[HN Gopher] The saga of Apple's troubled mixed reality headset
___________________________________________________________________
The saga of Apple's troubled mixed reality headset
Author : andyjohnson0
Score : 100 points
Date : 2022-05-29 11:43 UTC (11 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| moistly wrote:
| I am eternally surprised that Boeing has not developed augmented
| reality headsets for its maintenance crew. Overlaying specs and
| instructions onto the components being serviced would be a
| godsend for productivity, compliance, and personal safety.
|
| Edit: ditto for automotive assembly/repair. Power plant
| maintenance. Basically all complicated engineering fields could
| make excellent use of AR.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| I'll never be able to find a reference to it, but I distinctly
| remember AR goggles being used for aircraft maintenance 10-15
| years ago, if not farther back than that. It's a very obvious
| application, and not a new one at all.
| nsriv wrote:
| This is the space that Microsoft's HoloLens and to a much
| lesser degree the prior Google Glass project stepped into.
| p_l wrote:
| Boeing was involved with industrial version of Google Glass,
| Microsoft is pushing Hololens heavily in that space as well -
| in fact you can buy Hololens integrated with safety hat - and
| there's explicit stuff to integrate with MS ERP stuff. Uptake
| seems to be mainly in high end civil engineering so far, but a
| lot of those solutions are things you are not going to read
| about outside a niche press.
| xoa wrote:
| I was most surprised to find out that wearable displays haven't
| been a top front and center strategic priority from day 1, and
| instead they were thinking about the stupid ass car thing:
|
| > _Apple CEO Tim Cook has been relatively hands-off from the
| product compared to others like the iPhone... The Information 's
| sources say that Apple's mixed reality efforts began almost
| accidentally when the company purchased a German AR startup
| called Metaio to use some of its technology on Project Titan, its
| self-driving car project._
|
| Which is just wild and highly contrary to my expectations. It's
| been obvious for ages that, while quite a ways from hitting the
| tipping point, wearable displays are the natural next big
| disruption in the personal electronics space following in the
| steps of the PC, notebooks, smartphones and tablets. A retinal
| scanning display will be able to hit the limits of human visual
| acuity while also being portable, which completely obsoletes
| every single other display we use and has massive implications
| for a lot of our basic modes of interaction. Suddenly there is no
| connection between "screen size" and device, where you are etc,
| it's just a matter of tradeoffs with how much power is behind it.
| With an industry standard even embedded devices could have
| virtual "displays" with lots of info. If you think about the form
| factor of nearly everything portable we use, it's "a display,
| with stuff attached to it" (either attached to the back in the
| case of phones/tablets or on a hinge to a rectangle that
| otherwise matches the screen in the case of notebooks). The
| display bit almost completely defines the basics of how portable
| it is, how it's used, and the limits on thermal dissipation and
| roughly how much energy it can have. But a wearable display once
| again abstracts the human-computer visual interface part from
| everything else, which means single rectangles are no longer
| required. Belts, smoother ovoids that can be more easily
| pocketed, and who knows what else all become possible ways to
| hold enhanced computation/storage beyond what the wearable itself
| can do. And as someone enters LAN range (or sits down and plugs
| in even) of more computation power (in the form of a desktop
| computer say, or networked computers) there could be seamless
| switchover. And it's not as if this is 50 years in the future
| either, the pieces have been steadily coming together. Products
| like the RETISSA [0] demonstrate the potential that a company
| with Apple's resources could get to work polishing. The opening
| up of 6 GHz spectrum and WiFi 7+ along with a long awaited new
| shift in networking means LAN data rates are there too.
|
| To say there are implications for, oh, products like the iPhone,
| iPad, and Macbooks (or even iMacs) is a bit of an understatement.
| With enormous irony if anything Apple's heavily neglected desktop
| section might be one of the ones that'd best survive. But
| whomever gets it right and gets the ecosystem going has the
| potential to really mess up established players. Given how Apple
| accomplished multiple disruptions and has repeatedly stated
| they're alert to it and the importance of being willing to go
| after their own cash cows early before someone else does it, I'd
| sort of assumed in the background this was one of their key
| strategic projects even if it was like a 10 year one. It's
| fascinating to find that no, actually not!
|
| And Ive's influence without the leash of Jobs to make sure form
| and function stayed linked really seems to have been pretty
| toxic. Whatever Cooks' other strengths keeping that reigned in
| doesn't seem to have been one of them. I guess the forces of
| organizational inertia are always incredibly powerful.
|
| ----
|
| 0: https://en.retissa.biz/
| Bud wrote:
| 64% of US adults wear eyeglasses.
|
| Heat exists.
|
| We're already basically at the limits of physics for making
| CPUs faster and heat dissipation is a huge issue even for
| products that you don't have pressed against your face and eyes
| all the time.
|
| Humans interact chiefly via sight.
|
| But it has still been "obvious for ages" that wearable displays
| are going to be some big inevitable hit? No it hasn't.
|
| And why on earth would Apple have made this tech a priority ten
| years before it was viable as a consumer product?
|
| P.S. No, Apple's desktop computer operation has not been
| "neglected" lately; they actually have been giving the Mac a
| lot of care and feeding, as evidenced by the really nice new
| MacBook Pro re-design, and the Mac Studio. The opposite of what
| you said is true.
| xoa wrote:
| > _64% of US adults wear eyeglasses._
|
| ??? I do too. What does this have to do with anything? The
| lens is irrelevant for something that projects right onto the
| retina (trivial to correct for). Hell, I 'd love it for that
| reason alone, would be a huge improvement for my computer
| usage.
|
| > _We 're already basically at the limits of physics for
| making CPUs faster and heat dissipation is a huge issue even
| for products that you don't have pressed against your face
| and eyes all the time._
|
| Lol? Also that you think this is relevant either is kind of
| confusing.
|
| > _Humans interact chiefly via sight._
|
| Yes, hence why wearable AR/VR displays are obvious.
|
| > _But it has still been "obvious for ages" that wearable
| displays are going to be some big inevitable hit? No it
| hasn't._
|
| Yes, it has.
|
| > _And why on earth would Apple have made this tech a
| priority ten years before it was viable as a consumer
| product?_
|
| For the same reason they were thinking about the "iPad" and
| then "iPhone" (tablet consideration actually came first
| internally even though in 2004 it was redirected toward the
| phone first) long, long before it "viable as a consumer
| product" duh. You don't get out ahead of things by waiting
| until after your competitors do it to get started, you make
| it happen early with your own R&D.
