[HN Gopher] Orion, our first true augmented reality glasses
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Orion, our first true augmented reality glasses
Author : mfiguiere
Score : 469 points
Date : 2024-09-25 17:56 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (about.fb.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (about.fb.com)
| iamronaldo wrote:
| This is insane
| dbuxton wrote:
| Insane as in "how can Meta be so crazy as to commit themselves
| to AR still just because it's in their company name" or as in
| "insanely good"?
|
| Genuine question!
| emdanielsen wrote:
| Wow. Something seems to have really changed at Meta in the last
| few years. I really thought the company had run out of innovation
| juice during its peak evangelism of "the metaverse." And I know I
| wasn't alone in that sentiment. But they continue to impress
| across the board.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| I mean. The #1 web framework is made by Meta... (React is one
| of the all time top repositories on GitHub) But that aside, the
| real issue is when they try to force users of unrelated
| products into Facebook. I'll likely never buy a Meta device
| because they bothered to try at all.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Their messaging has been really tone deaf.
|
| For instance, the media never seemed to get the point of
| _Horizon Worlds_ in that if VR content is going to be like the
| web, there has to be authoring tools that make it possible for
| the ordinary Joe to make content. The persona I think of is the
| owner of a few Thai restaurants who is very savvy about SEO and
| SMO and developing relationships with DoorDash and such. That
| person has to see the value of having a VR or AR presence that
| is greater than the cost of developing.
|
| _Horizon Worlds_ fell down in many ways not least in making
| you create everything with computational solid geometry and not
| letting you import image, video and 3d assets. Sorry but
| McDonalds has to put the Coca-Cola logo on the side of the
| drink cups. One trouble is the size of those assets has to be
| managed so that you don't overload the rendering engine or the
| comm link. Another is that people are going to make worlds
| stuffed with porno images or theaters where you can watch
| pirated movies. As it is their authoring tools aren't that
| good, people who know how to author 3-d content can't use the
| tools and processes that are good at, and your world can only
| be so big.
|
| There are many good games that are developed with the expensive
| processes used to make 3d games and a huge number of _Horizon
| Worlds_ competitors, I am sure Meta wants to see one succeed
| but it is not an easy problem.
|
| I like my MQ3 but for entertainment it competes with other
| options (sure it was fun to watch the last Star Wars movie in
| 3D and I like VR games but normal video and video games is hard
| to beat) and for creative work it is the same: in theory I
| could publish my stereograms in VR with A-Frame but there are
| so many other projects to work on.
| baby wrote:
| Not everyone considered the Metaverse a bad vision, I know a
| lot of people (including myself) who think it's brilliant.
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| I have to assume there are folks out there for whom the maximum
| chonky appearance is appealing.
|
| I think we still have some room to grow there in terms of
| aesthetic for the majority though.
|
| undoubtedly a progressive achievement in the field, despite it
| all
| rchaud wrote:
| A preference for 1950s Buddy Holly glasses would be a fashion
| choice, because such glasses are rare today. It loses all of
| that appeal and becomes a commodity when it's the _only choice_
| for a product category.
| ru552 wrote:
| "I think we still have some room to grow there in terms of
| aesthetic for the majority though."
|
| So does Meta and it's the reason they aren't actually releasing
| this as a product. They just showed us where they're at and
| gave us an idea on where they want to go in the next few years.
| baby wrote:
| Mark said they need to iterate to make it more cool, and that's
| why they won't release this just yet. It looks like it's going
| to be a dev kit
| rafram wrote:
| "the look and feel of a regular pair of glasses" is... one way to
| describe it. They look totally goofy. But the tech seems amazing,
| assuming those videos actually reflect reality (which is hard to
| say, since this is not a real product, just a prototype
| announcement).
| gs17 wrote:
| "the look and feel of a regular pair of glasses... as depicted
| on any cartoon caricature of a nerd". It's really impressive if
| they fit that much into the frame, but they're _thick_.
| levocardia wrote:
| I hate to knock the design when the tech is so cool but it
| seems like this would be exactly the occasion to go for a
| futuristic cyberpunk-visor look, as opposed to dork glasses.
| rvz wrote:
| Say what you want about Zuckerberg. But once again you have
| witnessed the heavy investment in reality labs to create a new XR
| glasses platform that potentially ticks all the boxes that will
| take consumer XR glasses mainstream:
|
| * Looks very cool and more natural. (In comparison, look at Snap
| XR Glasses)
|
| * No wires sticking out.
|
| * Not a huge VR headset.
|
| * Can see what you see through the lenses for XR capabilities.
|
| * Controllable through eyes, hands and neural interface to cover
| almost all scenarios without looking awkward in public.
|
| * Integrates with an existing app ecosystem.
|
| Orion is very promising and appears to be in the lead for
| mainstream XR glasses so far.
|
| In general, it appears that everyone here misjudged and betted
| against Meta and Zuck when they were at $93 with calls for Zuck
| to be 'fired' when the stock crashed. [0] Now the stock is at all
| time highs.
|
| Remember. They didn't even mention Threads. At all. It is another
| way for them to monetize that if they want to.
|
| That is _true_ founder mode and the death of Meta Platforms Inc.
| has been _absolutely_ exaggerated.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36452808
| rchaud wrote:
| I agree, founder mode in SV doesn't seem to be much more than
| creating something with good UX and proceeding to ruin it by
| attempting to turn it into a "platform".
| regularfry wrote:
| The "doesn't look too dorky" benchmark for me is the XReal Air
| line. They're a few years old now, and they aren't exactly AR
| glasses in the same way, but you'd expect the headline of this
| iteration of tech to be better looking. Not worse.
|
| I wonder what's actually in the frames. You wouldn't put bulk
| there if you had any other choice.
| gs17 wrote:
| > Orion has the largest field of view in the smallest AR glasses
| form to date.
|
| Did they say what it is, specifically?
| prettymuchnoone wrote:
| the verge's article says 70 degrees
| gs17 wrote:
| Not bad, HoloLens 2 was only a 52deg diagonal FOV. Not quite
| VR headset level, but the frames probably help a lot.
| ojbyrne wrote:
| This article says 70 degrees:
|
| https://www.theverge.com/24253908/meta-orion-ar-glasses-demo...
| largest_hippo wrote:
| This is the form factor that I always wanted from HoloLens (which
| I own). The release is very light on details of field of view and
| resolution (other than "best ever" puffery), that's where we'll
| get a better sense of actual use cases. The ball game shown
| looked very rudimentary in terms of only taking place in a small
| directly-in-front-of-user sense. This is also where HoloLens
| games fell flat -- you'd turn your head slightly to the left or
| right, and suddenly key game elements would vanish.
|
| Edit -- the home page says 70-degree FoV. Not bad, better than
| HoloLens (45-degree FoV if I recall), but perhaps not enough to
| turn your head to the person next to you while still having game
| elements persist in vision
| baby wrote:
| apparently they did something weird with the glasses to bend
| the light and increase your FOV, I'm not sure what that means
| but it looks intriguing.
| noneeeed wrote:
| What do/did you use your Hololens for?
|
| I tried out the first gen version at a meetup and it was really
| nifty (the latency was fantastic), but I just couldn't work out
| what anyone would use it for in real life, it seemed too
| limited to be useful.
| Jyaif wrote:
| What's the display tech?
| drjasonharrison wrote:
| They only say "holographic." Based on other products/projects
| (Intel's Vaunt), I assume projectors/lasers are on the sides,
| and a holographic reflector is on the back surface of the lens.
| bbor wrote:
| There's a link above with much more details:
| https://www.theverge.com/24253908/meta-orion-ar-glasses-demo...
| [The display] features Micro LED projectors inside the frame
| that beam graphics in front of your eyes via waveguides in the
| lenses. These lenses are made of silicon carbide, not plastic
| or glass. Meta picked silicon carbide for its durability, light
| weight, and ultrahigh index of refraction, which allows light
| beamed in from the projectors to fill more of your vision.
|
| This 2022 paper seems like a good explainer of the tech, def
| download the PDF for the Figures:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-09680-1
| Through careful dispersion control in the excited propagation
| and diffraction modes, we design and implement our high-
| resolution full-color prototype, via the combination of
| analytical-numerical simulations, nanofabrication and device
| measurements... Our MOE waveguide utilizes only a single glass
| layer for the whole RGB spectrum, reducing unwanted diffraction
| and with higher efficiency. Our single-layer implementation
| also brings compactness and lightweight operation, while
| simplifying the MOE fabrication and yield.
|
| Sooo this layman is reading it as "used fancy ML workflows to
| fabricate extremely precise hologram guides." Pretty damn
| impressive and exciting! It's a good day/year/millennium to be
| nerd, no doubt about it.
| Twirrim wrote:
| I know it's a prototype, but yikes those are large and goofy
| looking.
