Shameless plug: two friends and I put together a small app that uses security cameras feed to calculate real-time density + estimate "safe" space capacity:
Demo video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTgxhptePxM Demo site: https://flou.fyi/ (takes a bit to load)
I am mildly concerned about people, who see doing the opposite as a political expression, but some things cannot be helped.
Those people are a very small but vocal minority, being amplified by social media.
All the data says that most people are complying with safe practices, even when their governments aren't requiring it.
I disagree. Tens of thousands of people in my state don’t obey any stay at home order. People take off masks once in stores.
As someone who also goes out a lot right now I haven’t seen anyone be asked to put their mask on or leave.
Edit: Perhaps integrating it with some sort of QR Code based ticketing system for entry would alleviate the issues of people queueing (or huddling) outside the store?
We shouldn't be finding ways to get people back in to shared buildings as soon as possible because infections don't just give up because the TV on the door said OK.
A virus like corona with a high R0 would spread like crazy in a building with active ventilation piping. Or an airliner.
Corona is really a non-event in SF.
disclosure: co-founder here.
This seems to be a common attitude on HN, but it’s less than useful. Genuine critical thinking is great... dogmatic cynicism is useless.
Likewise any sensor is going to open up some questions about the data it collects and it's method of action - what's the error margin?
I think there's arguments for systems like this as well, but it's on you to make them, not just complain about others being skeptical.
I wasn't shooting it down, I was just expressing skepticism toward the complexity of the solution and opening it up for wider discussion.
Cameras are already commonplace enough where I work, for security purposes. So not sure how easily cameras can be eliminated.
The dashboards they provide don't seem to be have to be coupled to the kind of ($850) hardware they are selling. Like you said, cameras should be able to do the job.
First of all, if that number is in the interval [0,1], it's a qualitatively different situation than if the number is in [2,∞].
Jokes aside, there is a statistical relationship between the number of people in a room and the distance they can/will keep from each other. More density means more close encounters on average. Less density doesn't guarantee nobody gets too close to someone else, but it makes it less likely.
Trader Joe's and other retailers (at least in the bay area) have to delegate a full-time employee to the front door to throttle incoming patrons. This would free up that employee.
In my area Walmart has started making each aisle one way and counting people coming into the store. Just yesterday I went in and it's already devolved into no one following the directions on the aisle, no one seems to be in the slightest bit considerate about trying to give others space to go around. People were regularly reaching around someone getting an item and coming into close contact instead of waiting all of 5 seconds for them to get their item and move.
There are already plenty of news articles about customers doing increasingly outrageous things and attacking employees because they dared to tell the customer not to violate store policy around purchase limits, senior hours, mask policies, occupancy limits, etc. The fancy sign telling someone to wait will not free up employees because there will inevitably be a chunk of the population who ignores it outright and when they just walk in the door, others will follow. These policies are meaningless unless there's some actual enforcement.