|
| > _No, Apple 's desktop computer operation has not been
| "neglected" lately; they actually have been giving the Mac a
| lot of care and feeding, as evidenced by the really nice new
| MacBook Pro re-design, and the Mac Studio._
|
| This is just pathetic. You cite the MacBook Pro as support
| for _desktop computers_ and consider just this last year as a
| trend. I 've been using Apple systems since the late 80s.
| Desktop systems have absolutely been massively neglected in
| the last decade. The Mac Pro got updated _TWICE_ in TWELVE
| YEARS (the first of which was total shit), and that was
| _after_ Apple pushed it massively up market vs their reliable
| good tower. The Mac Mini also had multiple years of just
| being left to sit there. There was zero in between them
| except the AIOs. And we 're not talking about big redesigns
| but just basic normal CPU updates and the like that every
| single other computer manufacturer on the planet does like
| clockwork as a matter of course.
|
| They might, maybe, be turning that around now but a single
| release does not make a trend. And that desktop systems were
| a distant last place in Apple's priorities vs iDevices or
| notebooks has been extremely obvious and is utterly
| uncontroversial since the 00s. That's just a statement of
| fact. In terms of raw income the balance shifted dramatically
| mid 2000s in favor of notebooks, and then of course later to
| iDevices. The Intel transition was driven primarily by the
| needs of the notebooks, not that everything else didn't come
| along for the ride. And Apple's corporate structure doesn't
| do multitasking boring stuff that well in exchange for doing
| single stuff incredibly well.
| Mirioron wrote:
| > _For the same reason they were thinking about the "iPad"
| and then "iPhone" (tablet consideration actually came first
| internally even though in 2004 it was redirected toward the
| phone first) long, long before it "viable as a consumer
| product" duh. You don't get out ahead of things by waiting
| until after your competitors do it to get started, you make
| it happen early with your own R&D._
|
| But that's exactly what happened with the iPad though.
| Apple's competitors had already released tablet-type
| devices for years, they just weren't really ready as
| consumer products:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Tablet_PC
| Bud wrote:
| I didn't ask why they didn't "think" about it a couple
| years early. I asked why they would make it a priority 10
| years out.
| xoa wrote:
| I can't tell if you're trying to be serious or are being
| sarcastic. Like, Apple started work on the Newton in the
| late 80s and released the first one in 1993 too. So what?
| Viable consumer product for these things involved
| innovations in tech like multitouch capacitance vs
| resistance displays, a critical tipping point of
| processor, battery, wireless and display tech, the right
| UX and stack behind it, etc. But Apple didn't get there
| in 6 months, they did it on the back of years and years
| of R&D ahead of time. Same with stuff like their own
| chips, the PA Semi acquisition was in 2008, and the first
| real fruit (actual custom Apple core) was the A6 in 2012.
| Bringing it all the way back to notebook form factors
| took until the M1 (where PA Semi actually was aiming at
| with the 7W PWRficient), 12 years later. I'm genuinely
| befuddled that the idea of "get started years early" is a
| radical proposition to some people on HN. You also don't
| get useful patents in a field (critical nowadays in tech)
| without being way out in front. Even if the vast majority
| of R&D ends up leading to dead ends it's still worth it
| when it's important enough and gets close enough.
|
| Identifying the likely optimal display mechanism has been
| primarily a matter of physics and biology. Without
| implants, can't do better than photons directly onto
| retina which also easily deals with lens/focus issues.
| There's never been anything to indicate that's physically
| impossible either. So "just" a matter of lots of hard
| work, but Apple has the kind of profit and strategic
| outlook to justify that. They've done so repeatedly. And
| this is central to their core business and talents as
| well. That other lesser tech might be of use in niches
| that aren't of interest to Apple, or that earlier efforts
| can't hit the strict superset tipping point, misses the
| forest for the trees.
| Bud wrote:
| Eyeglasses are relevant because you're talking about
| "wearable" devices that are worn in a place where most of
| us are already wearing something. The fact that this isn't
| obvious helps explain all your other blind spots on this
| issue.
|
| If you can't figure out why wearing hot things on your face
| is a problem, you are not even thinking at all about
| product design.
|
| I meant that humans interact WITH EACH OTHER via sight.
| Again, the fact that this does not even seem to occur to
| you as an issue says a lot.
|
| The Mac Mini has of course been updated recently; you seem
| to be talking about the past. The Mac Studio, you failed to
| even mention, as if it does not exist, for some weird
| reason.
| rpdillon wrote:
| I've owned three VR headsets over the years, and used all
| of them wearing my glasses.
| ghaff wrote:
| The working assumption with AR wearables however is that,
| for a variety of reasons, they're going to have to look
| and feel a lot more like a pair of eyeglasses or
| sunglasses than a VR headset.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| People wearing glasses is exactly why AR is primed to
| succeed. If AR glasses can be made to not burn everyone
| with glasses will replace them with the AR ones.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| I see the main problem with wearables in the type of media we
| like to consume. Text and images are almost always rectangular
| and 2D. It makes a lot more sense to present that on
| rectangular devices which you can touch (key to the success of
| the iphone). Wearable glasses have advantanges for 3d media but
| those really just make up for a fraction of the media consumed.
| xoa wrote:
| What? A wearable display with a basic liquid crystal as well
| to control opacity can trivially do a normal rectangle too,
| anywhere you want. It's a complete superset of all current
| displays, that's the most basic use of it. Doing 3D stuff or
| whatever if anything strikes me as by far the least
| important, at least for quite a while after intro most of its
| use would be simple HUD or just using what we've got except
| wherever. Right now as I type this I'm sitting at a desk in
| front of a 5k 27" rectangle. With refined retinal scanning
| display glasses, I could be sitting on a couch or somewhere
| else, and still have a 27" 5k equivalent rectangle to pull up
| (or 36" 8k or whatever I wanted) rather then a 6-7" display
| (phone) or 14-16" (notebook) at much lower resolution. Decent
| wireless keyboards and mice exist and could be further
| improved on.
|
| Can you explain why people think "3D" is an important aspect
| of these? AR/VR would already pay for itself just by being
| able to bring up my desktop (or smaller individual windows or
| anything) anywhere, more efficiently.
| HellDunkel wrote:
| Wearable displays can do that but they were not designed to
| do that. Its called ,,augmented" or ,,virtual" REALITY for
| a reason. Focus is an issue in regard to legibility even if
| you dont use the 3d space. If you do you get even more
| issues with tracking, stabilizing, more focus issues as you
| generate defocus, filtering, occlusion limited fov and
| more. These devices are designed for rendering believable
| dinosaurs into natural environments. It will take a while
| until they deliver on the promise.
