[HN Gopher] Apple's Persona technology uses Gaussian splatting t...
___________________________________________________________________
Apple's Persona technology uses Gaussian splatting to create 3D
facial scans
Author : dmarcos
Score : 207 points
Date : 2025-10-30 15:53 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnet.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnet.com)
| SomaticPirate wrote:
| This video might help explain 3D Gaussian splatting.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKgMxrWcW1s Essentially, an
| entirely new graphics pipeline with different fundamental
| techniques which allow for high performance and fidelity compared
| to... what we did before(?) Cool.
| reactordev wrote:
| Not quite, it's just a way to assign a color value to a point
| in space (think point clouds) based on photogrammetry. It's
| voxels on steroids but still is drawn using the same
| techniques. It's the magic of creating the splats that's
| interesting.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| A color value for each point is a good starting place to gain
| an intuition. Some readers might be interested to know that
| the color is not constant for each point, but instead
| dependent on viewing angle. That is part of what allows
| splats to look realistic. Real objects have some degree of
| specularity which makes them take on slightly different
| shades as you move your head.
| adfm wrote:
| And since we normally see with binocular vision, a
| stereoscopic view adds another layer of realism you
| wouldn't normally perceive otherwise. Each eye sees
| subsurface scattering differently and integrates in your
| head.
| smartties wrote:
| The same graphics pipeline is used: rasterization.
| ChadNauseam wrote:
| Rasterization is a very general term. There is a big
| difference in practice between the traditional rasterization
| pipeline and splat rasterizers
| Groxx wrote:
| it's kinda like saying "we still show pixels". true but
| almost totally useless for understanding anything.
| colordrops wrote:
| Sorry but this is a horrible video. The guy just spews
| superlatives in an annoying voice until 4:30 (of a 6 minute
| video mind you), when he finally gives a 10 second
| "explanation" of Gaussian splatting, which doesn't really
| explain anything, then jumps to a sponsored ad.
| Groxx wrote:
| yeah... their older videos are a bit more useful from what I
| remember (more time spent on the research paper content,
| etc), but they've become so content-free that I just block
| the channel outright nowadays. it's the "this changes
| everything (every time, every day)" hype-channel for
| graphics.
| dymk wrote:
| That video didn't explain what Gaussian splatting is at all,
| but I did get a minute ad read for some cloud GPU service.
| coryrc wrote:
| https://packet39.com/blog/a-primer-on-gaussian-splats/ is
| much better (don't load on mobile though, lots of data).
| tantalor wrote:
| "Now out of beta"??
|
| Just in time for Vision Pro to go big. Right?
| dangus wrote:
| It's amazing tech, it's just a solution looking for a problem.
|
| It feels a bit like the original Segway's over-engineered
| solution versus cheap Chinese hoverboards, then the scooters and
| e-bikes that took over afterwards.
|
| Why would I be paying all this money for this realistic
| telepresence when my shitbox HP laptop from Walmart has a
| perfectly serviceable webcam?
| october8140 wrote:
| I would not describe creating an experience that feels like you
| are in the room with a group of people, even allowing cross
| talk, is a solution looking for a problem. I think it's the
| thing everyone slowing dying on Zoom calls wishes they could
| have.
| bigyabai wrote:
| I disagree. Many of us don't use a headset regularly or carry
| it with us like a phone or laptop; it is an express
| inconvenience to use, with only marginal benefits. Businesses
| won't want one if webcams still do the trick, and users
| _might_ respond positively but are always priced-out of
| owning one.
|
| If I'm doing work at my desk and I get a Zoom call, there is
| a 0.00% chance I will go plug in my Vision Pro to answer it.
| I'm just going to open the app and turn on my webcam, spatial
| audio be damned.
| LtWorf wrote:
| Oh no, they wish to have fewer useless meetings.
| raincole wrote:
| Why do we have video call meetings when people mostly just
| listen and the information is carried via audio?
|
| Why do we have 4K monitors when 1920x1080 is perfectly fine for
| 99.999% of use cases?
|
| If you look at the world through this lens called
| "serviceability" you'll think everything is a solution looking
| for a problem.
| criddell wrote:
| > when 1920x1080 is perfectly fine for 99.999% of use cases
|
| A lot of people here work with text all day every day and we
| would rather work with text that looks like it came out of a
| laser printer than out of a fax machine.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Of all places, HN should not be the one to casually
| conflate resolution and DPI!
