michigan news site MLive.com. "Look up at a Detroit Metropolitan Airport departure board and you could see a personalized travel itinerary."
Delta's site features a trippy video showing the screen with a different greeting depending on where the camera is positioned.
"Hello Liz!"
"Hello Albert!"
"Hello Cora!"
The maker's of the technology envision it someday being used in theme parks, stadiums, and convention centers. But what exactly is happening here? MLive explains: In late June, Delta Airlines launched a beta version of its new Parallel Reality technology that allows dozens of people to simultaneously see unique content on the same digital screen. Detroit is the first, and currently only, airport in the country to experiment with the futuristic technology developed by Misapplied Sciences, based in California...
Delta passengers can scan their boarding pass, select a language and test out the system. Using "multi-view pixels and proprietary technology," the board then shows personal flight information, boarding time or even standby status, a news release said... Delta Senior Vice President of Customer Experience Ranjan Goswami said the new system means "customers will no longer have to search for flight and gate information."
"This technology truly must be seen to be believed," Goswami said in an announcement. The Parallel Reality displays project up to millions of light rays that can be directed to a specific person. Non-biometric sensors then reportedly track passengers who can see the display even if they move....
Delta says the Parallel Reality experience will "always be opt-in" and customer information is not stored.
"If this new technology can make finding your gate and departure information quicker and easier, we're not just showing customers a magic trick — we're solving a real problem," said Delta's senior VP of customer experience. "Customers already rely on personalized navigation via their mobile devices, but this is enabling a public screen to act as a personal one — removing the clutter of information not relevant to you to empower a better journey."
The company's statement adds that Delta "is also investing in digital identity technology, which allows customers to move through the airport using facial recognition, eliminating the need to show a boarding pass or government ID." The technology is already available at airports in Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York, "and will eventually be activated in all of Delta's U.S. hubs."
Delta's site features a trippy video showing the screen with a different greeting depending on where the camera is positioned.
"Hello Liz!"
"Hello Albert!"
"Hello Cora!"
The maker's of the technology envision it someday being used in theme parks, stadiums, and convention centers. But what exactly is happening here? MLive explains: In late June, Delta Airlines launched a beta version of its new Parallel Reality technology that allows dozens of people to simultaneously see unique content on the same digital screen. Detroit is the first, and currently only, airport in the country to experiment with the futuristic technology developed by Misapplied Sciences, based in California...
Delta passengers can scan their boarding pass, select a language and test out the system. Using "multi-view pixels and proprietary technology," the board then shows personal flight information, boarding time or even standby status, a news release said... Delta Senior Vice President of Customer Experience Ranjan Goswami said the new system means "customers will no longer have to search for flight and gate information."
"This technology truly must be seen to be believed," Goswami said in an announcement. The Parallel Reality displays project up to millions of light rays that can be directed to a specific person. Non-biometric sensors then reportedly track passengers who can see the display even if they move....
Delta says the Parallel Reality experience will "always be opt-in" and customer information is not stored.
"If this new technology can make finding your gate and departure information quicker and easier, we're not just showing customers a magic trick — we're solving a real problem," said Delta's senior VP of customer experience. "Customers already rely on personalized navigation via their mobile devices, but this is enabling a public screen to act as a personal one — removing the clutter of information not relevant to you to empower a better journey."
The company's statement adds that Delta "is also investing in digital identity technology, which allows customers to move through the airport using facial recognition, eliminating the need to show a boarding pass or government ID." The technology is already available at airports in Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York, "and will eventually be activated in all of Delta's U.S. hubs."
Nope, nope, nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
Delta's site features a trippy video showing the screen with a different greeting depending on where the camera is positioned. "Hello Liz!" "Hello Albert!" "Hello Cora!" ... Non-biometric sensors then reportedly track passengers who can see the display even if they move.
That's not creepy, or Minority Report-y, at all. /sarcasm
"Hello Mr. Yakamoto ..."
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The company's statement adds that Delta "is also investing in digital identity technology, which allows customers to move through the airport using facial recognition, eliminating the need to show a boarding pass or government ID." The technology is already available at airports in Atlanta, Detroit, Los Angeles, and New York, "and will eventually be activated in all of Delta's U.S. hubs."
Definitely not creepy, or Minority Report-y, at all. /sarcasm
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Couldn't we just see the same info on an app? Much cheaper and no face tracking cameras needed.
