• shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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    1 day ago

    I can think of one useful function. I have a lot of friends who are totally blind, and there’s an app called Be My Eyes, where a sighted person can take a look at something through your phone’s camera. But, being blind, a lot of blind people are absolutely terrible at aiming cameras, because they can’t see what they’re aiming at.

    In this case, the object ends up out of the camera’s field of view, or at an angle, or upside down, etc. etc. etc. Whereas, I think having a pair of smart glasses on your face would make the camera platform be much steadier.

    • luminaree@lemmy.world
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      3 minutes ago

      Yes, I have two family members who are blind and they regularly use this app and the meta glasses. It’s a huge help to them!

    • eldebryn@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I can imagine that haptic/soft vibrations could also be used to steer a blind person towards an object that needs more focus by the camera.

      As you say, it has a lot of potential for accessibility and people with handicaps like that, but it’s not direction that tech, the economy, or the world itself is interested in right now…

        • eldebryn@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          Yeah great. Capitalist market without socialist values means the elite can overcome their handicaps and live long lives with a physical form sculpted to their wants.

          Call me when it’s done without a metric tonne of exploitation.

          • FishFace@lemmy.world
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            18 hours ago

            This comment seems to lack perspective. In countries where medicine is socialised, this technology wasn’t invented. Could it have been? Yes, absolutely. But in the reality we are faced with, it was invented with capitalist values. Now it can be assessed and potentially taken up by public health systems.

            • eldebryn@lemmy.world
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              4 hours ago

              I’m not saying that technology and progress is bad nor that we should stop pursuing it.

              I’m saying that progress that only benefits 1% or less of the people doesn’t interest me.

              If your innovation cannot reasonably exist without economic bubbles and worker exploitation, then it doesn’t deserve to.

              Even if we found the cure to cancer tomorrow but it was so expensive and restricted that maybe 1000 billionaires alone could afford it I literally wouldn’t care for it.

              The cost for achieving all that is exploitation. It literally worsens the lives of many, so that few can taste the fruits of advancement. I’d rather we discovered that cure 20 years later if it meant that 99% of us had better quality of life.

              The rich want the opposite and try convince you and me and everyone else that this is to the benefit of humankind because advancement happen faster with capitalism.

              I have no sources on that. But even if they do, I simply don’t care about it. It doesn’t benefit me nor anyone I know.

          • Aneb@lemmy.world
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            1 day ago

            I’ll give you an upvote. I feel thats fair. Like you guys if you can’t make buck you lose a buck. (Any of you read Uglies?) We really need a reset on the capitalist regime imo and instate a socialist platform that is by the people and for the people. Fuck with this AI nonsense too

            • eldebryn@lemmy.world
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              20 hours ago

              It’s really bad yes. I’m no communist but I really think we should have had mixed economies and better tax policies to keep the rich in check. AI and other automation could have led to us working 20hrs a week on average while everything runs smooth, if used for the benefit of all.

              Right now they have snowballed so much money and power and tech that I just can’t see how we can out of outside of revolts. Democracy has been corrupted almost everywhere and people are being manipulated into thinking other religions or immigrant are the problem.

              There was a time we banned cloning to prevent the rich from making armies to exploit. But religion/ethics made that easy. We never considered doing the same with tech and important means of production.