| Geee wrote:
| Productivity is correlated with display size, and VR should be
| the next step in productivity, because it allows your whole space
| to become a display and an interface. When paired with powerful
| hardware and innovative software it should be the next step in
| computing.
|
| Therefore, VR should be a replacement for large displays in
| productive work, not a device that everyone is wearing outside or
| casually watching videos with. The use cases are professional;
| such as programming, CAD, design etc. I believe that properly
| implemented VR would allow utilizing full visual-spatial
| capabilities of our brains, totally eliminating the process of
| hunting for files and switching windows.
|
| It would be possible to dive into code and see it all at once
| like an intricate factory. Our brains are capable of navigating
| very complex environments, but this capability is lost when its
| viewed through a small window.
|
| I wish they'd explore this area, rather than go for a mass market
| appeal. What kind of software is possible, and how much
| productivity can be increased with maxed out hardware with high
| resolution VR? I'm not sure if 4K resolution with a M2 chip is
| powerful enough for a truly innovative product. Maybe it is, but
| there's still room for a "pro" product.
|
| I don't think there's a use case for glasses-type product, with a
| watch-like functionality and environmental AR which would show
| information pop-ups everywhere. We already have information
| overload, and we don't need any more of that.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| _> Productivity is correlated with display size_
|
| That's a dubious statement. Filling the binocular field of view
| is fine; it's about 120deg horizontally, give or take. But past
| that it starts to be a problem. Generally, if you look at the
| screen and any edge is blocked by your nose without turning
| your head, it's likely too large to work comfortably on. (but
| still fine for immersive content like games or movies)
| kurthr wrote:
| Typical large (32") monitor with normal spacing is about
| 30-35deg vertical and 60-70deg horizontal and 27" is usually
| less. If your eyes are 20" from the screen, it's probably not
| healthy. Binocular field of view (without head motion) of VR
| systems is usually 100deg in both dimensions (20deg overlap
| in the middle). I'd expect Apple VR to be "retina".
| Geee wrote:
| You can turn also turn your head and move around in your
| room, i.e. your whole room could be full of separate
| displays, or just pieces of code floating in space. It's not
| just how much you see at a time, but how easily you can
| switch context.
| layer8 wrote:
| Counterpoint: It's faster to Alt+Tab (or using other
| keyboard shortcuts) than to move around the room.
| kurthr wrote:
| Move around a room? I'd compare it to eye motion of
| 30-60deg, that's a saccade of about 30-40ms. I don't
| think most fingers can move that fast from the home row,
| probably more comparable to head motion
| orbital-decay wrote:
| It's not about switching time, it's about cognitive load.
| If any dense information creeps into your far peripheral
| vision, it might as well not exist because you have to
| locate it. During any concentrated work, only something
| you can fit in the center of your binocular field of
| vision (roughly speaking) doesn't cause severe mental
| context switching.
|
| I tried to work on three 16:9 displays for some time, and
| found it exhausting. The cognitive overload isn't worth
| it, workspace switching with a hotkey turned out to be
| far easier for me. That's not even mentioning constant
| neck movement.
|
| Maybe it's just me though, I can't speak for different
| people; but I strongly suspect it's the same for many.
| pharke wrote:
| I'd imagine it changing the way I work to be closer to
| what I do when working on a physical project. Like when
| building a book case I have various pieces laid out in
| different stages of completion. My context switching
| involves moving physically from one to the other which
| provides a physical reinforcement to the mental change I
| have to make. Just like I have all the shelves on one
| bench ready to be sanded and the trim on another being
| cut to length I could have my server side code on one
| wall and the client code on another. It'd probably be a
| lot better for my posture and fitness to physically move
| from one to the other rather than be glued to a chair for
| 8 hours.
| layer8 wrote:
| The parent was talking about moving around in a room
| filled with virtual displays. Regarding eye motion, I
| already use a screen filling my non-peripheral field-of-
| view (~120deg), so any additional screen would require
| significant head movement.
| kurthr wrote:
| You sit with your eyes closer than half the width of your
| screen? That is either a HUGE screen and/or you sit with
| eyes less than 14" away, which is at least novel?
|
| Of course you need two of those screens to fill your
| field of view, unless you have a square screen that goes
| below your desk, but I'm sure that's available somewhere.
| layer8 wrote:
| I'm near-sighted, and checking now it's really more like
| 90-100deg horizontally, but moving my eyes outside of
| that range without moving my head is actually not
| comfortable.
|
| My subjective impression is that the nonperipheral visual
| field isn't square. I would find 3:2 displays optimal, or
| maybe rather 16:11. While a 16:9 or 16:10 display could
| be extended vertically to fill more of the visual field,
| that extended portion is not large enough to usefully fit
| a second monitor there (without head movement).
| RexM wrote:
| Haha now I can try and figure out where I put that function
| I'm looking for as if it were the hex wrench included in
| IKEA furniture.
| Deritiod wrote:
| I know plenty of software engineer who not even click away the
| GitHub information banner for weeks.
|
| I don't think VR headsets will not take off as display
| alternatives.
|
| People don't even care about highdpi.
| elcomet wrote:
| Your first sentence is already problematic. Do you have any
| data or research to back this up ? It doesn't seem very true to
| me.
| Geee wrote:
| Just common sense. Watch -> Phone -> Tablet -> Laptop ->
| Desktop. You'd be least productive on a watch and most
| productive on a desktop, and adding extra displays would make
| you even more productive. Each of them has an interface
| that's designed to max out productivity on that particular
| display size. We don't yet have an interface that maxes out
| productivity on a VR device.
| elcomet wrote:
| But there's also clearly an upper limit. And it's not clear
| what is this limit.
| jayd16 wrote:
| The upper limit would be immersed in a sphere, I suppose.
| I also think the maxima is a lot less than that.
| pharke wrote:
| Space isn't a constraint in VR, you could have an
| infinite number of displays that you could teleport
| between as quickly as your interface allows. The limiter
| on productivity increase probably has more to do with
| your ability to remember what each display is for and the
| ease of locating and switching to them.
| pfortuny wrote:
| Careful with those analogies. The distance you can throw
| something away wit your hands increases with size... up to
| a point.
|
| You can throw a grain of sand only so fra, a pebnle
| somewhat more, a baseball probably very far... And you stop
| there, more or less.
| [deleted]
| jayd16 wrote:
| I'm bullish on VR but I think the "many floating monitors
| around a desk" is a bad use case. I mean, you can just alt-tab
| through windows or desktops as it is.