| cpuguy83 wrote:
| But who's going to use such a tiny display that would
| make 1080p look good?
| zamadatix wrote:
| E.g. 1080p on a 15" laptop is still sharper than 4k on a
| 32" desktop monitor. People do work on both modalities,
| they talk to the one they use, chaos ensues.
| teiferer wrote:
| The comments silently imply that they are talking about
| the same screen size, so 1920x1200 vs 4K is indeed a
| conversation about DPI.
| maccard wrote:
| I read their comment in the exact opposite way, and that
| your comment is exactly their point.
| criddell wrote:
| Of course that's what I meant. It wouldn't make any sense
| otherwise.
| zamadatix wrote:
| The conflation was that 1920x1080 is a automatically poor
| clarity so that's why 4k is needed (at the same size).
| I.e. there is no resolution that is clear or unclear in
| and of itself, but that's how it is discussed.
|
| One person talks about a laptop, another talks about
| their big coding desktop monitor, a third talks about a
| TV they use. None agree how much 1080p clarity makes
| sense for usage because the only thing quoted is
| resolution. This drives the assumption everyone is
| talking about the same sizes and viewing distances based
| on the resolution, which is almost never the case (before
| the conversation even gets to the age old debate of how
| much clarity is enough).
|
| I'm sure if you ask the original commenter, they don't
| mean 1080p looks great for reading books at 34" just as
| much as GP wouldn't mean to compare screens of different
| sizes either.
| kergonath wrote:
| The implicit bit is that some of us also like to work
| with decently sized screens.
| arijun wrote:
| "A lot of people are in meetings all day, and we would
| rather look at something that looks like we're there in
| person than at a limited webcam."
| troupo wrote:
| "We have this amazing revolutionary tech, and there only
| thing we can think of is sitting in meetings all day,
| working with Excel sheets, and answering emails"
| makeitdouble wrote:
| This depends a lot on whether you really want to be in
| these meetings, and what you're supposed to do in them.
|
| The first part is obvious, for the second part if you're
| looking at slides and docs during the whole meeting,
| getting a super high fidelity view of all the other
| participants also looking (probably) at the slides
| doesn't help in any way.
|
| I mean, Google Meet has a spotlight view exactly for this
| reason.
| bayindirh wrote:
| A 24" 1080p monitor is perfectly fine for working with text
| of any kind. I still use mine at home, even after a decade.
|
| As others said, resolution is not everything. DPI and panel
| quality matters a lot.
|
| A good lower resolution panel is better than a lower
| quality larger panel. Uniformity, backlight color, color
| rendering quality, DPI... _all of them_ matters.
|
| --
|
| This comment has been written on a 28" 1440p monitor.
| ginko wrote:
| My theory is that people complaining about text on low
| resolution displays are using Macs. Apple has seriously
| gimped the text rendering on low-dpi displays essentially
| just downscaling a high-resolution render of the screen
| rather than doing proper resolution aware text hinting.
|
| For some reason people then blame their old displays
| rather than apple for this.
| bayindirh wrote:
| Makes sense.
|
| I sometimes connect the same 24" monitor (an ASUS VZ249Q)
| to my M1 MacBook via USB to DP (so no intermediate
| electronics), and the display quality feels inferior to
| KDE, for example.
|
| Same monitor allows for unlimited working for hours
| without eye fatigue when driven from my Linux machine. I
| have written countless lines of code and LaTeX documents
| on that panel. It rivals the comfort of my HP
| EliteDisplay.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Yes we are! Macs don't play well with low dpi screens.
| However on high dpi screens they are better than anything
| else.
| bayindirh wrote:
| > However on high dpi screens they are better than
| anything else.
|
| As a Mac user, I find this arguable. Many of the color
| correction comes from the fact that Macs contain ICC
| profiles for tons of monitors. OTOH, if the monitor is
| already has accurate color rendering out of the box
| (e.g.: Dell UltraSharp, HP EliteDisplay), Linux (esp.
| KDE) has very high display quality on HiDPI monitors,
| too.
| supermatt wrote:
| Unless you are using a tiny 4k monitor (>9") its not going
| to be laser print quality.
| jpk wrote:
| The comment you're replying to made use of a simile,
| which is a figure of speech using "like" or "as" that
| constructs a non-literal comparison for rhetorical
| effect.
| supermatt wrote:
| A 21" 4k monitor is around the same resolution as a fax,
| so it was not really clear to me that it wasn't a literal
| comparison.
