A Developer Built a Real-World Ad Blocker For Snap Spectacles (uploadvr.com) 11
An anonymous reader quotes a report from UploadVR: Software developer Stijn Spanhove used the newest SDK features of Snap OS to build a prototype of [a real-world ad blocker for Snap Spectacles]. If you're unfamiliar, Snap Spectacles are a bulky AR glasses development kit available to rent for $99/month. They run Snap OS, the company's made-for-AR operating system, and developers build apps called Lenses for them using Lens Studio or WebXR.
Spanhove built the real-world ad blocker using the new Depth Module API of Snap OS, integrated with the vision capability of Google's Gemini AI via the cloud. The Depth Module API caches depth frames, meaning that coordinate results from cloud vision models can be mapped to positions in 3D space. This enables detecting and labeling real-world objects, for example. Or, in the case of Spanhove's project, projecting a red rectangle onto real-world ads.
However, while the software approach used for Spanhove's real-world ad blocker is sound, two fundamental hardware limitations mean it wouldn't be a practical way to avoid seeing ads in your reality. Firstly, the imagery rendered by see-through transparent AR systems like Spectacles isn't fully opaque. Thus, as you can see in the demo clip, the ads are still visible through the blocking rectangle. The other problem is that see-through transparent AR systems have a very limited field of view. In the case of Spectacles, just 46 degrees diagonal. So ads are only "blocked" whenever you're looking directly at them, and you'll still see them when you're not.
Spanhove built the real-world ad blocker using the new Depth Module API of Snap OS, integrated with the vision capability of Google's Gemini AI via the cloud. The Depth Module API caches depth frames, meaning that coordinate results from cloud vision models can be mapped to positions in 3D space. This enables detecting and labeling real-world objects, for example. Or, in the case of Spanhove's project, projecting a red rectangle onto real-world ads.
However, while the software approach used for Spanhove's real-world ad blocker is sound, two fundamental hardware limitations mean it wouldn't be a practical way to avoid seeing ads in your reality. Firstly, the imagery rendered by see-through transparent AR systems like Spectacles isn't fully opaque. Thus, as you can see in the demo clip, the ads are still visible through the blocking rectangle. The other problem is that see-through transparent AR systems have a very limited field of view. In the case of Spectacles, just 46 degrees diagonal. So ads are only "blocked" whenever you're looking directly at them, and you'll still see them when you're not.
For the first time in my life (Score:2)
I genuinely want a pair of AR glasses.
At last a use case worth the hassle!
You gotta love the irony (Score:3)
using the new Depth Module API of Snap OS, integrated with the vision capability of Google's Gemini AI via the cloud
Using Google - a company built entirely around ads and whatever vile things they have to do to increase ad revenues - to block ads. You gotta love it!
Casual ads are not the problem (Score:4, Interesting)
Ads only need blocking when they overstep reasonable bounds, when they put themselves in the way, inbetween you and what you want to see.
As with many things, it should be governments who prevent them overstepping their bounds.
But, as with many things, it is left to consumers to take action against the antisocial transgressors.
Hate and vigilantes arise when good government fails.
Re: (Score:2)
For the web, I agree. Smart glasses are a whole different animal. They are always literally "in your face." Ads will be blinking, pulsing, wiggling, whatever it takes to catch your eye, ALL the time. You won't be able to scroll past them. That sounds like a version of hell to me.
Re: (Score:2)
I find animated ads in real life as distracting as animated ads on web pages. I'd love to block real life ads, if I could be sure that nothing else, nothing important, will get blacked out.
Finally (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Oh don't worry, Snap will figure out how to block the ad blockers.
It won't work (Score:2)
As it relies on Google, the world wide advertising leading company.
They Live! (Score:2)
This is a fuckin' awesome idea, but there's an easy improvement over the red rectangle and block symbol. Seriously, dude, you gotta use the sign images from They Live (1988). You know you want to.
We've won, but at what cost? (Score:2)
Now users won't have to see ads, but then the hot moms in your area will be out of business :(