I feel like the primary use case for such a technology is manipulating and profiling people over video chat, maybe even autonomously. Hiring managers, HR, landlords, and police are obvious customers.<p>The response I anticipate will be "But this will help doctors over telehealth and stuff!" - Please see <a href="https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted" rel="nofollow">https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted</a>
This tech (detecting pulse from regular video) has been around almost 20 years now, and this doesn't seemed to have happened yet.<p>You see this type of thing in spy movies, but I'm not sure it's that useful in real life. You're basically taking one piece of data a polygraph uses, but without the most important component (skin conductance). Polygraph accuracy isn't that great to begin with. You can profile and manipulate people more effectively based on their reactions and behaviour, and their pulse will be much harder to interpret.
Can you explain how <a href="https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted" rel="nofollow">https://calebhearth.com/dont-get-distracted</a> applies to the potential response you described? I don't get it.
They will weaponize it.
Don't get distracted, sit down and read it in full.<p>Don't get distracted, think about what he wrote.<p>If you still don't get it, take a step back. Think. Process. Then take a break and read it again tomorrow.<p>Slow down. Don't get distracted. You don't need to respond so fast. Take your time. There is no rush. There is no shortcut. Read it in full and you'll understand this comment says much more.
Here‘s also an advice: if you want someone to listen, try not to come across like you just did.
Your sibling said something similar, my response is identical<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47294347">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47294347</a>
We’re just BSing on the internet. No need to tone police.
This feels overly patronizing
Probably because I repeated "don't get distracted". But if you read the article then I think it'll take on a different context, as I'm mimicking the author, including their short paragraph style.
I get really annoyed at those articles which advocate the developer to sacrifice themselves towards a better future.<p>Companies externalize costs. I refuse to be the one, as an individual, with the burden of fixing society ills to my own detriment.<p>Tell me to get into politics, join an association, whatever. Now, as an individual, lose money for morals? No thank you. I may, and probably will, do it -- but don't <i>expect</i> I do it. I have no business, in a society with less and less public services, to harm myself and my family for refusing to do well paying jobs.<p>I will externalise those costs as much as possible. I will bring awareness. I will write letters. But don't ask me to leave a well paying job -- that's someone else job to fix.
<p><pre><code> > as an individual
</code></pre>
But that's the problem. Your logic applies to everyone in an organization (a business, a family, a country, and so on). The organizations actions are not the result of any single actors decisions, even if weight isn't equal. The decisions of an organization are made of the decisions of the collective. The agglomeration of them. And that's why everyone's decisions matter. Because you don't know when your actions have more weight than when they have less.<p>We're all in this together. One way or another, your actions affect others. Your actions aren't in isolation. Conversely this is true for others, and I suspect you would rather others treat you well, right? So which feedback loop do you want you contribute to? That's the only question there is
´"That's not my department", says Wernher von Braun.´
You as reader might also be interested in this: <a href="https://hbenbel.github.io/blog/evm/" rel="nofollow">https://hbenbel.github.io/blog/evm/</a>
It’s not very accurate. Maybe because of the camera fidelity. It was about 10bpm lower than actual for me. Seems to operate off of subtle motions caused by pulse. It was even worse at detecting breathing.
May be related: Explanation of motion and color amplification in video by Steve Mould <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=rEoc0YoALt0" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/watch?v=rEoc0YoALt0</a><p>He even shows pulse detection (around 8:30).
I made my own heart rate app (using gemini at first and then Claude for lots of further edits). <a href="https://xosh.org/heart-rate/" rel="nofollow">https://xosh.org/heart-rate/</a> <a href="https://github.com/SMUsamaShah/heart-rate" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/SMUsamaShah/heart-rate</a> it's all offline. UI needs more work but me and my wife are the only users therefore it doesn't matter that much.<p>At one point I added the same EVM based heart rate detection but that requires sitting very still. I use it on my phone mainly therefore the common finger method is easiest one to use.
How does it work? Is it <a href="https://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/evm/" rel="nofollow">https://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/evm/</a>? I see the FAQ about VitalLens, but I couldn't find technical details.<p>It's super cool. Thanks for sharing. I want to build a biofeedback app for meditation and this looks like a good platform to use.
Could be interesting, but allowing the webcam crashes my browser.Repeatedly<p>macOS 15.7.1 (24G231)
Brave 1.87.186 (Official Build) (arm64)
Chromium: 145.0.7632.45
In the minified source code, we may see, it uses:<p>```
try {
const l=await navigator.mediaDevices.getUserMedia({audio:!1,video:{facingMode:"user"}}); /* ... */ } catch { this.showError("Could not access webcam. Please check permissions.") }
```<p>There are alternatives to verify mediaDevices support as <a href="https://addpipe.com/getusermedia-examples/" rel="nofollow">https://addpipe.com/getusermedia-examples/</a>
I would prefer some kind of privacy statement or even some kind of explanation about what is going on before I just randomly turn my webcam on. This might be great and I’m proud of you for launching but I don’t do things like that. Heck, videos can make a person’s heart race - I had my first attack at 39 and that’s a hell of a lot of risk.
I haven't dug deeper due to time availability, but for the same sake of privacy, I've found:<p>1. `/api/event` endpoint mentioned in the `/stats/script.js` file;<p>2. There's `/parties/lobby/main/telemetry` in a minified JavaScript chunk asset;<p>3. There's VitalLens mentioned, and there's an error string in the same asset: "A valid API key or proxy URL is required to use VitalLens. If you signed up recently, please try again in a minute to allow your API key to become active. Otherwise, head to <a href="https://www.rouast.com/api" rel="nofollow">https://www.rouast.com/api</a> to get a free API key."
There's a version of this built into the Google Fit application for Android.
Worked for me on Android. Love the simplicity.
It registered in the low 40s for me, while my watch was saying 72-75. I guess YMMV
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