| spijdar wrote:
| I actually think about this a lot, and I could argue both
| sides of this. On the one hand, you could look at your list
| of examples as obvious examples of modern
| innovation/improvement that enrich our lives. On the other,
| you could take it as a fascetious list that proves the point
| of GP, as one other commenter apparently already has.
|
| I often think how stupid video call meetings are. Teams video
| calls are one of the few things that make every computer I
| own, including my M1 MPB, _run the fans at full tilt_. I 've
| had my phone give me overheat warnings from showing the tile
| board of bored faces staring blankly at me. And yeah,
| honestly, it feels like a solution looking for a problem. I
| understand that it's not, and that some people are obsessed
| for various reasons (some more legitimate than others) with
| recreating the conference room vibe, but still.
|
| And with monitors? This is a far more "spicy" take, but I
| think 1280x1024 is actually fine. Even 1024x768. Now, I have
| a 4K monitor at home, so don't get me wrong: I like my high
| DPI monitor.
|
| But I think past 1024x768, the actual _productivity_ gains
| from higher resolutions begins to rapidly dwindle. 1920x1080,
| especially in "small" displays (under 20 inches) can look
| pretty visually stunning. 4K is definitely _nicer_ , but do
| we really need it?
|
| I'm not trying to get existential with this, because what do
| we really "need"? But I think that, objectively, computing is
| divided into two very broad eras. The first era, ending
| around the mid 2000s, was marked by year-after-year
| innovation where 2-4 years brought new features that solved
| _real problems_, as in, features that gave users new
| qualitative capabilities. Think 24-bit color vs 8-bit color,
| or 64-bit vs 32-bit (or even 32-bit vs 16-bit). Having a
| webcam. Having 5+ hours of battery life on a laptop, with a
| real backlit AMLCD display. Having more than a few gigabytes
| of internal storage. Having a generic peripheral bus
| (USB/firewire). Having PCM audio. Having 3D hardware
| acceleration...
|
| I'm not prepared to vigorously defend this thesis ;-) but it
| seems at about 2005-ish, the PC space had reached most of
| these "core qualitative features". After that, everything
| became better and faster, quantitatively superior versions of
| the same thing.
|
| And sometimes yeah, it can feel both like it's all gone to
| waste on ludicrously inefficient software (Teams...), and
| sometimes, like modern computing _did_ become a solution in
| search of a problem, in order to keep selling new hardware
| and software.
| BolexNOLA wrote:
| My only counter point to your resolution argument is that
| 1440p is where I'm happy because of 2 words: real estate.
| Also 120hz for sure. Above that meh.
|
| I edit video for a tech startup. High high high volume. I
| need 2-3 27+"1440p screens to really feel like I've got the
| desktop layout I need. I'm running an NLE (which ideally
| has 2 monitors on its own but I can live on 1), slack,
| several browser windows with HubSpot and Trello et al.,
| system monitoring, maybe a DAW or audacity, several
| drives/file windows opens, a text editor for note taking, a
| PDF/email window with notes for an edit, terminal, the list
| goes on.
|
| At home I can't live without my 3440x1440p WS + 1440p
| second monitor for gaming and discord + whatever else I've
| got going. It's ridiculous but one monitor, especially
| 1080p, is so confining. I had this wonderful 900p gateway I
| held on to until about 2 years ago. It was basically a tv
| screen, which was nice but just became unnecessary once I
| got yet another free 1080p IPS monitor from someone doing
| spring cleaning. I couldn't go back. It was so cramped!
|
| This is a bit extreme: but our livestream computer is 3
| monitors plus a 4th technically: a 70" TV we use for
| multiview out of OBS.
|
| I need space lol
| teiferer wrote:
| > But I think past 1024x768, the actual productivity gains
| from higher resolutions begins to rapidly dwindle.
|
| Idk man, I do lile seeing multiple windows at once.
| Browser, terminal, ...
| carlosjobim wrote:
| 4K monitors are better and more comfortable.
|
| On the other hand, video calls are worse and less comfortable
| than audio calls.