|
| In my mind the real power comes from spatial hand tracking as a
| new UX paradigm(seeing an interacting with objects in 3d space)
| and possibly the addition of large displays anywhere a monitor
| couldn't have feasibly been, (eg, floating in the server room
| in a cramped space when needed).
|
| I don't think working on code will be all that different. There
| isn't any physical spatial interaction with text on paper that
| the current editors are missing.
| er4hn wrote:
| We will rush so quickly to make UML in 3D that we will never
| stop to think... Should we?
| aeturnum wrote:
| I agree that "floating virtual monitors" isn't much of an
| improvement over real monitors - but it's an transitional
| step that you take to experiment with building a UI that's
| not possible with traditional physical interfaces.
| layer8 wrote:
| > spatial hand tracking as a new UX paradigm
|
| I only see this as a supplemental feature for certain use
| cases (coarse-grained 3D operations). In general nothing
| beats the efficiency of working with a keyboard for
| navigating application functions, or (at least with current
| technology) the mouse for precision 2D navigation/selection.
| Their advantage being precise and definite/discrete input.
|
| For actual work, even with a VR headset I see myself still
| mostly using keyboard and mouse.
| pharke wrote:
| Agree that keyboard shortcuts can't be topped for speed but
| a keyboard doesn't need to be a flat thing you keep on a
| desk. Mice on the other hand stand a good chance of being
| replaced by virtual laser pointers combined with a shift in
| how we do GUI layouts.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Thought experiment: imagine fixing your car engine by tabbing
| around a little viewport.
| jayd16 wrote:
| People do it now, if we're talking about CAD software of an
| engine model. I'm not sure they're clamoring for more 2d
| monitors. I think being able to reach into the model in 3d
| space is probably more natural than mouse clicks and
| manually moving viewports around.
| pharke wrote:
| As someone who has been getting into CAD lately and has
| several years of experience working on 3D models in
| Blender, I would very much prefer to be able to walk
| around the model and make adjustments here and there
| rather than using keyboard shortcuts and the mouse. More
| display space in VR should have an emphasis on "space"
| rather than "display".
|
| If we're talking about programming instead, an intuitive
| way to switch between modules when working on a large
| project would be to have their windows laid out before
| you on a virtual desk and you could switch between the
| active one displayed on a central virtual monitor by
| making a gesture (probably something like the Oculus
| pinch) towards the window you want to switch to. This
| would allow you to use your spatial reasoning to remember
| which windows you have open and would also allow you to
| group related windows. Additional displays could show
| console output from your development server, the GUI part
| of the app you're working on, a test runner, etc.
| positioned where you can glance at them easily.
|
| That being said, I think the real killer app for the new
| "facetop" computing devices that are around the corner
| will be physical fitness and social interaction. If you
| think a standing desk was a big improvement for your
| health then you'll love being able to freely walk around
| your office and work from any position whether it's
| standing, sitting at a desk, perched by the window,
| lounging on the sofa, or even crouching while giving
| those legs a stretch. You can also kiss zoom meetings
| goodbye with the unnatural wall of faces almost but not
| quite making eye contact with you. You'll talk to an
| avatar, realistic or not, that has full eye, face and
| body tracking allowing you to tell if your interlocutor
| is paying attention or thinking about how long it is
| until lunch while checking the wait time at the nearest
| restaurants. It actually does feel like you're in the
| presence of another person and spending a few hours
| talking to people virtually will no longer leave you with
| a headache and eye-strain.
|
| I'd also invest in learning how to use a one handed,
| portable chording keyboard, it'll probably be useful.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Hey dude, nobody's cracked the code on VR UX so far as I
| know
|
| If you have a good idea, you should prototype it and get
| it out there (and maybe get a nice buyout in the
| process..)
| jayd16 wrote:
| >I'd also invest in learning how to use a one handed,
| portable chording keyboard, it'll probably be useful.
|
| We might end up with a phone as the go-to XR keyboard.
| Would be pretty funny if that evolves into everyone
| wearing AR glasses with a 90s Nokia sized blackberry
| keyboard in their pocket.
| Deritiod wrote:
| I did a little bit of 3d modeling.
|
| Your shortcuts are your bread and butter and you are
| super fast.
|
| Perhaps for sculpting.
| qgin wrote:
| Being able to zoom in and out and pan around using a
| medium-sized viewport though.
| kurthr wrote:
| Takes time, distracts, and encourages a context shift.
| thih9 wrote:
| I think I'd be fine with that; I'd find the right reference
| and start working.
|
| When I work on a laptop I also keep one app or one tab in
| focus most of the time.
|
| Counter example, imagine fixing your car engine and having
| 100 tabs open everywhere.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| That sounds absolutely exhausting to me.
|
| Perhaps, in a lab setting, doing straightforward, focused tasks
| like the ones they use in these productivity studies, I could
| sustain a productivity boost long enough for the researcher to
| get a two-tailed p<0.05.
|
| Make me do it in real life, though, 40 hours a week, week after
| week after week, and I expect I would burn out _very_ quickly.
| I like my work well enough, but I don 't think I want to
| actually stick my whole head inside of it.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Maybe not all the time, but it would be great for me to be
| able to travel and not have to worry about taking a huge
| productivity hit without my desk and monitors.
| mumblemumble wrote:
| I'd counter that with, why are you worried about computer-
| time productivity when traveling?
|
| If it's for vacation, just unplug. Mixing work and vacation
| makes both worse.
|
| If it's for business, your attention should be on whatever
| it is that prompted you to travel. Presumably that's face
| time with people, not grinding away in front of a computer.
| DangitBobby wrote:
| Because I'm not talking about vacation, I'm talking about
| the ability to travel and see family or go somewhere new
| at any point during the year without needing to take time
| off to do so. My work is programming, and travel has
| never been a part of the work equation for me. If
| workspace arrangements weren't an issue, I could go visit
| my friends from college this very weekend.
| semi-extrinsic wrote:
| Meh, this is mainly a bad excuse. Even when I'm doing CAD
| or manipulating large 3D datasets, I can get my work done
| with just a 14" laptop and a good trackball. There is
| some reduction in efficiency, but mainly due to scp'ing
| large files or waiting for the slower CPU. For coding
| it's not an issue at all, as long as you have your
| toolchain set up properly.
|
| I find that the high DPI trend has a tendency to limit us
| unneccesarily more than actually fix anything. It is
| still common to say max 80 characters per line. In the
| olden days where that comes from, it would require 640
| pixels horizontally. So at 100% scaling you can fit 3
| standard terminals side-by-side and fit 60+ lines
| vertically, what more do you need when you also have
| multiple workspaces to tab across?