|
| Reminds me of the old 80's NHS glasses in the UK (which you could
| get for free if you couldn't afford otherwise).
|
| Or for those of you old enough, Brains from the old
| Supermarionation versions of the Thunderbird show
| (https://i2-prod.walesonline.co.uk/incoming/article8451975.ec...)
| roughly wrote:
| In the army, they were BCGs - Birth Control Glasses.
| Gracana wrote:
| Yup. My first thought was that they look like "BCGs".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GI_glasses
| barbecue_sauce wrote:
| The 60s-era designs don't look all that different from some
| of the fairly popular current Warby Parker designs.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I bought a pair of glasses last week that look exactly like
| the 60's photo, but with a brown frame. Wasn't familiar
| with GI Glasses before, I just think that design looks
| cool.
| meindnoch wrote:
| The GI on the Wikipedia page looks straight out of some 2010s
| urban fashion lookbook with these glasses.
| andoando wrote:
| Except 4x thicker
| baby wrote:
| Wanna see the first prototypes for mobile phones? And even then
| it's really good compared to a Quest, but def. not good enough
| if you're going to wear this on the daily
| neom wrote:
| My dad ran a hospital and literally had one of these things:
| https://hips.hearstapps.com/autoweek/assets/s3fs-
| public/IMG_... - Things seem to move so quickly these days
| I'd guess the Orion things will be reasonable to buy in 6/7
| years. Getting old sucks!
| mellosouls wrote:
| The Meta ones lack the obligatory sellotape over one side
| though.
| corobo wrote:
| My first thought was Bart Simpson becoming a nerd that one time
|
| https://img.cohan.dev/qFlL7.jpeg
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| yes same!
| kronk wrote:
| I think adding a rubber nose and a fake mustache would make
| them perfect!
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Honestly they need to do that
| bee_rider wrote:
| It still seems like an improvement though. They could be
| mistaken for very unfashionable glasses. That's so much closer
| to what people want, than Apple or Microsoft's headsets.
|
| Actually it is a little bit annoying, people might actually get
| away with wearing these things, which means Facebook spyware
| might be entering everyday life. I'm glad I'm too old for
| parties.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| To me, anyone wearing these things are screaming "I am an
| insecure attention whore who constantly needs mindless
| dopamine hits".
|
| We ruined the world with iPhone addiction and instagram now
| let's put the final nail in and get these monkeysheep to
| strap the phone on their face
| sleepybrett wrote:
| they need a big glob of white tape right over the nosepiece.
| xtracto wrote:
| The problem is that these companies keep wanting to put
| processing _in_ the glasses. The glasses should only have the
| _minimum_ circuitry to send, receive and render very high
| definition video. All the processing should be done in another
| device (like the arm band) that is carried nearby (like the
| wireless microphones they use in TV or concerts:
| https://www.amazon.com.mx/UHF-Wireless-Microphone-System-Kit...
| ). That way you are not CPU constrained.
|
| I would say have a "cache level" like combination: * very
| low/few computation done at the glasses level * medium
| computation done at the brick unit level * hard/intensive
| computation done in the cloud.
| ac29 wrote:
| Is it feasible to do wireless transmission of video at
| extremely low latency?
|
| Wireless microphones are not a good comparison because they
| are probably analog, but even if they are digital a few dozen
| milliseconds of delay is going to be imperceptible for audio
| in a way that video is not.
| jayd16 wrote:
| That's how it actually works and they mention low latency a
| lot.
| klabb3 wrote:
| > The problem is that these companies keep wanting to put
| processing in the glasses.
|
| I agree. The obvious choice is to offload to our insanely
| powerful phones. Unfortunately WiFi is too disruptive on
| mobile OSs and raw Bluetooth is.. well does that even need an
| explanation? Apple are probably the only ones who could
| deliver a seamless high bandwidth link and decent pairing,
| atm. But they spent their prototype-billions on a headset
| instead.
|
| On the other hand though.. do we really need to run multiple
| cameras and a realtime image processing pipeline to say that
| the cacao on your countertop is, in fact, cacao? These AR
| "experiences" make cool demos, but once the novelty wears
| off, nobody wants to play planetarium or anatomy class for
| hours a day.
|
| Note that without the whole AR part of it, there's still some
| really cool hardware for all kinds of purposes. That can be
| really handy when you want or need both hands free. For
| instance POV video for say sports, HUD and voice interface
| for eg cycling, maybe watching videos while working, anything
| requiring gloves (cold, wet hands, gardening) todo-list in
| the corner of eye when shopping, etc etc. You could reduce
| form factor and increase battery time significantly, even if
| you keep accelerometer, gyro, projector, light sensor,
| cameras etc. But for some reason, utility is not even a
| priority with these companies.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Click through to the description page. It has a wireless
| compute unit.
| Kiro wrote:
| Thick rims like those are considered high fashion right now.
| It's the opposite of goofy and says a lot about the audience
| here that you're all oblivious to this fact.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| There's a reason they call it _high fashion_ and not just
| fashion. But granted, maybe theres some billionaire bubble
| that 's in on the joke and loves the look of this.
| buzzerbetrayed wrote:
| lol. These glasses aren't "high fashion". But it's funny to
| see you look down your nose at people to try and convince
| them they are.
| bigstrat2003 wrote:
| If anything, high fashion is extremely goofy. Have you seen
| the stuff those people wear?
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| What is considered "normal" clothes today was probably
| considered "goofy" by many/most at some point.
| jjulius wrote:
| >... and says a lot about the audience here that you're all
| oblivious to this fact.
|
| What does it say beyond, "This person doesn't pay attention
| to high fashion", and why does it feel like you're judging
| people for that? Who cares if people aren't into it? To my
| mind, your comment says a lot more about you than what
| ignorance to high fashion says about others.
| impulser_ wrote:
| This is common with everything new tech. The first laptops, the
| first phones, the first iPhone, the first iPod and so on
| started out large.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| The first iphones and ipods were stunning for their time;
| they changed the industry and people would wait for hours on
| end in line at stores. It seems like a reach to compare these
| glasses to that.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Perhaps but they weren't the first in the category. Apples
| iGlasses will probably be sleeker.
| impulser_ wrote:
| I'm not comparing actual devices. I'm comparing how large
| they were when they were first released. The original iPod
| and iPhones were bricks compared to what the latest/last
| versions and it didn't have a touch screen and cameras.
|
| The point is, the size of new technology tend to shrink
| fast.
| mistercheph wrote:
| True! But society can move backwards sometimes, todays
| smartphones are growing and and each generation of BEV gets
| heavier!
|
| Something in the collective unconscious is screaming "put the
| biggest brick you can make in my hand and give me a main
| battle tank to go to TJ's." and industry is happy to oblige!
|
| Maybe wearing a gigantic ugly thing on your face that beeps
| and has flashing lights isn't such a far step
| modeless wrote:
| They are as small as the technology can be made today. Meta
| knows that they are still too big. Zuckerberg said on stage
| that they will attempt to miniaturize them further and this is
| not a consumer product today.
|
| Making them as small as they are is an incredible feat
| actually. They are better than Hololens in every respect and
| Hololens is absolutely massive in comparison. There are at
| least 5 cameras, two HD projectors, an IMU, microphones and
| speakers in this thing plus the chips and batteries to run them
| all continuously for two hours.
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| Note that the first image in the article is taken as far away
| from the glasses as possible, to the extent where you can barely
| see them
| HL33tibCe7 wrote:
| Another comment on Meta advertising and marketing: I, and
| everyone else I know, do not want to live in world Meta
| advertises. It's awkward, sterile, and not believable. Even the
| images in this article have the "Meta flavour" which I find
| very offputting. Their video marketing is even worse.
|
| Contrast with Apple, who do this perfectly.
|
| I'm convinced that this is impacting their sales. The Meta
| Portal was an excellent product for example, but the marketing
| was dreadful, so it flopped.
| dcchambers wrote:
| Still kinda dorky looking but 10x better than what Snap unveiled
| last week.[^1] Software looks miles ahead of the AR glasses
| competition as well. Nice job FB engineers...keep cooking!
|
| [^1]: https://www.spectacles.com/
| jlund-molfese wrote:
| I was going to say that Snap's offering was probably cheaper or
| designed for mass marketing because their page looks like
| something you could actually buy.
|
| But that isn't the case! Snap will only rent them to you at
| $1200/year [0], can't imagine what the BOM is like for either
| of these products.
|
| [0] https://www.spectacles.com/lens-studio
| prettymuchnoone wrote:
| don't know about spectacles but the verge's article about it
| quote someone saying it's about 10k to make this:
|
| > As Meta's executives retell it, the decision to shelve
| Orion mostly came down to the device's astronomical cost to
| build, which is in the ballpark of $10,000 per unit. Most of
| that cost is due to how difficult and expensive it is to
| reliably manufacture the silicon carbide lenses. When it
| started designing Orion, Meta expected the material to become
| more commonly used across the industry and therefore cheaper,
| but that didn't happen.