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _and the information is carried via audio?_
|
| Because it's not. Facial expressions and body language carry
| gigantic amounts of information.
|
| So many misunderstandings arise when the channel is audio-
| only. E.g. if a majority of people in a meeting are uneasy
| with something, they can see it on each others' faces,
| realize they're not alone, and bring it up. When it's audio-
| only, everyone thinks they're the only one with concerns and
| so maybe it's not worth interrupting what they incorrectly
| assume to be the general consensus over audio.
| dangus wrote:
| These analogies don't compare well. Your examples don't
| demonstrate an extreme tradeoff like you get with the Vision
| Pro.
|
| Why do we have video calls? Because a webcam costs $1-5 to
| put into a laptop and bandwidth is close enough to free.
|
| Why do we have 4K monitors? Because they only cost a small
| amount more than 1080p monitors and make the image sharper
| with not a whole lot of downsides (you can even bump them
| down to 1080p if you have a difficult time driving the
| resolution). I paid $400 for my 4K 150Hz gaming monitor so
| going with 1080p high refresh rate VRR would have only saved
| me $200 or so.
|
| Serviceability for purpose is a spectrum and the Vision Pro
| is at the wrong end of it.
|
| For more than the price of three 4K OLED 144Hz monitors, you
| get to don a heavy headset that messes up your hair, makes
| you sweaty, screws up your makeup, and you get less
| resolution and workspace than the monitors. Your battery
| lasts an hour so it's inferior to a laptop with an external
| portable monitor or two. It's actually harder to fit into a
| backpack than a laptop plus portable monitors since it's not
| flat.
|
| Then you have to use some complicated proprietary technology
| [1] to make a 3D avatar of yourself to overcome the fact that
| you now have a giant headset on your head and look like an
| idiot if you were to go on camera.
|
| You can't do a bunch of PC stuff on it because it's basically
| running iPadOS.
|
| This is not the same as "why are we bothering with 4K?"
|
| [1] What will you do if Apple starts charging money for this
| feature?
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| I used my VP extensively recently when working remotely. It's
| not glamorous, but I used Screen Sharing with a Macbook that
| grants you a virtual ultrawide monitor.
|
| Once you're already in VR, it's nice to not have to break out
| for a meeting, and that's where Personas fit in.
|
| It's not a killer app carrying the product, it's a necessary
| feature making sure there's not a gap in workflow.
| fsloth wrote:
| Ah, right! Because you can't videoconference with the headset
| on.
|
| Thank you! Now I get it!
|
| So it's sort of a stopgap solution before the ar glasses are
| small enough to do actual video calls without looking silly?
| maianhvu wrote:
| You're thinking of a world where people would still use a
| computer with a webcam pointed at their face while doing
| video calls. For me personally, I'm seeing a world where
| the headset is all that we need. So no, Persona is not a
| stopgap solution, it's an end in itself, and in its current
| state it's already pretty damn good.
| fsloth wrote:
| Actually I'm thinking of a world where the masses accept
| an AR headset once it's as light as typical eye glasses.
| And before most people have these, the calls will be
| video. But I would be happy to be wrong!
| stevage wrote:
| I can imagine for certain niche use cases it really is the
| killer app though. Like couples in long distance
| relationships, certain kinds of consultants etc.
| dangus wrote:
| I think this explanation makes the situation sound even
| worse.
|
| The vision pro's overall productivity solution is inferior to
| existing, cheaper technology, and it has to be supplemented
| by a solution to a problem created by its own design.
|
| Essentially you're saying that after putting on a double
| headband device that wrecks my hair, gets me sweaty, strains
| my neck with weight, and fucks up my makeup, I now have to
| use a workaround fake avatar because the tech bros who made
| this product had to say "oh shit, if you have a headset on
| you can't be on camera!"
|
| For $3500 I can be in real reality and be surrounded by
| higher resolution professional monitors and just show my real
| self on camera instead.
| GeekyBear wrote:
| > For $3500 I can be in real reality and be surrounded by
| higher resolution professional monitors and just show my
| real self on camera instead.
|
| Some people frequently want to do that sort of work while
| away from their desk.
| makestuff wrote:
| I have one and don't really use it for working remotely,
| but it really shines for media consumption. However, I
| agree with your points around it being heavy and not for
| everyone. The device definitely needs to be lighter, and
| most people wanting to use VR for media consumption could
| likely just buy a cheaper VR headset.
|
| I think overall it probably remains a niche category. I
| don't see it becoming as popular as smart watches or
| anything like that. I do hope that Apple continues to
| invest in it though as it is a really cool technology.
| osaariki wrote:
| I live half way across the world from my folks so I don't see
| them often. I'd love something that gives me a greater sense of
| presence than a video call can give.