| DangitBobby wrote:
| :thumbs_up: good for you. Doesn't work for me.
| didibus wrote:
| > Productivity is correlated with display size
|
| Where do you get this from?
|
| It seems to me if there was even a correlation, which I'm not
| sure, it would have more to do with resolution, since same
| resolution but bigger display doesn't actually show more
| information.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| High resolutions on small screen are very hard to read.
| ACow_Adonis wrote:
| Its like how health is correlated with height.
|
| Its true, up to a point.
|
| you just have to ignore that at the extremes it's probably
| negatively correlated, and there's a significant non-zero
| possibility that at least in the short term, that possibly of
| negative correlation applies to the area VR is interested in
| as well.
| dougmwne wrote:
| I agree that VR/AR is the future of productivity computing, but
| I think we are a bit far off still, half a decade at least. I
| have played around with remote desktop apps on the Meta Quest 2
| and these are the main challenges I see:
|
| - 4k is not nearly enough. I think we will likely need 8k
| screens.
|
| - The headsets are not light enough. You need something with
| all day comfort for work.
|
| - There is still too much eye-strain from the quality of the
| lenses and the fixed focus.
|
| - Input is still not natural and precise enough. We would need
| to be able to see our own hands and type with zero latency.
| Hand-tracked pointing needs to be able to pick up on small
| subtle finger motion like a mouse or trackpad can
| tootie wrote:
| It definitely does not scale linearly. A second monitor is a
| big advantage. A third less so. Infinite visual space would be
| barely more valuable than that. And really just having all that
| screen real estate isn't useful unless it's matched by
| extremely high resolution, frame rate and field of vision. I
| can flick my eyes between two monitors but any headset on the
| market is going to make me turn my head while squeezing my
| temples.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Therefore, VR should be a replacement for large displays in
| productive work, not a device that everyone is wearing outside
| or casually watching videos with. The use cases are
| professional
|
| I hope you're wrong about this.
|
| I _hope_ there will be a great personal (non-work) use case for
| the next generation of VR /AR. Something like gaming, watching
| sports (always have awesome "seats"), movies with friends,
| maybe map/gps/etc. for when I'm running.
|
| I know there are options for this already. But honestly, I
| haven't seen anyone who's not a dork using VR/AR. I want the
| version the average person is excited about. I'm ready to plunk
| down any amount of money Apple wants from me.
|
| If it's VR/AR for work, count me out. I don't have any interest
| in increasing my work productivity lol.
| pharke wrote:
| Social experiences are the use case you're looking for.
| Multiplayer gaming is a lot more fun in VR, watching video
| together with people is great, even just hanging out and
| socializing is great and it beats video or voice hands down.
| You're right that it's currently in the dork stage of
| development, the internet went through that period as well.
| I'd enjoy it while it lasts though, I dread the day when it's
| fully monetized and mainstream.
| paulcole wrote:
| The internet is much improved since the end of the dork
| stage of development. Don't know why HN romanticizes slow
| connections and a few text websites made by obsessives. Tik
| Tok, YouTube, etc. are leaps and bounds better than
| anything I saw online pre-1999.
|
| I can't wait for VR/AR to be fully monetized and
| mainstream. I'm sick of speculative VC-funded crap that I
| can't pay for because they're in "growth mode." When
| something's monetized at least then I have some faith that
| it'll be around for awhile.
| robswc wrote:
| I can get behind this. I always though VR was a gimmick but I
| got an oculus ~2016 and was honestly blown away. However, the
| #1 thing that turns me off to VR is that it's uncomfortable.
| That's ok though as long as the experience is worth it.
|
| I truly believe that VR is perfect for training/sim type games.
| Actual games.. Could really only count on one hand the games I
| feel are worth diving into VR for.
| mrfusion wrote:
| Problem is most companies prefer higher headcount than more
| productive employees.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| This is because middle managers need employees to manage.
| [deleted]
| thih9 wrote:
| > Productivity is correlated with display size
|
| Do you have a source?
|
| Anecdotal, I work without external displays and keep one window
| in focus, this helps my productivity.
| billti wrote:
| Same. I tried the "dual monitor" setup for a couple years and
| just went back to one. The second was just causing
| distractions and context switching. It's easier to focus on
| what's right in front of you than look around for stuff.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Context switching is terrible for productivity.
|
| And displaying more things mean you need to context switch
| less.
| Cook4986 wrote:
| Andrews, C., Endert, A. and North, C., 2010, April. Space to
| think: large high-resolution displays for sensemaking. In
| Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in
| computing systems (pp. 55-64):
|
| https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1753326.1753336?casa_toke.
| ..
|
| There's much more. Search "sensemaking" or "immersive
| analytics" on Scholar. Depth and width of field, achieved via
| stereoscopy and tracking, is well documented as a performance
| enhancer when it comes to generalizeable task completion in
| VR.
| marcinzm wrote:
| That seems to be describing a single type of task which is
| not what 95% of time is spent on by professionals in a work
| environment. This seems akin to a whiteboard session which
| traditionally is solved by just grabbing a whiteboard for
| an hour. But then you're not comparing VR to a monitor but
| VR to a physical whiteboard.
| bin_bash wrote:
| Both Meta and Microsoft are exploring AR/VR in the workplace
| (Microsoft pretty much entirely). I'm not sure why you're
| suggesting they're not exploring this area.
| Geee wrote:
| Their software and hardware are generally crappy, and I don't
| believe they can deliver anything innovate in a thousand
| years.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Can you explain what you mean? The Quest2 is easily the
| best stand alone headset and the hololens has the best
| world sensing. How can you say it's generally crappy? I
| consider it industry leading unless you get some niche
| devices that push up the spec sheet but are generally
| uninteresting.
| benoliver999 wrote:
| I have a quest 2 and on one hand I'm impressed, on the
| other hand "crappy" is still a reasonable assessment.
|
| It's way better than I would have expected. It's still
| not good enough to make me want to use it daily (even for
| just an hour or so)
| [deleted]
| Deritiod wrote:
| You understand how big Ms is right?
|
| Their hardware like the Xbox or surface are not crappy.
|
| Is this just trolling?
| onion2k wrote:
| _It would be possible to dive into code and see it all at once
| like an intricate factory. Our brains are capable of navigating
| very complex environments, but this capability is lost when its
| viewed through a small window._
|
| People can learn 3D environments by viewing them in a 2D screen
| very happily, and millions of gamers do exactly that every day.