Even better: This seems like a perfect application for AR - put some special symbols on the airport floor and when you point your phone at them you see an arrow pointing in the direction you should be walking, along with an estimated time remaining to get there.
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We could just as well put up signs and offer printed leaflets.
In fact that would be better because they're more obvious and don't require random passers-by to have AR-viable compatible phones with the requisite "apps" installed.
Not in an airport, there can be hundreds of different destinations.
It could also be done as a web page. Scan a QR code when you arrive, enter your flight number, follow the AR.
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Whether app or AR (which I wholeheartedly agree with by the way), you only hit your full target audience if you provide devices at the door. Not everyone has a device and the knowledge to use it, even in an airport.
Scan a QR code at the entrance...? This can all be done via a web page these days.
On top of that, even if you do, this may be the day you dropped the dang thing.
That's only 0.0001% of passengers.
Re:Nope, nope, nope. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, privacy concerns. Do not want.
Re: Nope, nope, nope. (Score:2)
You have privacy concerns in an airport? I would just assume the only place in an airport that you have an ounce of privacy is in the bathroom stall.
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You have privacy concerns in an airport? I would just assume the only place in an airport that you have an ounce of privacy is in the bathroom stall.
Unless you're sitting next to (former) Republican Senator from Idaho Larry Craig [wikipedia.org] ... :-)
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Honestly the tracking aspects don't bother me - well they do but really this is nothing new there. You're in an airport if you think you are not always on video, and that face recognition and other technology to id based on the buletooth devices you might be carrying etc isn't already pretty well able to place you within a few meters at any given second you're probably mistaken.
I more worry about our lack of shared experience. We are moving beyond the bubbles we choose in terms of what groups we belong to
"Misapplied Sciences" (Score:5, Insightful)
An appropriately named company. Looks like they know what corporates really want.
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No ads, please (Score:2)
Customers already rely on personalized navigation via their mobile devices, but this is enabling a public screen to act as a personal one [...]
Customers like using their phones because they can be viewed in places that don't have big screens. All we really want is a text message to tell us when flights are delayed or gates change, and we already have that. This is just another attempt to wean customers away from their phones to a larger, centralized device that our corporate overlords can use to control what we see, including ads.
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Ads. Ads. Ads. (Score:2)
"You asked for ads"
You'll get A LOT of ads.
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1. Corporate overlords spending $$$$ to try to attract people's attention away from their smartphone
2. People not remarking this because they have their nose on their smartphone all the time anyway, thanks to other corporate overlords who have actually succeeded in capturing people's attention span, forever
3. ???
4. Bankruptcy!
Grid of screens (Score:1)
Beta version indeed, it looks terrible with that grid of screens.
But the technology is neat. And no I literally do not care about big brother / bourne identity / whatever concerns that a computer can identify you by your face when you're in an airport. Oh no, airport staff might know where you are at the airport. At security and when boarding you are already being tracked, this just gives you some convenience for that tracking.
Inefficent (Score:2)
Granted, it has been a bit since I set foot in an airport, but the notion of a generalized display so people milling about can get their information seemed to work okay.
Something like JFK can get over 80,000 passengers a day, and you are going to do a personalized view for each (or even a majority) of them?
Best of luck getting to your flight on-time (but boy-howdy that's a lot of screen sales).
I don't know who approved of this... (Score:2)
Gimmi (Score:2)
Thanks, but I'll just take the cheap airfares instead of paying for gimmicks.
Hello, Albert! (Score:5, Funny)
You were in that bathroom stall for quite a long time. Are you feeling okay? Just to be safe, we've suspended your ticket until you see our on-site doctor. He has an opening tomorrow morning. And, best of all, it'll only cost your $79 after we bill your insurance!
Ahh, lenticular displays (Score:2)
Those aren't that special. Some handheld games consoles used them. However it seems that nobody ever found any use for them that isn't just a gimmick or a nightmare.
The easiest version of those is just an intransparent plate with transparent lines in front of the display. With the correct spacing between the lines and between that plate an the display, every viewer will be able to see different columns of pixels.
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You have to have face recognition, a service to look up all the relevant information and present it to You at the right place and the right time. That part is new.
They've put together some things they really don't need to put together any more since poor people get free cellphones with data, and nobody needs this. Would anyone really rather have to find a screen and have their face scanned than just scan a QR code on their ticket with their phone?