| alt227 wrote:
| Do you believe that seeing a computer generated picture of
| them is more lifelike than an actual video of them talking to
| you live?
| boogieknite wrote:
| yes and to a degree which i find particularly interesting. its
| never going to happen because of your example
|
| i prefer working in my vp and see a possible world where vp
| makes my remote team collaborate as if were in the office, from
| the comfort of the most ergonomic location in my house
|
| it solves this problem and 0.0001% of people are dorks like me
| who try and say, "they did it" while the rest of the world
| keeps going to work as before
|
| all of the tech problems were solvable. people simply dont want
| to put a thing on their face and i think thats unsolvable
| quitit wrote:
| I disagree, because it answers a pretty simple question: How to
| be present in a video call when you're using the headset.
|
| To me it would be a shortcoming of the device if I couldn't
| show me and the thing I'm working on at the same time.
| dangus wrote:
| You have to back up from that question. "How to be present in
| a video call" is already an answered question.
|
| The "when you're using the headset" part is the issue. Why
| are we using the headset? What are the benefits? Why am I
| making these tradeoffs like messing up my hair, putting a
| heavy device on my head, messing up my makeup, etc.
|
| This is like saying "The Segway had advanced self-leveling to
| solve the problem of how to balance when you're on an upright
| two wheel device".
|
| But why are you on an upright two wheel device? Why not just
| add a third wheel? Why not ride a bicycle? Why not ride a
| scooter?
|
| The solution is really cool and technologically advanced but
| it doesn't actually solve anything besides an artificially
| introduced problem.
| quitit wrote:
| Not really, because this misses the premise of why the
| device itself is useful.
|
| VR/AR headsets are useful for working on and demonstrating
| many things that we've had to compromise to fit into a 2D
| paradigm. Being able to be present with that 3D model has
| clear advantages over using, for example, a mouse with a 2D
| equivalent or a 3D projection.
|
| Having to justify how the 3rd dimension is useful is
| probably a conversation where one party is not engaging in
| good faith.
|
| The segway analogue is also pretty poor considering how
| useful self-balancing mobility devices have proven to be -
| including those which only possess a single wheel.
| dangus wrote:
| These are nice words that don't reflect reality.
|
| By most accounts the Vision Pro hasn't even cracked a
| million sales. And that's the best productivity-focused
| headset on the market.
|
| You can say that this is a really amazing paradigm shift
| but if it was people would be lining up to buy it.
| quitit wrote:
| You posit:
|
| > Why would I be paying all this money for this realistic
| telepresence when my shitbox HP laptop from Walmart has a
| perfectly serviceable webcam?
|
| I gave a pretty straightforward answer for why this
| feature would exist in this product. People sometimes on
| this forums ask legitimate questions.
|
| It's pretty clear you weren't, rather you're seeking an
| opportunity to merely push some tired agenda, likely tied
| to some personal vendetta, and you're doing a pretty
| piss-poor job of it.
| pndy wrote:
| I'm curious about practical application in everyday life of
| these avatars - but in _the real life_ , not examples provided
| by marketing department. With that price Vision Pro still feels
| like a toy for wealthy people, or perhaps for CEOs of companies
| who can afford conferences in virtual environment. But then
| exactly, why? Majority of world tested during pandemic video
| calls, conferences and all sorts of other activities like
| virtual crowds for tv programs (pretty sure British panel shows
| shown grids of people as a substitute for studio audience).
| News services were inviting their guests by video calls when
| Skype was still around.
| detritus wrote:
| I always viewed the current generations of 'cheap Chinese
| hovebords' etc being a direct descendant of the Segway, and
| that Kamen and his believers weren't quite as ridiculous as we
| thought them at the time - they were just ahead of their time
| and expecting too much from too low a point in the technology
| curve.
| dangus wrote:
| They had the right idea but over-engineered the solution.
|
| They could never cut the price down because of it. The
| knockoffs used much simpler ways to balance yourself,
| including just changing the form factor to something more
| conventional that doesn't even need balance correction
| (scooters and e-bikes).
| atcon wrote:
| Many use cases come to mind. If (retinal?) identities were
| private, encrypted, and "anonymized" in handshake:
|
| web browsing without captchas, anubis, bot tests, etc. ("human
| only" internet, maybe like Berners-Lee's "semantic web" idea
| [1][2])
|
| Non "anonymized":
|
| non-jury court and arbitration appearances (with expansion of
| judges to clear backlogs [3])
|
| medical checkups and social care (eg neurocognitive checkups
| for elderly, social services checkins esp. children, checkins
| for depressed or isolated needing offwork social interactions,
| etc.)