| I can still remember my way around the map in GTA 3 about 20
| years after I first played it...
| mettamage wrote:
| > It would be possible to dive into code and see it all at once
| like an intricate factory. Our brains are capable of navigating
| very complex environments, but this capability is lost when its
| viewed through a small window.
|
| This is such an Engelbart-esque statement. Bravo! I'd love for
| AR to go there too :)
| kurthr wrote:
| Don't forget even the home use case where you're much less
| likely to have a pair of 30" monitors or even the space to put
| them... nor the IP concerns of the company, if you did have
| them in your living room. I agree, for apple this is most
| likely to be a creative/productivity play at high dollar. The
| challenge will be pricing and multi-hour usability
| (weight/watts/weariness).
|
| You get retina resolution, high refresh rate, HDR, and 2Factor
| authentication (Biometric+Goggles)/information security in one
| package. Of course you'll still likely want to have a laptop to
| drive it (untethered) except for the simplest mobile games.
| Jemm wrote:
| Designers, like Ive, should not be left unchecked. As part of an
| overall team they have value, but they should never be given
| carte-blanche as Ive had.
| jitl wrote:
| On the other hand, no one has released a VR system with mass
| market appeal. I have and enjoy a Valve Index, but it's stayed
| in the box for more than a year because I can't figure out a
| socially viable spot for it in my new house. Maybe Ive's
| influence on this product will make a big difference.
| lostgame wrote:
| >> On the other hand, no one has released a VR system with
| mass market appeal.
|
| Quest 2 would like a word with you?
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| I have both Quest models. They were fun for about a week
| and now they just collect dust. I've forgotten I own them.
|
| Part of my problem with Quest is the "ick" factor of
| knowing that FB is looking over my shoulder whenever I turn
| the thing on. Giving up your privacy seems to be the price
| of just about every cool technology nowadays, and it means
| the tech has to be _absolutely spectacular_ to make me pay
| that privacy price. My Tesla is sufficiently spectacular.
| Quest is not.
| jitl wrote:
| Quest 2 has impressive sales figures - 8 million in 2021,
| which is a quarter of Apple Watch at 32 million the same
| year. But the market for Quest 2 is very much games - I
| don't see much application outside that area, nor have I
| heard of break-through must-have or games.
| bnolsen wrote:
| The Oculus quest 2 definitely has fit that bill. It has game
| console level sales. How truly useful and confirtable it is
| may be questionable, but it certainly supports a market.
| astrange wrote:
| Are the users actually using it?
|
| Nerd dads are famous for buying anything that might run an
| NES emulator, then not using it after it turns out their
| kids have better things to do than listen to square waves.
| ceeplusplus wrote:
| But not game console level software sales. Xbox has 1)
| recurring revenue from online subscriptions 2) recurring
| GamePass revenue 3) a huge library of games and gamers who
| tend to buy many games often. Average software spend for
| Quest 2 is estimated at $125/user [1], which is a mere 2
| games without DLC on Xbox. By contrast I'd be willing to
| bet software revenue/user for Xbox is well in the hundreds.
|
| [1] https://arinsider.co/2021/08/02/how-many-quest-2s-sold-
| in-q2...
| Deritiod wrote:
| I bought an HTC vive pro + wireless + index Ctrl.
|
| I did that to play around as I was playing with 3d
| programming and I'm a nerd.
|
| And while friends and family know that and a few tried it
| out for a little bit and liked it, no one cares.
|
| Which is fine but it is a gimmick.
|
| I was hoping it would get more traction with real life
| training like how to use a lathe but nothing really came
| out or is in some internal companies.
| puranjay wrote:
| VR seems to have an insurmountable motion sickness problem. I
| tried the Quest with a dozen friends and half of them felt
| sick enough within minutes to never try it again.
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| You just need to start with the basics, take a break the
| moment you feel ill, and keep going. Within a few weeks
| most people are entirely used to it.
| kalleboo wrote:
| That may be, but you're going to need an extremely
| compelling use case for people to go through with that.
| puranjay wrote:
| But...why?
|
| Why would you persist with something that makes you sick
| even when the enthusiasts admit they use it once or twice
| a month?
| DonHopkins wrote:
| Puking doesn't stop some people from drinking!
| pharke wrote:
| Sorry, those people aren't enthusiasts. There are people
| that spend 8 hours a day in VR. Hell, there are a lot of
| people that fall asleep in VR.
| puranjay wrote:
| Man, if it really was that amazing, you'd see it in the
| numbers. Facebook acquired Oculus in 2014. Its still a
| rounding error in terms of revenue in their annual
| reports.
|
| Personally, I just felt it was gimmicky - try it once or
| twice for curiosity's sake, then forget about it.
|
| Nothing on VR enthusiasts - I'm sure you have reasons to
| love it. But as a piece of tech, unless there are drastic
| improvements, I just don't see it gaining mass adoption.
| Deritiod wrote:
| Huh?
|
| I only know one person who used bis VR set extensively
| like for 2-3 month and then falled back to play
| egoshooters.
|
| 'a lot of people' != Not market relevant
| andybak wrote:
| Not sure who you're speaking to but I use it several
| times a week.
| imglorp wrote:
| This might be especially true if they're prioritizing
| aesthetic concerns over performance: per OP, they axed the
| compute-heavy base station. Carmak talks about increasing
| frame rate and increasing depth calculation as mitigators
| against sickness. BTW I feel sick merely playing Quake 1 at
| arm's length from a small monitor.
|
| https://www.techradar.com/news/oculus-might-have-a-fix-to-
| en...
|
| https://www.lifewire.com/how-new-tech-could-prevent-vr-
| motio...
| pharke wrote:
| It's only insurmountable if you never try it again. There
| is a learning curve where some people feal quite sick at
| first and then slowly get used to it. You can mitigate this
| with "training wheels" settings in the experience like
| blinkers, cages, hiding the VR body, and alternate
| locomotion schemes like teleporting. Some people even swear
| by just setting up a fan to blow air on them while they're
| using VR.
| _flux wrote:
| May I ask, what kind of experiences did they try on the
| device?
|
| It seems well-accepted hypothesis that having artificial
| locomotion in VR can induce motion sickness (cases where
| the VR body moves but your own body doesn't), whereas with
| "sit", "stay still" or "walk around IRL" (and even
| "teleport around") scenarios are highly unlikely to cause
| it.
|
| There is a still a lot of experiences left in the latter
| scenario, though it does exclude driving games (in
| particular if you don't see the cockpit) or first-person
| shooting-and-moving-around games.