| fossuser wrote:
| Snap's design is really awful looking - to the point I can't
| see how it doesn't just damage the brand.
|
| Plus Snap's core business is a mess I don't see how they
| could really compete with Meta on this they'll run out of
| money first.
|
| It's cool to see Meta's continued work/focus in this space -
| a polished internal prototype is probably the right place for
| this hardware.
| bhouston wrote:
| > Plus Snap's core business is a mess
|
| Snap is worth $20B, Meta is worth $1.5T. No comparison.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Money isn't everything, one look at the Metaverse or
| Sony's Concord fiasco tells you all you need to know.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Money IS everything.
|
| It says something that sony has the ability to fail like
| that and continue. Just like FB failed at the metaverse
| after doubling and tripling down about how it was the
| future of the company before it just kinda stopped
| talking about it.
|
| Companies with this much cash can take risks and fail
| with little to no concequences, smaller companies cannot
| and thus often choose not compete or just HOPE that they
| get bought by one of these near monopolies.
| jerska wrote:
| Using caps doesn't make this affirmation any more true.
|
| While you're correct that it does massively help, money
| is only a resource, which you can use to trade for a lot
| of things, but there are people, things and abstract
| concepts that money can't buy.
| fossuser wrote:
| Sure, but it's a factor and it's not like Snap is doing
| great otherwise.
|
| Startups have less money, but invent new fields because
| of the differentiated advantage that comes from being
| smaller and faster (among other things). This is Snap
| competing in the same arena against Zuckerberg who is a
| lot better capitalized _and_ better at it.
|
| It'd be one thing to do if Snap was otherwise firing on
| all cylinders and trying to expand into the platform of
| the future, but it seems like they never recovered from
| Apple's ATT and are blowing money on passion projects
| that are not competitive.
|
| What do I know? I'm just an outsider, but I'd buy Meta
| and sell Snap. If you disagree, the other direction is
| probably a lot more profitable if you're right.
| wongarsu wrote:
| Aesthetically I prefer the visor look of the HoloLens.
|
| However if you want to appeal to people outside a work
| environment something that looks like actual glasses is the way
| forwards. This looks like it still has a couple of years until
| it reaches that goal, but it seems like Zuckerberg's ambition
| towards XR will pay off eventually
| lrivers wrote:
| Boy, not from the outside, though. There was a guy wearing
| one on my last flight and it's ugly and it's super weird to
| see someone "doing stuff". All the hand waving and stuff. I
| can't imagine wearing one in public. But I'm old
| crooked-v wrote:
| The Apple Vision Pro front screen feels like an initial
| clunky attempt at trying to make this easier by giving an
| obvious indicator when somebody is off in their own world
| vs actually looking at you... though as UX design it's a
| good 10 years ahead of the hardware, since nobody's ever
| going to be casually wearing AVP in a coffee shop.
|
| VRChat, of all things, has some interesting experimentation
| going on in this space. For example, there are avatars that
| will link up with your other SteamVR apps to show a
| placeholder screen or other indicator on the avatar when
| you have an overlay floating window active that's totally
| separate from VRChat.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| FWIW, Orion is not for sale.
|
| Exciting work! It seems like the main problems are now in
| miniaturizing electronics (and not optics) into a Ray-Ban form
| factor? Super cool.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> FWIW, Orion is not for sale._
|
| Neither is Snap's offering. They're renting out Devkits.
| pj_mukh wrote:
| Right, though publicly available for $99/mo.
|
| With Orion, no devkits publicly available either.
| boo-ga-ga wrote:
| Snap's device doesn't need a separate compute device, and I'm
| sure it's pretty trivial to make it smaller with such. So I
| would not judge based on this. And anyway, I'm very glad to see
| Meta pushing towards AR, this is the good example of a company
| with bold vision.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| The thickness is only part of the design, and the only
| justifiable part of it. The actual design is far more
| reminiscent of a cheap children's toy than a high-end
| "revolutionary" piece of tech.
| jaggederest wrote:
| I think that chunkiness is kind of an aesthetic that's in
| right now actually, if you look at a lot of popular media
| there's definitely some "birth control glasses" that are
| considered on trend.
|
| That being said I'm about the furthest thing from a fashion
| critic - only Kirkland Signature touches this body.
| brrrrrm wrote:
| Any citations for that? Id have thought the goofy width of
| spectacles was related to the screen projection
| bartvk wrote:
| But _why_ are you glad to see Meta pushing towards AR?
| Genuine question.
| nilamo wrote:
| Because they have money, and don't often abandon projects.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| They innovate. Look what Quest did for VR.
| vid wrote:
| They innovate to infiltrate. 20ish years ago Steve Mann
| was beat up for invading people's comfort zone with AR
| glasses, then Google's AR users were "glassholes," now
| Meta is trying to make it cool. As much as I think AI is
| valuable, I hope they fail. The act of holding up a
| smartphone is much more explicit to signal to others
| they're about to lose all privacy to a centralized
| company. I don't think Quest is that innovative either,
| it's mostly first person shooters.
|
| Where does Meta actually talk about things that could
| really be called "cool" at a society level? Or is it all
| just empty hype along the lines of Facebook being
| exploitation of social networking.
| FredPret wrote:
| To lose your privacy, you first have to have not already
| lost it. You're likely on camera right now!
|
| If you have a smartwatch, there's a company out there
| that knows every breath you take, and every move you
| make.
|
| Might as well get AR in the mix now that we're here.
| There are lots of pure sci-fi applications that come with
| smart glasses.
|
| - AR directions
|
| - all sorts of tutorials for things where you work with
| your hands. Imagine how easy IKEA furniture can be!
|
| - never forget another name
|
| - metadata about spare parts, products, and recipe
| ingredients as you look at them
|
| - incredible military applications - team awareness,
| situational map, aiming reticule
| FactKnower69 wrote:
| Quest single handedly killed VR
|
| They flooded the headset market by selling subsidized
| hardware at a massive loss for years which aggressively
| redirected funding away from abitious, interesting
| projects utilizing desktop levels of compute (next-gen 3D
| modeling and sculpting, architecture, fluid simulation)
| to Beat Saber level mobile game shovelware that has to be
| able to run on a cell phone
| zombiwoof wrote:
| The tech industry is so focused on strapping technology to our
| faces
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| Ya I don't know why they don't make the specs looks like normal
| specs. For example the master stroke of the Tesla Model S was
| to make it look like a normal car. The same with these devices.
| If they look normal and work differently they will get far more
| users.
| grandma_tea wrote:
| I dunno, it seems pretty clear to me that's what they're
| trying to do.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Still looks ugly. The Ray Band was a success due to the
| aesthetic appeal of sunglass users (aviators, beach jocks look
| cool).
|
| Pushing normal glasses without making the subject look like
| dorks (nerds are unattractive) or "glassholes" (Google glass
| tech bros) will be a challenge.
| 1270018080 wrote:
| Why would you want to wear these? I don't care about the way it
| looks, but why would you want actaully AR glasses?
| _kidlike wrote:
| don't you want it to tell you that you're looking at a
| pineapple?
| momoschili wrote:
| A few major elements to this that I'm really interested in:
|
| 1. wireless data transfer and how that affects the performance
|
| 2. EMG: this is alright, but seems to be a bit overhyped
|
| 3. MicroLED: clearly the best display technology available, but
| how close is color display to consumer price levels?
|
| 4. silicon carbide: great material, interested in seeing it at
| scale
|
| 5. magnesium frame: super awesome to see this being pushed as wel
| camus_absurd wrote:
| For #4, I don't think scaling should be a major issue as the
| tooling industry has been manufacturing at scale for decades
| now. The only real difference is the customer
| momoschili wrote:
| I think the requirements at the semi level are quite
| different than what the tooling industry will be able to
| produce. The silicon carbide layer thickness probably needs
| to be controlled at least to the 10 nm level and the film
| quality will need to be quite high for optical applications.
| There is some use of silicon carbide in semi in high power
| electronics, but I don't know how well that transfers to
| optical quality either.
| jarbus wrote:
| Everyone was crapping on Zuck for his pivot from FB to Meta, and
| I was generally in the minority for supporting it. I even bought
| a quest 3, even though I refuse to use instagram. This turnaround
| for the company has been legendary. I think there's something to
| say on "betting on people". I didn't believe in Meta or the
| technology, necessarily - for some reason, I believed in Zuck. He
| was willing to put his entire empire on this massive bet and
| stuck it out, despite the backlash and negative PR
| ojbyrne wrote:
| Maybe? This isn't a product, it's a prototype. It costs $10k to
| build.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/24253908/meta-orion-ar-glasses-demo...