|
| bureaucratic appointments (customer service by humans, DMV,
| building permits, licenses, etc.)
|
| web browsing for routine tasks without logins (banks, email,
| etc)
|
| [1] <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/10/06/tim-berners-
| le...> [2]
| <https://newtfire.org/courses/introDH/BrnrsLeeIntrnt-Lucas-
| Nw...> [3] <https://nysfocus.com/2025/05/30/uncap-justice-act-
| new-york-c...>
| dangus wrote:
| Let's run down your use cases:
|
| Human-only Internet: why choose this implementation over
| something simpler? Surely there's a simpler way to prove
| you're human that doesn't involve 3D avatar construction on a
| head-worn display that screws up your hair and makeup. [1]
| E.g., an Apple Watch-like device can verify you have a real
| pulse and oxygen in your blood.
|
| Court: solution is already in place, which is showing up to a
| physical courtroom. Clearing backlogs can be done without a
| technological solution, it's more of a process and staffing
| problem. Moving the judges from a court to a home office
| doesn't magically make them clear cases faster.
|
| Medical checkups: phone selfie camera
|
| Bureaucratic appointments: solution in place, physical
| building, or many of these offer virtual appointments already
| over a webcam.
|
| Web browsing without logins: passkeys, FaceID, fingerprint
|
| [1] yet another male-designed tech bro product that never
| considered the concerns of the majority of the population.
| atcon wrote:
| You raise fair points. I'd also prefer a simpler solution
| for a human-only internet, but nothing has really worked so
| far. Bloomberg issued secure cards with fingerprint pads
| that you held up to the monitor to retrieve credentials to
| their system, so maybe a simpler physical authenticator
| could work at scale. I'm not sure how secure a pulsometer
| would be, but hacking an apple headset chip and retinal
| pattern seem harder.
|
| Court: disagree in part. More judges are needed to address
| the severe backlogs, but as an example NYS judges oppose
| expansion (see [3] from previous post). A lot of calendar
| time is spent appearing before judges around a city
| (they're not all in one area) for motion hearings and the
| like despite all documents being electronically submitted.
| Also, there are frequent reschedulings when one party can't
| physically appear. Some state judges allow teleconference,
| but a lot don't. Appellate and federal courts rarely.
|
| Checkups and social services: some secure way of monitoring
| client interactions and outcomes is needed. In Los Angeles,
| the homeless services agency has been criticized by a
| federal judge for incompetence [1] and more than half of
| the child-prostitutes in a notorious corridor were found to
| be "missing" from the foster system [2]. Maybe headsets are
| not the best answer, but govt agencies and social service
| NGOs need to record evidence of their efforts for
| accountability.
|
| [1]
| <https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-03-31/los-
| ange...> [2]
| <https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/26/magazine/sex-
| trafficking-...>
| Stalker_Aloy wrote:
| CorridorDigital recently used the tech to assist in remaking the
| rooftop bullet-time scene from The Matrix. It's used for making
| the environment instead of modeling it from scratch.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq5JaG53dho&t=2s
| stevage wrote:
| To be clear: they used Gaussian splatting, they didn't use
| Vision Pros.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| They also had an earlier video that more heavily featured
| gaussian splats. Using them to recreate the inside of the
| universal studios theme park without permission. I was very
| impressed with how it handles reflections on glass.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cetf0qTZ04Y
| october8140 wrote:
| Tested talked similar about Personas.
| https://youtu.be/LzZ2j9CAcww?si=IRvxNaNZeBQp7WLV
| samplatt wrote:
| I'm usually a fan of Norm's videos, but this might be the first
| time I've seen a Tested video that felt more like paid-
| promotion than an actual unbiased review. I don't keep up with
| it though.
| AceJohnny2 wrote:
| I gotta say, these new Personas are good.
|
| The previous beta ones were terrifying frankenstein monsters. The
| new ones fooled my boss for 30 minutes.
|
| There's a bit of uncanny valley left, nevertheless. My persona's
| smile reminds of the horrible expressions people like to make in
| Source Filmmaker.
| frenzcan wrote:
| What eventually tipped your boss off? Was it the smile issue?
| bigyabai wrote:
| Must have realized the disembodied fuzzy head wasn't his
| hangover.
