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Quorten Blog 1

First blog for all Quorten's blog-like writings

Much of the technology of your inventory system shares in common with Google Street View. Yes, like you were saying earlier. Again, I reiterate, because this is important! It turns out that Google Street View is a much more familiar computer application than video games. Why is that? Well, because Google Street View has some important business application uses, but video games are “opt-in.” That is, playing video games is optional, but the kinds of conditions that may prompt people to use Google Street View are much more “mandatory” in nature. You’ve got to get to this area that you are unfamiliar with for some political purpose of some important event that you are to attend, but you’ve never been there before. How does the place even look like? How do you know you’ve actually reached the right place? Well, it’s Google Street View to the rescue!

  • Google Street View is the biggest video game of them all.

    • It is more familiar than most video games, mostly because it seamlessly integrates with a business function.

So yes, you’ve probably seen many of your family members use Google Street View. You’ve also probably noticed that they don’t just use Google Street View for their business purpose, but they actually play around with it in a more entertainment sense. Yes, like a video game. So it turns out that from a technical standpoint, in terms of familiarizing people with a particular technology, those technologies that have a business use are far better than video games in spreading familiarity and awareness with using a technology. Or in other words, the best video game of them all is the non-video game application use of a particular technology.

Okay, now time for some commentary on the range of applications of your 3D scanner project. Again, I reiterate, because this is important! Like you were saying earlier, for the most part, the market is already saturated when it comes to 3D scanning. Everyone who could want to do 3D scanning already is doing 3D scanning, and decreasing the price of the 3D scanner will not increase the share of the market. (Except for me, that is!)

But really, why is this? Why is it that individual computer users have no interest in 3D scanning?

The answer, as it turns out, can be found from the phenomena of tourism. Yes, like I have heard other people say, they are interested in exploring entirely new places like some important cities in a new state (of the United States), but when it comes to revisiting the same place in greater detail, like exploring more cities in the same state, that get boring. If something is boring and someone is doing things on their own time, and the task is not required, they’re not going to do it, are they? I don’t think so. So it turns out that the same concept can be applied when it comes to environmental mapping and 3D scanning. People want to see Google Street View so that they can get an idea of what the new place looks like, but they don’t care for extensive 3D scans of that place once they are already familiar. It also seems that there is agreement on this phenomena for personal spaces that people live in. Yes, strangely enough, most people are not interested in fully understanding their immediate physical surroundings. Rather, they invoke the least amount of effort that it takes to do what they want, and like I said, they don’t want a full understanding of their immediate 3D surroundings.

So there you go. For private spaces like inside homes and company buildings, where Google cannot and will not go without permission of the owner, we’ll never get detailed pictures of them in the computer. In both cases, it is because the owner of the space in question both doesn’t want to pay for the service and doesn’t want an untrusted visitor inside the space. Also, the owner will not scan the space themself simply because they are unfamiliar with the technology of 3D scanning, and most businesses and individuals are not very high-tech and eager to learn about what the latest technologies have to offer them in terms of increased productivity. Nope, they still want to keep doing things in the same-old, less productive manner, simply because it is more familiar and they don’t want to learn a new thing when their old thing seems to work reasonably well.

There you go. “Reasonably well” for most people may be “poor” for you. And yes you’ve already emphasized this point many times before. Again, I reiterate, because this is important! It turns out that most people have very little care for doing things precisely. Yet for the few people and businesses that really place an emphasis on precision, the results that come from these people and businesses will be considered unsatisfactory. It’s only when regulations mandate a precise business process will people universally deliver on precision. Except under those circumstances, non-standard processes have to be considered the norm, under which there will be a great diversity between the best processes and the worst processes.