| baby wrote:
| The engineers and the engineering culture at Meta is also
| incredible
| regularfry wrote:
| Worth pointing out, possibly, that it hasn't actually paid off
| yet.
| dvh wrote:
| In third video (conference call) I see black t-shirt atop of
| background. How is it physically possible?
| svnt wrote:
| Assuming the video is real, it is conceivable the display is a
| combination of light screening and light emitting.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| > While Orion won't make its way into the hands of consumers
|
| harumph. This tech is cool, but there's a worrying trend of
| important tech companies creating larger than life PR
| announcements without anything I can actually get my hands/eyes
| on
| kfarr wrote:
| Yes this is buying them time, not an actual product
| announcement but press treats it as though it were a consumer
| available product.
| froidpink wrote:
| I can't wait
| greener_grass wrote:
| Glasses that offer you an AR experience / HUD?
|
| Pretty cool
|
| Glasses that let you record people without their awareness /
| consent?
|
| Downright creepy
|
| I think the best play here would be to release them without any
| camera functionality at all, or the connotations will be that
| weird, sweaty guy that no one wants to sit next to on the subway
| (see: Google Glass).
| candiddevmike wrote:
| > Glasses that let you record people without their awareness /
| consent?
|
| I think in this instance it's probably "let Meta record people
| and associate the data to their shadow profiles". Doubly
| creepy.
| prettymuchnoone wrote:
| well they're not going to be sold to consumers (apparently they
| cost like 10k-ish to make)...but i'm curious how they'd do
| motion tracking _without_ cameras though...
| baby wrote:
| they have two tiny insects inside the device that are
| attracted and trying to bite the pupil in your eyes, by
| measuring their orientation they can figure out where you're
| looking
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| I think they mean the cameras shouldn't be available in user-
| space / app-space. But I still bet there would be some sort
| of jailbreak tutorial available a couple days after the
| retail launch.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| WiFi 7?
| wlesieutre wrote:
| If they do it like their current Ray Ban glasses, there's an
| LED on the front that lights up when it's recording. People
| will no doubt disable it though.
| baby wrote:
| you can't disable it, and it doesn't really matter anyway
| because nobody seems to notice it. I have videos of all my
| friends the first time I run into them using the glasses, and
| none of them realize that I'm recording them unless I stare
| at them for long enough without moving.
| wlesieutre wrote:
| You can't disable it _in software_.
|
| You can put a piece of tape over it, fill it with black
| nail polish, let the smoke out of the LED, or otherwise
| keep the light from being visible.
| itsyaboi wrote:
| This particular LED not only emits light but works in
| reverse as well: it functions as an ambient light sensor.
| Recording is paused if the LED and camera inputs have a
| significant difference in detected light levels.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| The world has changed a lot in the decade since Google Glass,
| the stigma around public recording of video is pretty much
| gone.
| timeon wrote:
| Not only that. I remember when spyware was considered as bad
| thing. Now every other page is asking you to by spied on like
| it is something normal.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Its one thing to record in public, another to stick a camera
| in someone's face.
|
| I did wear the Wayfarers around and only one person commented
| on them (a hotel manager who recognized them while checking
| me in) but I definitely didn't feel comfortable just taking
| pictures of people without their knowing, ended up returning
| them because I never got a picture worth sharing anyway.
|
| Besides, if there wasn't stigma they wouldn't have to make it
| so stealthy.
| baby wrote:
| I wear my Meta glasses all the time and use them to record all
| the time. It's fine, you're already surrounded by people who
| brandish their phones to record everything.
| regularfry wrote:
| Yeah, but people who brandish their phones know that they're
| performing the act of recording. Glasses that record are
| exactly not that.
| baby wrote:
| it's better with glasses actually as you have to stare at
| what you're recording (whereas hidden cameras and phones
| can record without you realizing that)
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| As someone who does not wear these things; it is not fine.
| buildbot wrote:
| Yep, creepy, and illegal in some places.
| baby wrote:
| heh, it's 2024
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| I don't think that makes a difference. I realize since
| you wear these things it is in your interest to make it
| seem like that people caring about privacy is living in
| past, but it really is creepy and if I saw someone
| wearing these in public I would not be thinking the world
| of them. YMMV.
| sekai wrote:
| > I think the best play here would be to release them without
| any camera functionality at all, or the connotations will be
| that weird, sweaty guy that no one wants to sit next to on the
| subway (see: Google Glass).
|
| Sergey Brin sitting sad in the corner after reading this
| pnw wrote:
| There's dozens of different styles of camera glasses available
| on Amazon today for a fraction of the price, with completely
| concealed cameras. I think that train left the station years
| ago.
| wewtyflakes wrote:
| Those are also creepy; it does not mean that it takes away
| the creepiness of this.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Glasses that let you record people without their awareness /
| consent?
|
| Thats basically all cameras. AR is coming, whether meta makes
| it work or not.
|
| There are ways around this, but they either require a massive
| public backlash, or actual regulation that requires explicit
| and provable permission before non-anonymised pictures/captures
| can be taken.
| richardlblair wrote:
| > Glasses that let you record people without their awareness /
| consent?
|
| I get it, it's icky. I feel the same way. Nevertheless, this is
| already a thing.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| Decent hands on article from the verge with more info
|
| https://www.theverge.com/24253908/meta-orion-ar-glasses-demo...
|
| Wireless compute puck. 70 degree FOV. Resolution high enough to
| read text. Wrist band detects hand gestures and will be used in
| another product.
| prettymuchnoone wrote:
| the wristband reminds me of the Myo armband, this thing you
| could wear to control a computer
|
| did meta buy them out?
| dmarcos wrote:
| Yes, they did
|
| https://www.roadtovr.com/facebook-acquires-ctrl-labs-
| develop...
|
| I had the first myoband sdk and didn't work for me. I imagine
| tech is much improved now
| asadm wrote:
| Thalmic (makers of Myo, later renamed to North) was acq. by
| Google actually.
| dmarcos wrote:
| Ctrl-labs bought Myo band IP from North (formerly
| Thalmic)
|
| https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/27/ctrl-labs-scoops-up-
| myo-ar...
| escapecharacter wrote:
| https://www.theverge.com/2019/9/23/20881032/facebook-ctrl-
| la...
|
| Context: I was part of this acquisition, but am no longer at
| Meta.
| POiNTx wrote:
| If the wristband works well, it'd be a very convenient gadget
| to wear if it can integrate with a bunch of devices like
| smart-lights, phones, tv etc...
| drewrv wrote:
| From using various VR systems, a hololens, and reading reviews
| of the vision pro I really feel like hand gestures are a bad
| way to interact with AR systems. They might work in a pinch
| (heh) but some sort of small controller that can act as a
| pointer and has a button or two is superior in every way.
|
| It's interesting that meta went through the effort of bundling
| an accessory but stuck with hand gestures anyway.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I agree, and I also think that walking around to items
| positioned statically in space is a really dumb way to do
| embodied computing. I mean if an app is associated with your
| kitchen fridge or whatever fine, pin it to your kitchen
| fridge, but if I'm going to be enveloped in an
| omnidirectional high def display, I want a way to bring the
| windows _to me_ , not have to move my body to different
| windows.
|
| Anyway, Logitech made an awesome little handheld keyboard for
| home theater PCs, called DiNovo Mini HTPC, I was able to pair
| it with Vision Pro.
|
| https://www.ebay.com/itm/226367904044?_skw=Logitech+DiNovo+M.
| ..
| drewrv wrote:
| That's a great little keyboard, it reminds me of early
| smartphone keyboards in a good way.
|
| I wonder if Apple decided against a controller in order to
| allow third party solutions to flourish . They can take
| their time and see what people gravitate towards.
| cyanydeez wrote:
| Most of these products arnted aimed at consumers, but
| industrial tech. While the critque is great for
| enthusiasts, it makes no sense for what this type of
| industrial use will occur.
| dagmx wrote:
| Imho hand gestures are the best way to interact with XR.
|
| If your only experience is the HoloLens, you're roughly a
| decade out of date with how well it can work today.
|
| There's also not been much until the Vision Pro that combines
| eye tracking with hand tracking which is what's really
| needed.
|
| You should really try the Vision Pro, because it really does
| move hand tracking to the point where it's the best primary
| interaction method. Controllers might be good for some stuff
| , in the way an Apple Pencil is, but most interactions do not
| need it.
| talldayo wrote:
| Hand tracking has also been pretty great on the Quest for
| some time now. I've got the first-gen one, and you can very
| comfortably type/navigate the UI with no controllers.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| I'll have to dig mine out of the box and try it again,
| version 1 of the os basically had one gesture which was
| click. I hate the gaze and click interface, it works OK for
| Netflix but invariably I would fall back to using the
| trackpad on my MacBook to actually do any work.