| quitit wrote:
| I have a few similar take aways:
|
| 1. The scanning is fast, it takes longer to set up a
| fingerprint on a macbook air. Just turning the head from side
| to side, then up and down, smiling and raising one's eyebrows.
|
| 2. I used the M5, and the processing time to generate the
| persona was quick. I didn't time it, but it felt like less than
| 10 seconds.
|
| 3. My cheeks tend to restrict smiling while wearing the
| headset, it works but people that know me understood what I
| meant when I said my smile was hindered.
|
| 4. Despite the limited actions used for set up, it reproduces a
| far greater range of facial movements. For example if I do the
| invisible string trick, it captures my lips correctly (when you
| move the top lip in one direction and the lower lip in the
| opposite direction, as if pulled by a string.)
|
| 5. I wasn't expecting this big of a jump in quality from the
| v1.
| pndy wrote:
| > There's a bit of uncanny valley left
|
| Perhaps how their heads, eyes move with this weird "fluid"
| effect and way too much blurred faces?
| 1123581321 wrote:
| For those who have had Persona conversations, how does varying
| audio latency affect immersion? Is there a recommended chat
| service?
| utopiah wrote:
| I don't use it very frequently but when from the few times I
| did I can't recall any imperceptible lag via Apple iMessage.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Good to know. I should try iMessage video chat more, in
| general.
| crazygringo wrote:
| What audio latency?
|
| There's regular latency due to distance, just like on a phone
| call if you're chatting with someone halfway across the world.
|
| But on a normal connection, audio and the persona should always
| be in sync, the same way audio and video are over Zoom or
| FaceTime.
|
| There shouldn't be any extra latency for the audio only.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Video and audio aren't always quite in sync in Zoom, in my
| experience. But you're right, the overall latency of the
| connection should've been my question.
| crazygringo wrote:
| They aren't always, but they are on a normal connection.
| It's only when packets are getting dropped or delayed that
| they temporarily get out of sync, as the audio and video
| streams compensate in different ways.
| akdor1154 wrote:
| How's the latency? Latency is what makes Zoom et al painful for
| me now - it ruins the ability to politely interject, give
| confirmatiom, etc. Does Apple do a better job of this than
| Google/Zoom? In theory you could get 20-30ms (just spitballing
| numbers I used to get playing shooters!) but i've never got
| anywhere near that with vid conferencing.
|
| Even so, latency-in-zoom kind of becomes an attribute of the
| medium and you learn to adapt. How does it feel with the Vision
| Pro though? The article talks about a really convincing sense of
| being in the same place with someone - how does latency affect
| that? (And does it differ based on if you're all physically in
| Silicon Valley or not?)
| setopt wrote:
| > latency-in-zoom kind of becomes an attribute of the medium
| and you learn to adapt.
|
| To some degree but not fully. When you adapt your brain is
| still doing extra work to compensate, similarly to how you
| don't <<hear>> jet engine noise after acclimating to an
| airplane but it will still tire you to some degree.
|
| I had Zoom and Teams meetings daily during Covid, and personal
| FaceTime calls almost daily for a while. I still get <<Zoom
| fatigue>> if a call goes on for over an hour, if I need to talk
| face to face during the call (i.e. no screen sharing, can't
| disable video and look at something else, etc.) I'm fine if I
| don't look at people's faces but rather people's screen
| sharing.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I would assume any added latency is negligible -- the sensors +
| interpretation + rendering should be very fast.
|
| But you've still got all the network latency including Wi-Fi
| latency on both ends. And you always need a small audio buffer
| so discrete network packets can be assembled into continuous
| audio without gaps.
|
| So I wouldn't expect this latency to be any different from
| regular videoconferencing.
| bombela wrote:
| The laws of physics means that the longer the path for your
| network packet, the higher the latency.
|
| One way latency on the Internet across fiber is about 4ms to
| 5ms per kilometer in my experience.
|
| For example, SF to Paris is ~40ms one way (it used to be 60ms
| 15y ago, latency and jitter have really improved).
|
| Double those values for the round trip allowing you to
| interject in a conversation.
|
| Add wifi, which has terrible latency with a lot of jitter (1ms
| to 400ms jitter is not uncommon). Wi-Fi 7 should reduce the
| jitter and latency in theory. We shall see improvements in the
| coming decade. Cellphone 5G did improve latency for me, so I
| don't doubt WiFi will eventually deliver.