|
| And then the worst thing to do with newcomers is to put
| them down for a ride in a VR rollercoaster.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I was surprised to find myself agreeing with the point of view
| ascribed to Ive.
|
| My takeaway though is that the device itself and how it should
| look/work is not _obvious_ , and that is a bad thing.
|
| For a device like the iPhone, iPod a few people kicking around
| ideas over sushi could very quickly (and with wild enthusiasm,
| no doubt) come to agree on the basic form, basic functionality.
|
| If our VR-future has to be shoe-horned into existence, maybe it
| was not to be.
|
| If anything, I want to see "the cyber" go away, not become more
| pervasive.
| na85 wrote:
| Indeed, it's clear that Ive hasn't been a positive force on
| Apple's products for a while. His pathological fetish for
| thinness at all costs resulted in objectively inferior
| products.
|
| Apple can and does make mistakes, for example the touch bar,
| and the MacBook keyboard.
|
| If Ive is involved I predict that this product will experience
| a brief but intense surge in popularity based primarily on the
| novelty factor and social media influencers followed by a rapid
| decline into irrelevance.
| qgin wrote:
| Have to say I agree with Jony Ive on all of these points.
|
| The idea of an AR wearable that is tethered to a fixed base
| station is so very lame. Why even bother with AR when you can
| only augment the reality that is in your office or bedroom?
|
| Also the eye-view outer display is essential for situations where
| one person is using the goggles but others aren't. How unsettling
| would it be for someone to look at you, be able to see you, but
| for their upper face to completely obscured by goggles? How could
| you have an in person face-to-face conversation with someone like
| that?
| [deleted]
| ttul wrote:
| I believe it's most likely that Apple will be releasing an
| untethered device. It would not be Apple if you needed a wire
| and a separate box.
|
| A 4K display per eye, a powerful and efficient SoC on the
| latest node, and some really fine industrial design will surely
| be within Apple's reach.
|
| Everyone will have to build apps for this thing. If it's real,
| it will be every bit as successful as iPhone.
| null_shift wrote:
| The fixed base station is a fundamentally different tradeoff
| for AR vs VR.
|
| Base station for AR would be detrimental, as you inherently
| want to explore and interact with the world around you.
|
| For most VR use cases that is not the case, and I can see the
| argument for the benefits of a base station (higher
| performance) outweighing the costs (limited movement).
| treesknees wrote:
| One solution to this for AR is using "fog computing", where
| your AR device may offload its computation to a node on the
| local network that's more powerful but also not as far away
| (in terms of latency) as a cloud server. Perhaps with the
| continued adoption of UWB 5G, those AR basestations could
| exist at cell towers or in local establishments - think about
| a clothing store running fog nodes to allow AR users to
| visualize wearing different clothes as they see them in the
| store.
|
| I haven't read more than the abstract, but it seems there is
| some good research going into this. It must be years off
| however, as we barely have LTE networks in some locations,
| let-alone UWB 5G to even begin supporting this type of
| architecture.
|
| https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/9103475
| jayd16 wrote:
| Streaming 4k video per eye per user? Can I get that kind of
| bandwidth for general wifi, please?
| [deleted]
| bin_bash wrote:
| If the base station was wireless and doubled as a
| charger/stand it likely wouldn't even be a noticeable
| drawback for most VR use-cases.
| yazaddaruvala wrote:
| Is it all that different from interacting with people wearing
| sunnies or ski goggles?
| dontbenebby wrote:
| I had a low tech cyberpunk rig set up (Sony noise cancelling
| headphones + 4K screen on a laptop rather than an expensive,
| large tv and fancy speakers)
|
| I am not sold at all on "VR". It's one of those things, like
| "Firefox OS", that drained Mozilla's coffers when they should
| have focused on designing their own Android build the way we went
| from Knoppix[1] to Kali[2] in a very short time.
|
| (I wish I could have stayed, but my Chrome loving supervisor who
| told me he doesn't even use the browser decided I didn't do
| enough work to be hired on full time before he moved from
| Brooklyn to Switzerland)
|
| [1] https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=knoppix
|
| [2] https://www.kali.org/get-kali/
| KVFinn wrote:
| The cost of the external eye displays seem absolutely crazy.
|
| Two extra external displays in raw hardware. But worse, they are
| on the front in exactly the place you want to place the
| passthrough cameras, so now you have to do extra image processing
| to virtually reposition the input as if it were on the eyes. So
| it makes passthrough dev more difficult.
|
| It must be extremely compelling to see those eye screens in
| action. It must be selling onlookers on the device. That's the
| only that could justify that much effort?
| nsriv wrote:
| EDIT: If meant to be used untethered, those screens would also
| soak up battery.
| jdlshore wrote:
| I had assumed a single oval-shaped display and headset, along
| with notches for cameras. I also don't see slightly displaced
| cameras as causing a significant problem. Brains are pretty
| adaptable to vision changes.
| KVFinn wrote:
| In the linked article in The Information, they talk about the
| screens making getting the passthrough working more
| challenging.
| Angostura wrote:
| "A partial indication of the probable issues involved in the
| saga". Not quite as snappy a headline, I agree.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Even the saga term is a strong term. At the end of the day
| Apple did the right call so far, not launch a crappy product.
| They didn't go the Google way of having to launch and then
| discontinue it. I'd rather have them spend years figuring it
| out instead of launching a product with no clear goal without
| any problem to solve.
| smoldesu wrote:
| How can we say "Apple did the right call" without knowing
| what their call was, knowing if this article is true, knowing
| what _the product even looks like_ , or even knowing how
| successful the product was relative to the rest of their
| lineup? For all we know, this project is scrapped and dead.
| internet2000 wrote:
| If they launch something that's garbage, that was the wrong
| call. If they don't, it was the right call.
| smoldesu wrote:
| And what if they don't release something that could have
| changed the world? Would "shelving" the iPhone be the
| right move too?