| jayd16 wrote:
| 6dof input from hand gestures is a killer feature but it has
| to be rock solid. So far only controllers can do it but it's
| getting much better every year.
|
| Haptic feedback, discrete buttons and precise analog input
| from controllers are also very important. The downside of
| controllers is that your hands are full and it's just not
| feasible for an all day wearable.
|
| Hopefully someone figures out a good compromise be it rings
| or gloves or whatever.
| Jcowell wrote:
| > and reading reviews of the vision pro
|
| Try it out , it's really neat
| Mistletoe wrote:
| >sort of small controller that can act as a pointer and has a
| button or two is superior in every way.
|
| Something named after a small rodent that we use already. And
| a monitor that we use already. Then you are cooking. You've
| invented the desktop pc.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| The EMG wrist band is the most exciting part of this release,
| IMO. That strikes me as a great solve that pushes into software
| a lot of hard problems that were solved with hardware
| previously.
| Etheryte wrote:
| While I understand that this is a prototype, it's unfortunate
| that they've outlined no specs of any kind. How long is the
| battery life, how heavy are they, what's the resolution, field of
| view, etc? As is, it's impossible to really say if this is a dud
| or a truly remarkable piece of tech.
| prettymuchnoone wrote:
| the verge's hands on has more info: 2 hours, 98g, 70 degrees
|
| https://www.theverge.com/24253908/meta-orion-ar-glasses-demo...
| 4fterd4rk wrote:
| How many more millions are these companies going to flush down
| the toilet before they get it through their heads that normal
| people do not like wearing technology on their face? 3D TVs
| failed. VR gaming failed. Even Apple isn't really pulling off AR.
| They test and develop these products on their techie early
| adopter employees and are shocked shocked shocked when normal
| people who care what they look like aren't willing to look like
| an idiot in front of their friends.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| According to Zuck people actually do like wearing tech on their
| face if it has the right form factor, hence the Meta Raybans
| selling well.
| popcalc wrote:
| I would wager that Meta RayBans are primarily used by men to
| discreetly document their one night stands.
| baby wrote:
| reading this comment with my Meta glasses on
| entropicdrifter wrote:
| Reminds of the anime Dennou Coil. I hope someday AR becomes
| boring tech and we'll be able to buy devices from less-sinister
| companies that _won 't_ be monitoring our eye positions and iris
| dilation in order to manipulate our attention for profit. Better
| yet, an AR device that integrates with your PC rather than a
| cloud-based anything.
| manofmanysmiles wrote:
| Is it just me, or are the videos that look like they're shot
| through the glasses extremely jerky and at a low frame rate?
|
| For me, buttery smooth animation and synchronization of the
| physical and projected world are table stakes.
| commakozzi wrote:
| It's a prototype...
| tootie wrote:
| It's impressive hardware and some nifty demos, but I'm holding
| fast with AR just being a deadend. No matter how many pixels you
| can jam into these things, there just isn't a compelling case for
| using them. Nothing that isn't easier to do with a touchscreen or
| a keyboard. Those midair gestures just aren't ergonomic. And
| there's no way to balance the transmissivity of the lenses and
| the overlayed images without getting crummier visuals than a
| screen.
|
| AR experiences on headsets and on phones have been bouncing
| around for years. There was a big push with new XR toolkits from
| Apple and Android a few years ago. Yet no one has ever produced
| anything more than a demo of something nifty. The one and only
| "killer app" remains Pokemon Go which is really just a clever
| gimmick. I think this is a classic solution in search of a
| problem.
| Sanzig wrote:
| On one hand - if the demos are representative, this looks like a
| very cool product right out of science fiction.
|
| On the other hand, Meta is one of the very last companies that I
| would trust to operate a fleet of network connected always-on
| cameras attached to everyone's faces. The privacy implications
| are pretty horrifying. Imagine if Meta decided to run facial
| recognition on-device and upload the results to their advertising
| services. Your position could be easily tracked any time you walk
| into the field of view of someone wearing Meta glasses without
| your consent.
|
| Not to mention for users that choose to use these things
| voluntarily, you are giving Meta an intimate look into every
| waking moment of your life. You think data brokers have too much
| on you now, just wait.
|
| EDIT: Looks like most innocuous comments expressing privacy
| concerns on this post are getting flagged. That's not how HN is
| supposed to work, folks.
| throwup238 wrote:
| Especially after the whole Occulus Facebook account fiasco. The
| technology looks great but I have zero interest in owning a
| Facebook product because they can't be trusted, full stop.
| criddell wrote:
| Are you saying you don't want to walk around your home
| wearing a camera connected to Facebook?
| mandibles wrote:
| Don't forget the internal data pipeline to the security state
| apparatus in the various FB operating jurisdictions.
| jachee wrote:
| > Imagine if Meta decided to run facial recognition on-device
| and upload the results to their advertising services
|
| More like _when_ they decide to do that. They want to capture
| and extrapolate any and all data possible from every possible
| source.
| Sanzig wrote:
| Oh, I am sure they'll try. The sales pitch is way too
| enticing for them to ignore. Imagine you're in a brick and
| mortar wireless store shopping for a new cell plan. A Meta
| user walks by, and you get caught in a frame. A facial
| recognition scan quickly links you to your shadow profile,
| and an image recognition model identifies that you are phone
| shopping. Meta knows who you are and pings your current
| carrier who quickly dispatches a phone call to you with a
| pre-emptive retention offer. It may sound outlandish, but all
| the pieces are there to do this today.
|
| IMHO, we need strong regulation of facial recognition
| technology. The conversation too often focuses on law
| enforcement use - don't get me wrong, that is also important,
| but it completely ignores the risk posed by private
| databases.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > Oh, I am sure they'll try.
|
| They won't just _try_ , they'll simply do it, by default,
| in the absence of proactive action preventing it.
| sneak wrote:
| I can't even load the announcement page because I have all
| netblocks and domains of FB, Instagram, Meta, WhatsApp, Oculus,
| et c all blocked at my router.
|
| The very concept of an ad company trying to mediate all social
| interactions so they can sell communication and interaction
| with our friends and business associates back to us is such a
| toxic and antisocial one that I'm surprised that anyone let it
| happen in the first place.
|
| Facebook delenda est.
|
| Normalize banning anyone who wears such an ad company
| surveillance apparatus into your home or business.
| sekai wrote:
| I still remember how privacy issues killed Google Glass, truly
| ahead of it's time. Sorry Sergey Brin.
| w10-1 wrote:
| I agree with the business model of focusing on vertical
| integration with specific partners instead of DTC. There will be
| inevitable product quality trade-offs, but if you can select the
| partner context where those trade-offs work you can make progress
| and perhaps build in some price discrimination.
| roughly wrote:
| The older I get - and the older Facebook gets - the less I want
| these.
| baby wrote:
| usually the older you get the more you need glasses :o)
| yard2010 wrote:
| The older I get, the less I want Facebook to get older
| Fabricio20 wrote:
| Wow these look huge, I was expecting it from the comments but it
| still managed to surpass my expectations. I wonder if they
| managed to squeeze a battery in it and that's why it's so thick.
| Assuming it's light enough to not cause pain after some extended
| use it's a huge step up from the Quest series (and other VR
| headsets that cover your entire head pretty much!) and a
| completely different class of product compared to other AR
| Headsets like the Apple Vision Pro which require an external
| power brick.
| baby wrote:
| Quest 3 is 515g, Orion is <100g, so pretty good! But 3-4x a
| normal pair of glasses
| phyrex wrote:
| 100g, has a battery, but still a power puck
| ahahahahah wrote:
| It's a compute puck, not a power puck.
| Fordec wrote:
| Maybe not exactly the iPhone moment, but may be the AR PalmPre. A
| further slimmer, less goofy version of this may actually have
| potential.
| linhns wrote:
| While the tech looks cool to me as I do not understand AR that
| much, this will be another headache inducer.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Why doesn't Meta do those Apple style releases. It would build so
| much more hype than a random press release like this.
| phyrex wrote:
| It's happening literally right now?
| https://www.meta.com/connect/
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| There's a Watch Now button that just brings me to a Facebook
| page with nothing to watch. Can't watch any of the posted
| videos without logging into Facebook. I guess they're not
| trying to win any new converts at this point.
| baby wrote:
| Looking at all the reactions from first time users, it really
| made me want to try those. Quite large and apparently under 100g
| (to compare, the average weight for prescription glasses is
| 20-40g). That being said, nothing compared to a Quest. I would
| use this just for being able to see avatars when I talk to
| someone (I already take my calls walking using the Meta glasses).
