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Comment on How come laptops or pc's don't have a "webcam" facing both ways instead of just the user?

MacNCheezus@lemmy.today ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

What’s on the other side of the screen that would possibly be worth taking a picture or video of? Unless you’re in public, I guess, in which case — creepy.

Plus, consider that a laptop screen is usually angled backwards so the camera would be pointed towards the ground unless it’s also rotatable, which means extra moving parts (i.e. things that could break).

I honestly can’t think of any scenario in which this would actually be useful.

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QuinnyCoded@sh.itjust.works ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
think about a workshop, calling your boss and explaining how a project is going. You could show the CNC machines working or a broken machine. Extremely useful

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- Widdershins@lemmy.world ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Why bring a laptop onto a filthy factory floor when the phone in your pocket does the same thing?
  
  “Hey boss we got a problem. Yeah, let me just try to fit your laptop with two cameras I am calling you with in this tight and filthy space in a broken machine to show you. Just one seconzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZzzzzzZZZZZZZ”
  
  … 2 minutes later a phone call:
  
  “Yeah boss I fried another one of your expensive laptops with two cameras. Yeah coolant and chips dripped on the keyboard again. No I didnt smash it between the spindle and turret this time. It didn’t fall into the chip conveyor brimming with coolant, lube oil, chips, and swarf either. Anyway, your machine’s still fucked up and now your laptop is too. I will hang up my telephone you do not pay for and text you pictures or video now.”
  
  Short of smashing it with the turret I’ve done all this to my phone that has 6 cameras. Shook and wiped the shit right off with a rag. A working machine most of the time looks exactly like a broken machine. If the boss can’t figure out what the problem is without it being a zoom call you’ve got a bigger tool problem outside the machine.
  
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- MacNCheezus@lemmy.today ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  Just use your smartphone to call him then.
  
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Carnelian@lemmy.world ⁨22⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago

I honestly can’t think of any scenario in which this would actually be useful.

Nothing useful, but pondering this unearthed a deeply buried memory. Way back in the day I jailbroke my iphone 4. There was a theme you could instal through Cydia called “Glasklart” that replaced your icons with beautiful hand crafted transparent ones. There was also a program that let you use your away-facing camera’s preview pane as a homescreen wallpaper. The result of combining the two was seriously beautiful for the half hour my battery would last haha.

As an aside, wow both of those old things are still up on Cydia too. I switched to android and stopped following all things jailbreak, but it looks like Glasklart kept receiving updates all the way into 2017

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- MacNCheezus@lemmy.today ⁨21⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
  So your use case is having your desktop show a live view of what’s on the other side of the screen to make it appear transparent? Okay.
  
  What if it’s just your desk and the wall behind it?
  
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  - Carnelian@lemmy.world ⁨20⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    If it’s just empty desk back there, then you can prop your phone up and have it play cool nature videos
    
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    MacNCheezus@lemmy.today ⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago
    Just use a cool nature video as your desktop background instead? Pretty sure that’s possible on most systems nowadays. MacOS actually does this by default already.
    
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