I like being able to check how busy a place is, but not like this. Simple head count or an average wait time is good. Using web cams is creepy overkill. Typical tech bro invasive shit.
It wouldn't surprise me if the way it determines how busy places are would be considered a bigger privacy violation than these webcams (which only show people in their areas while Google somehow can report on how busy many arbitrary locations are vs their usual).
So when is your Costco not busy?
Genuine question as I have gone there mid-day during the week and it will still be packed. One day I went 30 min before close and the parking lot was still full.
I think you're correct, but wouldn't this only work if you are running either android, or google maps, and have location on?
Its accurate enough but still an estimate, is the point i am getting at.
Conceivably a webcam + opencv headcount would be more precise, if the cameras covered the whole space and could account for viewing the same person from a different angle.
Its like how google can give you an estimate of bus times, but if there is a local city app that specifically interfaces directly with the actually city busses, it'll be more accurate.
Your example with the buses is wrong. There is a standard called GTFS and public transport companies publish their fleet status and timetable according to this standard, Google just reads and displays this data. Nowadays you should see the same data in the official apps and gmaps. There are even foss solutions displaying the same thing like transportr.app
Doesn't work that well in my experience. A place that's mostly empty on weekdays often shows it's really busy during weekend evenings because it is, comparatively but it's not crowded or anything
I have no experience with the software involved in that, but I do know that generally, anything connected to a POS system probably should not be connected to a publicly accessible... anything.
Does this software even have APIs to do something like that?
Or could you just point a webcam at a screen or portion of a screen that the default software indicates open tab count on lol?
I know of a few bars that have/used to have web streams of the bar. Most of them started in the 90s and 00s and I can’t remember if they shut them off after a certain hour or not. Buddy of mine in Florida would go to one of these locations have a cocktail in front of the camera and wave at us while we would freezing our asses off in the northern Midwest
I’m not one to praise Google often but I think their Popular Times feature can be handy to see how busy a place might be. This live feed video stuff is way over the top and invasive.
This app got me laid,” says one five-star review on the Apple App Store. “Best way to buy tickets for events. 2nite is the truth and the future,” the horny user wrote.
This author knows what’s up. Most glorious ending to a news article I seen in a while.
I remember walking into bars and even paying the entry fee just to walk right back out 2 minutes later and waste my time going to the next one. Sometimes, it would happen multiple times in a row. It never made the experience better.
A weird new app lets San Francisco residents monitor local bars via live video feed to see what’s happening there and to check how busy the venues are.
2Nite, which launched earlier this year, uses a network of cameras at various Bay Area establishments to provide remote insights into what’s happening at those locations.
In fact, some local bar patrons have predictably been a bit perturbed (creeped out, even) by an app that remotely monitors them and streams their drunken revelry to an unknown amount of strangers on the internet.
“You should be able to let loose in a bar where Big Brother isn’t watching you,” a young woman told the Standard when asked about the app.
Lucas Harris, the co-founder of 2Nite, has said that businesses that partner with the app are in control of the cameras and that the feeds are mainly meant to “offer a glimpse of live shows at bars, clubs, and other event venues,” the Standard writes.
Harris and his co-founder, Francesco Bini, also told the outlet they had introduced live stream blurring to anonymize the feeds and keep individual partygoers from being identified.
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If you wanted to see how busy they are, you could just use a rating from 1-5.
From what I understand they will be using cameras and streaming that. I don't really see the value of that.