| dylan604 wrote:
| Why do you need, er want, to see an avatar while talking to
| someone while walking?
| Philpax wrote:
| Being able to see their facial expressions and gestures. The
| usual reasons.
| rnk wrote:
| But if someone calls you on the phone, they are just
| sending their voice to you, there's no Avatar from them,
| except for one your software invented. The one that you're
| looking at is disconnected from the actual person.
| Philpax wrote:
| They could be video-calling you or using their own pair
| of glasses with their own avatar. It doesn't necessarily
| have to be audio-only, especially when it will get easier
| and easier to do this.
| fidotron wrote:
| Facebook get one step closer to blurring out real ads and
| overlaying them with FB ads.
|
| It is incredibly clever, and you have to respect the technology,
| but the endgame here is horrific.
| baby wrote:
| It must not be fun to see every new technological improvement
| as a horrific thing
| jerf wrote:
| It isn't. I miss when I didn't have to examine every new
| device to see what data about me it's going to Hoover up to
| some mothership to see how it can manipulate me to do things
| against my interest.
|
| But to the extent you're pitching it as some sort of
| reactionary lashing out against the bright glorious shining
| future... sorry. It's not me. It's tech. There has been a
| real change in the tech space. I used to just be able to take
| nearly for granted that tech is going to benefit me. Now I
| can't.
|
| I phrased it as I did on purpose; _to do things against my
| interest_. If you are not actively guarding yourself against
| that, you 're a victim of it, probably a great deal more than
| you realize. To ignore that aspect of tech is sheer
| foolishness and getting more dangerous by the year.
| throwaway314155 wrote:
| > If you are not actively guarding yourself against that,
| you're a victim of it, probably a great deal more than you
| realize
|
| Just check the website in their profile. Cryptocurrency,
| hell they had a role in Libra (fb coin that got shut down
| by the SEC i believe). Not a victim but a perpetrator.
| baby wrote:
| you can eat my foot, person who can't speak without a
| throaway
| floren wrote:
| > But to the extent you're pitching it as some sort of
| reactionary lashing out against the bright glorious shining
| future... sorry. It's not me. It's tech. There has been a
| real change in the tech space. I used to just be able to
| take nearly for granted that tech is going to benefit me.
| Now I can't.
|
| Tech was a lot more fun when the builders were amoral ("I'm
| just gonna build this, and if somebody misuses it, that's
| not my problem") rather than straight up immoral, but here
| we are.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's not that people can't see the potential, but the more
| likely of where this particular vendor will take things. Not
| being able to see the true intent behind marketing would be a
| horrific thing to me.
| tspike wrote:
| Fun, no. Accurate, mostly.
| smitty1110 wrote:
| Frankly, it sucks. I had so much fun with new tech when I was
| younger. But many companies, and FB in particular, have
| managed to crush my expectations time and time again.
| fidotron wrote:
| To put this in perspective I am currently locked out of one
| of my online bank accounts because I refuse to let them share
| the data with Facebook. It is setup so you must first agree,
| and then "withdraw consent".
|
| The poor bank reps haven't got a clue what to do, mainly
| because absolutely no one else has ever refused before. The
| vast majority of people in the modern world have no grasp of
| what is going on, and will not until it is too late.
| pyrophane wrote:
| This is Facebook/Meta we are talking about though. Not every
| new advancement, but it is entirely fair to treat them with a
| whole lot of skepticism.
| wilg wrote:
| The "horrific" end game you mention here doesn't even result in
| seeing more ads.
| CursedUrn wrote:
| I take it you've never seen HYPER-REALITY?
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJg02ivYzSs
| wilg wrote:
| that's not what the person i'm replying to said
| beardyw wrote:
| Looking at the example I immediately thought of warehouse staff.
| AI knows what the thing is and where it is to go. Human is a
| machine to put it there. Humans as an extension of AI. Welcome to
| the future
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| some interesting bits from the Verge article:
|
| > Micro LED projectors inside the frame that beam graphics in
| front of your eyes via waveguides in the lenses
|
| > [requires] wireless compute puck that resembles a large battery
| pack for a phone
|
| > [glasses weigh] 98 grams
|
| > the battery only lasts about two hour
|
| > Orion was supposed to be a product you could buy.
|
| > $10,000 per unit [to build]
| tambourine_man wrote:
| I know meta (ha) discussions are frowned upon on HN, but I never
| really understood why, so here it goes:
|
| This link weights in 115MB. It loads a 30MB _GIF_ for its hero
| image. That 's from a company that was born on and from the Web.
| The people that brought you React.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| They brought you React so that there'd be plenty of bloat at
| runtime for their trackers to hide in. Seems consistent to me.
| paxys wrote:
| The "GIF" is a video. You are watching a bunch of advertising
| videos. 115 MB isn't really very much in that regard.
| ang_cire wrote:
| This is cool from a technical standpoint, but ultimately just
| feels like another gimmick. This feels like it's doing stuff that
| I could do faster or better (and definitely, more safely) on a
| computer or phone.
|
| I don't personally see the appeal of hands-free as a paradigm in
| most cases. Do we really want people talking on _and looking at_
| Zoom as they walk around the office? Or as they drive? Or as they
| are out shopping? I also see ESPN and YouTube, so yeah... this
| thing better detect when you 're moving at speed and disable
| video apps.
|
| I'm just struggling to see when you would be in a setting where
| you _should_ use these, that you shouldn 't be using a device you
| already have. It's like trying to sell me on using a smartwatch
| to take voice calls: sure, there is exactly 1 situation I can
| think of where that's useful, which is getting a call when I'm
| out running and don't want to "lug" a whole phone with me. But I
| sure don't want to be wearing glasses when I otherwise don't need
| to (and these aren't prescription, so you are), just in case
| someone tries to Zoom me unplanned.
|
| Can you imagine how goofy you'd look sitting at a coffee shop and
| just sort of staring into the middle distance and talking, as you
| take a Zoom call?
| baby wrote:
| If you get the opportunity to try the Meta glasses, you will
| quickly see that it's more than just a gimmick, and they don't
| even have any display
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| Orion is a see through device with screen. Something like
| Hololens.
| baby wrote:
| that's what I said, the Meta glasses don't even have a
| display and they're insanely useful (through the AI
| assistant, the speakers, the microphone, the camera). I
| can't imagine how game changer something that also has a
| display will be.
| svnt wrote:
| What are you finding them useful for?
| baby wrote:
| * I take calls on them all the time when I'm outside, it
| works so well I don't even take my earbuds anymore if I
| know I won't be listening to music
|
| * If I don't have my earbuds, I'll use them to listen to
| a podcast or even some songs while outside
|
| * I use the AI assistant ALL THE TIME, it's soooo
| practical to have it always on, I don't need to pick up
| my phone it's like someone is always next to me ready to
| answer any questions I have
|
| * I record videos and take pictures with it all the time,
| it's so much faster than taking out my phone if I need to
| quickly catch something, also as people don't realize
| your filming I have super authentic videos with my
| friends and family where people aren't acting weird
| because they realize they're being filmed (I think this
| is going to go away as soon as these become more
| mainstream, so this is THE moment to catch some memories
| with it IMO!)
|
| * Mine are prescription sunglasses, so I use them by
| design when I'm outside during sunny days, so all of that
| is just additional bonus I get for free just by wearing
| my sunglasses
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Suppose they're referring to the Ray-Bans Wayfarers, no
| display, just front facing camera and audio
|
| I thought it was very gimmicky, I tried taking lots of
| family photos but none of them were any good, between the
| vertical format and, you know, not being able to frame the
| shot. Also I never adapted to having an LLM in my ear (big
| network induced lag times didn't help), so ymmv
|
| All I want are glasses that can tell me where I left my
| wallet but I don't think we'll see it this decade.
| lrivers wrote:
| Plus, "that person's name is 'jazzyjackson'" when you're
| looking at them
| baby wrote:
| they're not as good for pictures as they are for videos,
| for videos they really shine.
| notarobot123 wrote:
| But timing is everything. If everyone already has a device
| that is functionally equivalent in most cases, most won't
| make the switch. Isn't that why investors often look for 10x
| improvements for disruptive tech - switching costs discount
| the value of any incremental innovation, however cool the new
| tech is.
|
| AR via a phone/tablet seems to me to be just as good an
| interface as any headgear once you factor in the social cues
| when using AR around other people. Even then, I can't think
| of non-entertainment contexts where AR is actually worth the
| effort over a screen interface.
| talldayo wrote:
| > I can't think of non-entertainment contexts where AR is
| actually worth the effort over a screen interface.
|
| This I agree with.
