{"id":1405,"date":"2011-05-11T15:34:32","date_gmt":"2011-05-11T14:34:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/t-machine.org\/?p=1405"},"modified":"2011-05-11T15:34:32","modified_gmt":"2011-05-11T14:34:32","slug":"do-i-look-fat-in-this-you-do-now-kinect-fail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/2011\/05\/11\/do-i-look-fat-in-this-you-do-now-kinect-fail\/","title":{"rendered":"“Do I look fat in this?” … “You do now!” (Kinect FAIL)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s an excellent idea: use Kinect to display clothes on people in real-time, inside a fashion retail shop:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/ar-door.com\/2011\/05\/virtualnaya-primerochnaya-dlya-topshop\/?lang=en<\/a> (Scrub to 0:25 – first 30 seconds is moronic marketing-person bumf)<\/p>\n

This has huge potential:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Much much faster than browsing – potential for more positive purchase decisions in less time\n
  2. Less space lost to changing rooms – fewer rooms needed for same number of customers (space is often at a premium in retail outlets)\n
  3. Show an enormous range of stock while keeping very little on-site\n
  4. Show every size, rather than just the sizes that are in stock on-site\n<\/ol>\n

    But hey – wait a minute – look closely at the person who’s posing in each case. Why does the on-screen person look like they weigh twice as much as the person who’s in front of the camera?<\/p>\n

    Ah. I see. It’s that recurring problem again: marketing companies that don’t know where to hire skilled tech staff. Here we’ve got 3D model wrapping apparently done by someone who’s never heard of Convex Hull<\/a>. This is basic Computer Science (IIRC it’s taught in almost every CS undergrad course today) – wrapping string (or cloth) tightly around a solid object is an interesting and very common problem.<\/p>\n

    OK, it’s version one; “we’ll fix that in beta”; etc. Except … you’re demoing this to:<\/p>\n

      \n
    1. women\n
    2. in a fashion store\n
    3. in public\n
    4. when they’re about to pay money\n
    5. for clothes\n<\/ol>\n

      …and you’re making them look:<\/p>\n

        \n
      1. uniform weight (which for short, young Muscovites is – according to the video – usually “much larger than reality”)\n
      2. saggy (look at the video – they failed to register \/ stretch the clothing for the head\/neck-to-knees length; in most cases, the women’s busts are aroudn their waists, and their waists are around their knees)\n
      3. masculine (most women’s clothing hangs; it’s soft, flexible; here, the Kinect models have no physics, not even primitive struct-based bending, let alone springs. Doh)\n<\/ol>\n

        All of which put together makes this a FAIL. Technologically it’s all fixable, but from a sales\/marketing perspective it’s enough to send many people screaming. Fingers crossed that the company (ARDoor) manages to make huge sales anyway – the potential here is enormous, and some of what they’ve done looks great (I like the simple interface, and the giant “Smile!” instruction).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

        Here’s an excellent idea: use Kinect to display clothes on people in real-time, inside a fashion retail shop: http:\/\/ar-door.com\/2011\/05\/virtualnaya-primerochnaya-dlya-topshop\/?lang=en (Scrub to 0:25 – first 30 seconds is moronic marketing-person bumf) This has huge potential: Much much faster than browsing – potential for more positive purchase decisions in less time Less space lost to changing rooms […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,58,20],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/new.t-machine.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}