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scan a QR code on their ticket with their phone
Most times, my ticket is a QR code on my phone.
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Most times, my ticket is a QR code on my phone.
I always print out the code just in case, plus I can just hand over a piece of paper instead of having to show my phone. But then, thankfully I haven't flown in ages.
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Unlike traditional pixels, each of which emit one color of light in all directions, Misapplied Sciences says its pixel can send different colors of light in tens of thousands or even millions of directions. “Multiple people can be looking at the same pixel at the same time, and yet perceive a completely different color,” Albert Ng, the company’s CEO and co-founder, previously told GeekWire. “That’s each individual pixel. Then, we can create displays by having arrays of these multi-view pixels, and we can control the colors of light that each pixel sends. After coordinating all those light rays together, we can form images at different locations.”
https://www.geekwire.com/2022/... [geekwire.com]
Creepy and useless, but cool technology (Score:5, Insightful)
The same functionality could be trivially achieved by sending you a SMS or email.
But the video in the article does look pretty cool. Are there any more palatable uses for this technology? Maybe some kind of group video game?
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Well that's as creepy as fuck (Score:2)
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If anything, this display is a stupid move that advertises what they were already doing or planning to do.
They're going to combine all the various types of tracking they can - facial, gait, signals from portable electronics, etc. - and the moment you use a credit card or check in at an airline desk they will immediately link their tracking to your real identity.
For a fee, they'll tell you when and where you lost your carry-on, and for another fee they'll give the thief's ID to the police. And if you do any
Law of diminishing returns on ads (Score:2)
There has been a steady increase over the years in the ways in which advertisers can poke their messages into any information stream going. Does there come a point where there is so much advertising that people just screen it all out? This would eventually devalue advertising to the point of uselessness.
Of course, that devaluation of advertising does not matter, providing the advertisers can sell the latest targeted ad gizmo to their clients. As everybody knows, the only product that admen are any good at s
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Does there come a point where there is so much advertising that people just screen it all out? This would eventually devalue advertising to the point of uselessness.
One point I've been making for a couple of decades is that advertising - whether its perpetrators realize it or not - is as much about maintaining our collective behaviour of buying of too much stuff we don't need, as it is about selling individual products and services. Our economy is a consumerist blast furnace, and advertising pumps its bellows.
Add in the fact that one company advertising necessitates that all of its competitors either advertise or die, and it's easy to see that the whole industry is an
Do you suppose... (Score:2)
That somewhere in this parallel reality I could buy a goddamn Diet Coke anywhere in the Detroit airport? Place is Pepsi hell.
Targeted ads (Score:2)
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I think the reference you're looking for is that one. [imdb.com]
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I would use in a limited fashion (Score:2)
I travel a lot, and after going through security my first task is to collect my stuff, find the departures board, sift through the hundreds of departures to identify my gate (I don't trust the paper or electronic boarding pass for that), then figure out what direction that is, and go there. I would use this technology if, after collecting my stuff, I just had to scan my boarding pass and it told me the gate, what direction (arrow)/distance to go, any delays, and what restaurants are nearby. That's useful in
Not what we need (Score:5, Insightful)
âoeCustomers are expecting more and better from airlines, and we have to work even harder to meet those higher expectations,â
What we want are seats that fit us, flights on time, water to hydrate us, and working restrooms. We are disgruntled with being stuck on the tarmac because the gates are overbooked (see how well JIT is working at our seaports).
Detroit airport falling apart, this will too (Score:2)
A few years ago, the Detroit airport finished a major renovation with lots of aesthetic upgrades. An underground passageway between terminals has a funky light show synchronized to New Age music. In just a few years, there were malfunctioning escalators in numerous places, the light show had many malfunctioning panels. Walking through that airport now is almost creepy.
The moral of the story is that fancy features require a lot of expensive maintenance. DTW clearly doesn't have the money for this kind of mai
DTW (Score:2)
might be good for CAVE-style VR (Score:2)
If the tracking is fine-grained enough, perhaps a different image for each eye could be sent to each eye. Then we'd have a shared stereoscopic display without mounting a computer on anybody's face, along with head tracking -- a single-wall version of a VR CAVE. And then why not expand to a collaborative 4-wall CAVE experience?
The company name is totally appropriate -- Misapplied Sciences.
Forge my name (Score:2)
Forget my name. If you want to talk about "personalized service" how about you give me more legroom?