|
| > AR via a phone/tablet seems to me to be just as good an
| interface as any headgear
|
| This I cannot agree with. If you've used recent VR, you
| know it's the "real deal". We've caught up on the computing
| capabilities required for full color passthrough and even
| fairly lightweight headsets. Right now it's a matter of
| miniaturization, and bringing the cost down beyond the
| $10,000 price tag that current experiments are running.
|
| If AR becomes a mainstream thing, people are going to want
| to ditch their phones the moment a good headset is
| available. If it's not (and I suspect it won't be; "AR"
| already exists on our phones and hasn't been popular since
| Pokemon GO) then people will remain apathetic.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| >Do we really want people talking on and looking at Zoom as
| they walk around the office? Or as they drive? Or as they are
| out shopping? I also see ESPN and YouTube, so yeah... this
| thing better detect when you're moving at speed and disable
| video apps.
|
| People already do that using mobile phones. With glasses there
| is at least some visibility of things in front of you.
| barbazoo wrote:
| You're assuming people look out front and are paying
| attention to the "background" of whatever they're watching
| with their glasses.
| IanCal wrote:
| What's weird to me with the call example is I can receive a
| video call but I can't respond with a video of me.
|
| And I find being on a video call with someone just on audio
| very creepy.
|
| If I'm not a weirdo for that, then it's distinctly worse than a
| hands free voice call, which we already have
| pitaj wrote:
| > I don't personally see the appeal of hands-free as a paradigm
| in most cases. Do we really want people talking on and looking
| at Zoom as they walk around the office? Or as they drive? Or as
| they are out shopping
|
| I can see this being extremely useful, especially if the person
| on the other can see what you're looking at. Interactive remote
| troubleshooting!
|
| > Can you imagine how goofy you'd look sitting at a coffee shop
| and just sort of staring into the middle distance and talking,
| as you take a Zoom call?
|
| No goofier than someone talking through their airpods.
| xpl wrote:
| _> Can you imagine how goofy you 'd look sitting at a coffee
| shop and just sort of staring into the middle distance and
| talking, as you take a Zoom call?_
|
| Honestly, people used to say the same thing about Bluetooth
| hands-free devices years ago, and now no one even bats an eye
| when someone talks using AirPods.
| Kye wrote:
| It still looks goofy and takes me a moment to register
| they're talking to someone on a phone when they breeze by.
| stvltvs wrote:
| It still catches me off guard sometimes. Just a personal
| opinion, but it's a bit offputting because it's distracting
| to hear only one half of the conversation. My brain is
| dragged unwillingly into filling in the other half. Also we
| tend to talk kinda obnoxiously loud on the phone. But I guess
| that applies equally well to all public phone conversations.
| commakozzi wrote:
| why are you trying to listen in on other people's
| conversations? mind your business.
| dpassens wrote:
| Personally, I'd love to mind my business, but some people
| are so obnoxiously loud I don't have a choice.
| stvltvs wrote:
| To clarify, I'm able to ignore in person conversations.
| Phone conversations are more distracting especially when
| they're loud. I'm unwillingly drawn into conversations
| I'd rather ignore.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| When someone is talking loudly right next to you, they
| are MAKING it my business.
| vidarh wrote:
| ca. 25 years ago, I remember seeing the first comic comparing
| people with hands-free with the "village idiot" and making
| the point that we couldn't tell regular people apart from the
| village idiot any longer, because it'd implicitly already
| become normal.
|
| In other words: This was normalized _a generation ago_.
|
| And now I feel very old.
| zombiwoof wrote:
| Yeah but those people still look stupid and are annoying (and
| selfish insecure) "look at me I'm in a coffee shop doing
| bidness"
|
| Almost as annoying as people in airports/planes now watching
| their phones with no headphones. All out giving no ficks to
| people around them
| crazygringo wrote:
| I _definitely_ see the appeal.
|
| A vastly larger screen where you don't have to crane your neck
| down to read the news? That sounds _amazing_ for my daily
| commute, and so much healthier for my neck and shoulders.
|
| And visible directions while cycling would be amazing, when
| it's unsafe to glance at your phone. (Audio directions aren't
| nearly as good, and wearing headphones/earbuds while cycling is
| illegal in a lot of places as well.) A heads-up display in your
| car should be safer too than looking down at the screen.
|
| And if people are having video calls while walking, that
| doesn't seem any goofier or creepier from audio calls with
| earbuds, where it already looks like somebody talking to
| nobody.
| stvltvs wrote:
| Probably depends on your area, but when I was bike commuting,
| I refused to give in to the temptation to wear even one
| headphone. Staying completely focused and aware of traffic
| saved me quite a few times. You won't be surprised to know
| what I think about cycling with AR.
| crazygringo wrote:
| While cycling somewhere new I have to look upwards and to
| the side to search for small street name signs and try to
| read them, to know when to turn. Rather than looking at
| traffic and the road ahead of me.
|
| A big glowing arrow is going to distract me far _less_ than
| tiny street name signs.
|
| AR is a big _win_ here. In fact there are all sorts of
| safety improvements you can imagine for cycling
| specifically, including making you more aware of vehicles
| she other cyclists behind you to the side.
| wongarsu wrote:
| But what if while you are talking to someone it automatically
| displays a subway surfer video next to their face /s
|
| Putting stuff in front of your phase is a more natural
| interface than having to hold a rectangle you look into. But
| the friction of phone screens might be quite healthy to
| society.
|
| On the other hand in blue collar work this is invaluable.
| Basically the same market every other AR headset is going
| after: overlaying plans or live sensor data over your
| viewpoint, being able to share a common viewpoint when
| troubleshooting with people remotely, sending out low-skilled
| people on support calls with experts directing them remotely,
| etc
| mynameisash wrote:
| > Can you imagine how goofy you'd look sitting at a coffee shop
| and just sort of staring into the middle distance and talking,
| as you take a Zoom call?
|
| While I agree with you, you could also say the same thing about
| mashing a black square with your thumbs at a coffee shop or
| walking around a grocery store with little piece of plastic in
| your ear and talking to someone.
| siquick wrote:
| Staring at your phone > unconsciously staring at an
| increasingly uncomfortable person trying to enjoy a quiet cup
| of coffee
| jebarker wrote:
| I think the real killer use case of AR glasses is when multiple
| people have them and can look at shared 3D content. The TV show
| "The First" (sadly cancelled) did a good job of showing use
| cases for this.
| bsimpson wrote:
| Reminds me of the Microsoft Surface from the mid 00s.
|
| Never seemed to take off though.
| eddieroger wrote:
| I am one of the people who own and enjoy using an Apple Vision
| Pro. A year ago, my wife and I welcomed our daughter to the
| world. Having a device that can be interacted with hands-free
| and produces no outward light has been useful more than once in
| the last year. A front-facing camera pointing at the world
| around me lets me share my girl with family far away in a
| first-person POV. There are use cases beyond Zooming from a
| coffee shop for which devices like these are welcomed
| innovations and definitely appealing. And that doesn't even
| count that I just genuinely like working with my headset on at
| my desk. I'm a spatial thinker, so arranging things I need
| around me makes sense.
| paul7986 wrote:
| Use my meta ray bans many times a week since last October
| ..just in Banff canoeing and was able to continue rowing while
| filming.
|
| Watching content & or working using smart glasses doesn't make
| sense to me but using them to ask it count how many ppl in a
| room, keep the score of my pickleball game or whatever game
| that involves using vision to keep score and many other
| innovative ideas are useful to exciting prospects personally.
|
| Yet overall my Ray bans are a great pair of sunglasses that let
| me take pics or video either hands free or not. They need
| improvement when using to talk on phone and upon a year of
| using them smart glasses I don't think will replace the
| smartphone as u cant take selfies with them.
| dayvid wrote:
| I remember when the iPad came out and everyone was making jokes
| about it. No one would image a phone would be a primary
| computing device. Don't know if glasses are the next major
| step, but a handheld phone being a computing device is a
| transitory thing.
| anonzzzies wrote:
| > Can you imagine how goofy you'd look sitting at a coffee shop
| and just sort of staring into the middle distance and talking,
| as you take a Zoom call?
|
| yeah, I do that daily with xreal glasses. Never met more
| interesting people like this. As I can see normally but with a
| very large screen, people sit next to me , want to try and
| often buy them themselves on the spot. I also don't have to
| carry an annoying laptop.
| jejeyyy77 wrote:
| you start with wearing these at home
| anonzzzies wrote:
| So when can we order?
| prettymuchnoone wrote:
| you _might_ be able to order hypernova, a slimmed down version
| of this, next year
|
| heavy on the might
| rglover wrote:
| Is there a term for tech companies rushing toward the future? It
| seems like there's this cultural rushing toward a future that
| isn't quite here combined with a tendency toward gaslighting that
| it is.
|
| Not for the sake of planting a flag and iterating toward it, but
| almost like there's a grasping at a sci-fi reality that current
| tech can't meet and what we're seeing are a series of commercial-
| grade Veruca Salt tantrums.