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| It's so telling how much WWDC has been dedicated to ARKit over
| the past many years yet not a single viable use has been shipped.
|
| AR through a phone or iPad is lame and close to useless. Only
| looks good in video demos till you use it yourself and see how
| clumsy it is interacting through a tiny window.
|
| Very clear they have a headset in mind for all this but are
| struggling to ship.
| steve76 wrote:
| ttul wrote:
| Apple won't release this product unless it is mind blowing. If
| Bloomberg's reporting is true, then we should all be looking
| forward to a very cool demo at WWDC and an incredible product
| some time in 2023.
|
| Very few people predicted the iPhone accurately before its
| launch. And it's reasonable to say the iPhone blew minds because
| Apple figured out multitouch AND reduced the latency of the
| interface to the extend required so that it felt natural to use.
| If they mail AR in the same way, they will have the next iPhone.
|
| I am bullish on the prospect of this happening.
| pharke wrote:
| I'm not so sure. I think they will deliver something but I have
| a feeling that Meta is going to beat them to the punch as far
| as a productivity focused device is concerned. Meta might wind
| up with most of the market share while Apple trails them
| although I'm sure that most people who own a MacBook Pro will
| buy an Apple headset as well. I think this is more of a PC vs
| Mac situation than it is Android vs iPhone.
| whakim wrote:
| I think the iPhone isn't the only possible comparison here.
| Sure, the iPhone blew minds, but what about the iPad? Apple
| Watch? Airpods? Apple TV? None of these are bad devices (in
| fact, they're all pretty solid) - they're just niche devices
| and limited in the way the iPhone wasn't/isn't. I'd expect the
| headset to be similar.
| Deritiod wrote:
| I do not share.your enthusiasm.
|
| Apple buyers are not necessarily tech savvy (from a percentage
| perspective).
|
| They use their high end phones for normal consumer things.
|
| I have a hard time imagining what a normal person would want to
| do with VR/are glasses.
|
| Showing your face in a Videochat? Not being able to show your
| face?
|
| Playing games?
|
| I would assume that there is still a lot of apple people not
| playing anything than casual games.
| [deleted]
| drcode wrote:
| The correct solution to the vr isolation problem is to have
| passthrough AR, then digitally remove the helmets of the other
| people in the same room.
|
| That way, as long as everyone is wearing a helmet, it looks like
| no one is wearing a helmet.
| jitl wrote:
| > as long as everyone is wearing a helmet
|
| Sounds like a good solution for a low probability situation.
| Eye visibility for normal humans is much more practical than
| issuing every human a VR system and requiring they wear it at
| all times to maintain the illusion.
| chii wrote:
| why shouldn't the other people be rendered as an avatar they
| choose like in VR chat?
| Deritiod wrote:
| It's inhuman.
|
| It's gimmicky?
|
| I'm really curios of Fashion conces people really like
| avatars. I don't think so and I also don't think that the
| apple brand is a good fit for it.
|
| Real life Avatars with light enhancements will also be weird
| I think
|
| Let's see.
| aaron695 wrote:
| AR simply has no known value to users, the best SciFi has to
| offer is sex ads while walking down the street.
|
| AR is technically impossible with current and near future tech.
|
| All these companies are lying and faking and delaying to collect
| $ while people like HN are stupid enough to believe in them.
|
| Zuckerberg's latest video blanked out the "AR" glasses. Google
| also lied and used fake demos glasses in theirs. Magic Leap = lol
|
| The far easier and probably useful VR has gigantuous issues to
| move forward. For instance there's no way to create content. $100
| million games go to half a billion dollar games. People don't
| want to move their heads when relaxing. At best it might be
| useful at work where people are forced to do things but that's
| also contentious, most people don't even want to turn the Zoom
| camera on.
| puranjay wrote:
| > At best it might be useful at work
|
| Unless _everyone_ can use it, its not going to work in an
| office setting. A single person in a team of six who gets
| motion sickness with VR (very common) makes it nonviable for
| the entire team.
| ghaff wrote:
| Besides. I mostly don't want an immersive environment for
| meetings and so forth. Heck, lots of people resent video.
| scyzoryk_xyz wrote:
| I work in medical surgical simulation and there are incredible
| uses for something like AR/VR for training and tele-mentoring.
| Not difficult to imagine countless others.
|
| The entertainment/gaming market is overrated - when it finally
| shows up, AR/VR will be all about work, productivity and
| interfacing. But I agree it's probably going to take a long
| time and I don't think it's going to be the hyped revolution
| everyone would like it to be.
| ghaff wrote:
| If we can play scifi, it's trivial to imagine benefits to
| lightweight unobtrusive AR glasses. And, yes, targeted
| commercial uses are probably the low hanging fruit.
|
| It's also probably quite a ways off for mainstream adoption
| because the hardware and software isn't there and won't be
| for a while unless you're talking narrow use cases where
| compromises are fine.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Yes but, you're asking a hammer salesman to see that a problem
| does not involve nails. Tech wants to tech.
|
| Like you though, both figuratively and literally, I'm not
| buying VR.
| jsjohnst wrote:
| All of your recent posts showed as dead, but I vouched for this
| one so I can reply as I very much disagree with one part.
|
| > AR is technically impossible with current and near future
| tech.
|
| This is simply not true, there's been numerous AR products
| built (just not runaway success stories). IMHO, it's not
| "technically impossible", it's "prohibitively expensive"
| generally to get the experience that's been hyped.
| aaron695 wrote:
| tootie wrote:
| I've used the current market leading products and they suck.
| If you understand the tech you know how far it's come and how
| sophisticated they are but they are still decades away from
| famous Magic Leap teaser level of vividness.
| rswail wrote:
| F-35 pilots would also tend to disagree, sure, their helmets
| have been through a lot of revision and development, but they
| do provide (apparently) good enhancements for pilots coming
| from more conventional (eg HUD) environments.
| fsloth wrote:
| Nonsense.
|
| AR is already proven tech in industry. I don't know what
| _entertainment_ purposes it might serve but real world use is
| already benefitting from it.
|
| Building and construction has tons of AR offerings in
| production. See for example Trimble's SiteVision.
| nagsaki wrote:
| The only real application I can see of AR is to have face
| recognition that would show a person's real name and other
| information about them as you see them.
|
| Privacy aside, I don't think that would really take off either
| as I just don't think most people are that interested in people
| they don't know.
| pveierland wrote:
| One seemingly good use-case for AR seems to be live
| translation, as shown here:
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/11/23067426/google-ar-
| glasse...
|
| Text, as opposed to audio, doesn't really change the
| personality of the person you are speaking to, plus using
| your ears to listen directly to the person might create
| better immersion.
| aaron695 wrote:
| rswail wrote:
| AR for museum guides? For tourism? New sports? Not to mention
| all the business, industrial, and other applications. Medical
| AR, overlaying imaging during surgery, or visualizing heart
| rates, electrical activity, O2 concentration, etc.
|
| The uses of AR are endless and much more than just Minority
| Report type stuff.
|
| And then as the controllers get better and more integrated,
| you get the sort of thing that currently only pilots of an
| F35 get, in terms of being aware of their environment.
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