My experience using the 2D environment mapping technology:
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It’s like you have 360 degree vision, you can see thumbnail images of every single viewpoint of the object from a single screen.
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It’s like you have X-ray vision, you can see all layers of the object all at once.
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It’s like you have multipresence, you can exist in multiple different rooms at the same time simply by opening up multiple browser windows.
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You do in fact have telepresence, since the experience is exactly the same both within the local vincity of the area and several hundred miles away from the area.
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I’m amazed with how quickly you can navigate the environment, you can navigate this point-and-click environment considerably faster than you navigated the physical environment when taking the pictures.
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This technique works excellently with “unstructured environments.” That is, environments that are not organized into labeled and ID numbered shelves and rooms.
* In fact, the technique works so well that it makes me believe
that it can be used as a reasonable substitute for tagging and
barcoding all objects. It truly is "detached schema" as you
would want to put it. You can unambiguously tag data digitally
to objects in the computer by using the photographs as a
navigational aid to disambiguate "which object."
* The technique works so well that it can be applied to extremely
low-cost objects, objects where tagging them with RFIDs would be
a prohibitive expense. It even works well for objects that are
so small that tagging them with barcodes would be a considerable
difficulty, especially when it comes to reading the barcodes off
of the object.
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The mapping between the real world navigation and the virtual world point-and-click navigation is a “natural mapping,” it is readily obvious to a human user. Even more so than ID numbered shelves and containers in a “structured environment.”
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This technique is excellent for discovering and mapping out unfamiliar environments. It is in fact a SLAM algorithm.
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I am amazed with the degree of precision at which is stored within the photographs. The photographs capture so many details that you did not consciously think about at the time that you took them. For example, even if you weren’t paying attention to the exact organization of how objects were stored within a box, the photographs store so much awesome detail that you can in fact put the objects back into the box exactly as you have taken them out.
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Once you photograph and browse through the objects in the computer, your mind is free to think about so many more details than is the case when navigating the physical environment. Yes, the fact that browsing the virtual environment is faster sure helps.
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Until recently, the technology wasn’t advanced enough, but now we are there, so why not use it to your advantage?
- Oh, I know, I know. Technology complacency. It’s always an option that despite having the technology available right at their side, people might not choose to pick it up and use it. Unfortunately, as it turns out, some people just aren’t as smart when it comes to using technology to their advantage.
But, the other consequences of this technology.
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Why won’t people adopt it? Sometimes it feels like your studying human psychology more than actual science. The practical limits of human psychology. Some people just naturally create more problems then they solve, and this is kind of one of those areas. It is true that the human brain is biased in its processing dynamics, and this is one of those areas where the bias works against the human brain’s computational power and efficiency rather than with it.
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But the reality. Why this has such a huge market potential for that reason. The ability to capitalize on the weakness in human psychology and turn it into a monetizable business endeavor. The fact that the process works so well even for people exploring unfamiliar environments means that the process can be done fairly efficiently even by third parties.
- Also, the fact that due to the ease of use of the system, the fact that it is harder to commit fraud with the system than to use the system honestly. And the fact that, even if fraud is committed, it is very easy to detect by measuring the lack of data, through the amazing quality of unbiased imaging technology that records all practical limitations of the images contained therein.
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What are the deliverables in resulting data when this system is brought to the next level? What kind of utility comes with that data in future decision making?
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Tools and utilities. What kinds of tools are used by humans? For what tasks? How do they work? Why did people use them?
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Design quality. Of the tools designed for specific tasks, which ones are of the best designs that maximize usability and which ones are the worst?
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Scientific knowledge. Is there scientific knowledge encoded in symbolic form in some information storage media? This is useful to understand from a general perspective, also it helps decode literature written around the same time that references the associated symbolic language terms.
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Human psychology. What biases in human psychology result in corresponding biases to the surrounding artificial human environment?
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Cultural. Beyond intrinsic constants to human psychology, what are the arbitrary qualities intermittently held constant over short periods of time simply due to cultural norms?
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Measurement of rate of cultural change and its corresponding lack of consistency.
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Using the measured cultural change to make past information contexts interpretable by modern people who don’t possess the cultural knowledge in their head.
“Machine translation” in other words.
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But, this is really important. Let me summarize my analysis. Who is the environment mapping system useful to, and under what circumstances? Also, when is the system not useful?
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The system is not useful to people who have an excellent memory and familiarity with their surrounding environment. So long as they always put objects back in their home locations, no external technology is needed.
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For people who are unfamiliar with environments, the technology provides a great way for them to explore and map out unfamiliar environments.
- Also, the technology provides a great way to search for objects among forgetful people. Or, more specifically, the search is initiated via text-based user input, and then linked data is used to associate the object with its graphical location. Naturally, the graphical location provides the user with a map on where to find the objects.
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For people who are forgetful, the system serves as a useful memory aid.
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Also, again touching back on the point of people who don’t have memory of their environment. Sometimes it’s not that people are forgetful but that they are just unfamiliar with an environment. If you want to train a large number of people to get familiar with a new environment quickly, especially at the micro-scale, this system provides an effective means to do so.
- For the macro-scale, Google Street View (or similar) does the trick.
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Finally, the most unfortunate thing. But the people who need the system most are least likely to naturally adopt it on their own!
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Oh, its like personal fitness. Yeah, totally, exactly. Those people who are already pretty fit will gladly try adopting new technologies that purport to help you become more fit, but the unfit may not be so inclined as to even enroll themselves in the initiative.
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The unfortunate reality of technology. Today’s computer technology is so powerful that it can solve virtually all the problems in the world! If only people would apply the technology and use it… and that’s just the thing. If people never pick up their smartphone and type in the search query, they will never tap into the wisdom of a greater being to help inform them to make a better decision.
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The system is great for helping people through times of great change such as during moving, to keep track of all the changes that have been made.
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Also the technology is useful for third-party auditing, to verify that no changes were made to the system, even by those people who don’t have intimate memory of the system.