|
| In other words you need to be within 3Mm (3000km) away to get a
| chance at a 30ms roundtrip. And that's assuming peer to peer
| without wifi nor slow devices.
|
| For a conference call, everybody connects to a central server
| acting as the relay. So now the latency budget is halved
| already.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| TLDR Gaussian splatting.
|
| What is missing from the article is that creating a model from a
| few pictures is not that hard (well it is to do well, but hear me
| out)
|
| The difficult part is animating it realistically with the sensors
| you have, in real time.
|
| Extracting signal from eye-gaze cameras with a sighlty wider
| field of view, that allows realistic not not uncanny valley
| animation is quite hard to do _on the general public_ Peoples
| faces are all different sizes and shapes, to the point that even
| getting accraute gaze vectors is hard, let alone smile and check
| position (those are done with different cameras, not just eye
| gaze. )
| crazygringo wrote:
| This is what fascinates me as well. I have to assume there's a
| neural net that effectively learns all of the possible muscles
| in the face. The limited sensor data gets fed in, and it's able
| to infer the full face shape. It seems perfectly plausible in
| theory, but I'm still impressed it seems to work so well in
| practice.
| _kb wrote:
| There's a bit more of a conversation / demo here which is pretty
| impressive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbZfbqHeJNU.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Oh man that was weird; I opened the video in a private browsing
| thing to not pollute my watch history and the version I got was
| automatically translated to Dutch, including voiceover which I
| presume is AI driven to try and match the tone of the original
| video. Still a bit robotic though.
|
| While I have my browser configured to prefer Dutch, the second
| one is English; I wish I could tell it / them that I don't want
| them to translate anything if it's in one of those languages.
| cubefox wrote:
| Yeah that is awful behavior of YouTube. I can only imagine
| none of the YouTube developers or managers speak multiple
| languages.
| Mistletoe wrote:
| The floating heads in a room having a meeting reminds me of
| terrible sci fi.
| stevage wrote:
| There's a video version of the article linked partway down which
| actually works better than the text one for seeing the thing in
| action a bit.
| cubefox wrote:
| On last SIGGRAPH there was actually a company which makes dynamic
| 3D Gaussian splatting videos now rather than static scenes:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/live/ucRukZM0d1s?t=1h1m50s
|
| https://zju3dv.github.io/freetimegs/
|
| https://www.4dv.ai/
|
| The videos can be played back in real-time, though they require
| multiple cameras to capture.
| pksebben wrote:
| Came _this_ close to buying an AVP, before learning that they
| only mirror a single screen with no virtual monitors.
|
| Like, guize, c'mon. Virtual desktop can do three. For 3.5k you
| gotta do better. I don't particularly need a virtual me in space
| as much as I need more screens that can do, like, actual _work_.
| bytesandbits wrote:
| is this still the case even with the new M5? if so, wtf apple
| pksebben wrote:
| it is. There's a third-party app that can add 1 virtual
| monitor, for a total of 2, but FWIG it's not terribly stable
| (and 2 is still like 5 fewer than I want).
|
| wtf apple, indeed.
| efsavage wrote:
| I've always used 2-3 monitors pretty comfortably but with high
| latency AI agents adding more concurrency to my workflows I'm
| feeling very crowded. I would love a VR experience with an
| arbitrary number of screens/windows as well as more clearly
| separated environments (like having a visually different
| virtual office per project) that I can quickly switch between.
| pksebben wrote:
| My assumption is that it's a network bottleneck, and apple
| clutches their pearls when anyone suggests lowering
| resolution or allowing for _some_ latency.
|
| My take is like, make me tether with usb-c, reduce resolution
| and increase latency if I go over what the connection can
| handle. Use foveated rendering. All I want is more screens.
|
| For now, I'm working with Virtual Desktop on my Quest 3. It's
| not ideal - pixel density at the edge sucks and even in
| center it's not quite good enough for text unless I enlarge
| my screens to be the size of barn doors, but I get 3 very
| large screens out of my m1 and that makes me happy enough.
| It's also lighter than an AVP, which after test driving I
| assume multi-hour sessions would become a literal pain in the
| neck.
|
| Whatever the tradeoffs are, though, if apple offered infinite
| screens with text-readability I'd gladly throw money at them
| for the privilege.
|
| Tinfoil hat moment - I do wonder if the AVP devs got a visit
| from a bat-wielding gang of monitor engineers. Apple screens
| ain't cheap.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-11-05 23:02 UTC)