| paxys wrote:
| I can see why it isn't a consumer-ready product, but the tech is
| nevertheless amazing. AR/VR getting smaller and moving away from
| bulky headsets is clearly the future. Hopefully we'll see it in
| Ray-Ban form in the coming years.
| bbor wrote:
| 1. _" The name Nazare is the Portuguese version of Nazareth"_ ok
| y'all, I know you're working on edge tech, but lets cool the
| rhetoric down a little bit. Can't believe the PR-minded execs
| approved this choice.
|
| 2. _" It was so challenging that we thought we had less than a
| 10% chance of pulling it off successfully."_ Definitely a
| targeted message to the activist investors urging FB to stick to
| social media haha. Love it, and believe them 100% on the specific
| claim! Supposedly Apple Vision came about when they finally gave
| up on traditional AR (for now).
|
| 3. _" Zuckerberg imagines that people will want to use AR glasses
| like Orion for two primary purposes: communicating with each
| other through digital information overlaid on the real world --
| which he calls "holograms" -- and interacting with AI."_ I hope
| to god "AI" as a term looses steam -- basically all he's saying
| is that this computer will be used for computing. Yes, indeed.
|
| 4. _" To demonstrate how two people wearing Orion together could
| interact with the same holograms, I played a 3D take on Pong with
| Zuckerberg... Zuckerberg beat me, unfortunately."_ I find it
| somewhat hilarious how Zuckerberg, Bezos and Elon are
| simultaneously some of the most powerful people to ever live, and
| at the same time mascots for multinational conglomerates bigger
| than they could ever hope to truly understand or control.
| Zuckerberg is obviously the best mascot out of the bunch, and
| this is only further proof of that.
|
| 5. Wow, the Neural Wristband is insanely cool. Just... wow. I
| haven't seen anyone even hinting at that, but it seems incredibly
| obvious in hindsight. See this exploratory paper:
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12652-020-01852-z
| Hilariously, it seems that the initial consumer usecase was a
| $200 powerpoint remote -- props to the free market!
| https://wearabletech.io/myo-bracelet .
|
| 6. I feel like calling EMG "neural" is a stretch, it seems to be
| monitoring muscle contraction events only... Is anyone else
| convinced that they're intentionally using the word to prepare
| consumers for upcoming non-invasive EEG BCI tech, now that LLM
| approaches like DeWave have unlocked it? They've certainly got an
| uphill battle ahead of them to separate it from a) scary scifi
| and b) scary invasive EEG BCI like Neuralink. But it's just the
| obvious next step; the glasses already touch your frontal cortex,
| even!
| escapecharacter wrote:
| Context: I'm a former CTRL Labs & Meta employee.
|
| "neural" was a somewhat contentious term to academics, but it's
| the easiest way to describe to consumers. Academics consider
| neural interfaces to be directly touching the neurons, whether
| an invasive BCI, or an invasive device touching part of the
| peripheral nervous system. Technically this is a "neuromotor"
| interface, motor meaning detecting muscle, rather than neuron,
| activity. This makes academics happy but confuses some people,
| so neural it is.
| ta8903 wrote:
| Might not be related but "Nazar" means vision in Hindi.
| the-rc wrote:
| What do you mean by "monitoring muscle contraction events
| only"? Not trying to argue with you, just understanding how the
| technology is being perceived.
|
| If I hold your fist/fingers and you try to make gestures, how
| do you expect the device to behave? I.e., if you think of a
| movement and signal that intention, but are not capable of
| carrying that through, because of someone else's hand, a mug,
| etc.
| bbor wrote:
| Interesting question! I would guess that electrical signals
| to contract muscles occur IFF the muscles exert some force,
| regardless of whether the muscles are actually able to
| overcome other forces and physically contract. So I would
| guess that it would work as if no one was holding my hand.
|
| I'm guessing this naive understanding is off the mark, from
| the phrasing of your question?
| the-rc wrote:
| I was trying to figure if by "contraction events" you meant
| the actual motion or the signal to initiate that. Maybe it
| was the former, but it looks like you meant the latter. The
| wristband's EMG sensors can't detect the motion of the
| fingers themselves, of course, because it's on the wrist
| (and the signal passes through that before the relatively
| slow muscles have had time to act upon it).
|
| There are videos of people able to control virtual hands
| even with partial or missing fingers, be that since birth
| or after some event, see e.g.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woXmJMw2lTM&t=4717s
| wilg wrote:
| IMO, AR/VR remains mostly a software and UX problem, in that
| there's nothing particularly useful to do with it.
|
| Yes, you can keep improving the hardware, but you'd think we
| would have figured out something that is better enough in VR or
| AR on current hardware. Even gamers, who are notoriously
| interested in buying silly peripherals, care almost zero about VR
| gaming. Even with huge games like Half-Life: Alyx that are
| universally praised and part of huge franchises from AAA
| developers.
| raldi wrote:
| Cmd-F battery
|
| (no results)
| prettymuchnoone wrote:
| 2 hours, according to the verge
| raldi wrote:
| For what kind of use?
| SirFatty wrote:
| A solution looking for a problem.
| siquick wrote:
| I don't know a single person who is interested in anything like
| this, including massive gadgets nerds. Who's the target market?
| The Verge reporters?
| walthamstow wrote:
| I am strongly interested but I would never buy the first
| iteration of anything like this
| t-3 wrote:
| AR has a ton of mostly-work-related uses - think about
| warehousing, quality control, maintenance and repair,
| recording first-person views for tutorial videos or live
| seminars, identifying plants, HUD during surgery, schematic
| displays while working with electronics or mechanical parts,
| and many more.
|
| For leisure the only thing I'd want a display on my face for
| is reading books and news.
| CaptainFever wrote:
| I want it, if it's cheap enough. Now you know a single
| person.
| theshackleford wrote:
| On the other hand, I know plenty who are. Anecdotes, fun for
| the whole family!
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| One minor detail that stands out to me is that the UI looks way
| smoother than what Snap recently showed off in their demos. The
| Snap glasses were jittery and icons jumped around a bit from the
| few videos I saw. This Orion demo video look very smooth in
| comparison. To me this highlights an attention to detail.
| kaycebasques wrote:
| For a long time it nagged at me that I was sleeping on VR/AR/XR.
| Couldn't bring myself to spend hundreds of dollars on something I
| may not use consistently, though. A few months back my wife was
| restoring a mural and one of the artists brought their Quest
| headset with Kingspray Graffiti loaded up on it. My wife tried it
| and loved it so I finally had enough excuse to buy a headset.
| It's pretty great. The first experience is quite memorable. My
| "killer app" is Xbox Cloud Gaming. I love laying on the couch
| with a gigantic, very high-quality screen immersing me in
| Starfield. Although two nights ago I think I got serious motion
| sickness. Haven't found any killer/sticky apps beyond that. But
| it's mission accomplished in the sense that I have crossed the
| gateway into the world of XR/VR/AR.
| wg0 wrote:
| So product managers in these companies really think these
| products will make money and would become sustainable produc
| lone?
|
| Or it's just muscle flex and show off?
| pnw wrote:
| Zuck has invested billions in this idea over the course of a
| decade. I think it's way beyond some "product managers".
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| They know that they don't want to be empty handed and
| scrambling to acquire when someone stumbles upon a killer app
| mattlondon wrote:
| They backed the wrong horse RE "The Next Big Thing", and
| they're being stubborn about admitting it IMHO. Sunk costs and
| all that.
|
| I think everyone was obviously aware that "the metaverse" and
| VR was obviously _not_ what the world needed, yet they pivoted
| the whole company to it while they totally missed AI taking
| over ~everything else. Yes yes llama leak /release etc, but I
| am not really seeing them making any product efforts in the AI
| space (e.g. no ChatGPT competitor). Apple fell for it too
| somehow and spent gazillions on a VR headset that no one will
| even remember in 18 months, which is interesting how two parts
| of FAANG totally totally totally predicted the market
| completely and entirely _wrong_. Group think? Corporate
| sabotage? Corruption /fraud? It beggars belief, really it does
| - this was so obvious to anyone yet these two huge huge tech
| companies went all-in on dorky VR that will go the same way as
| 3D TV/movies (remember that?). Amazing really.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| Yet another nice piece of hardware hampered by attempting to lock
| people into a proprietary ecosystem. (And an AI-centric one at
| that.)
|
| I would love to have a set of AR glasses. I would love to have a
| wide variety of features that they could enable. I'd like them to
| be at least as open as an Android phone is, or as open as a 2D
| monitor is.
|
| Standard ports / standard wireless interfaces. Install your own
| software, not from an app store. Ability to use with any
| ecosystem.
| diyftw wrote:
| I wish I was surprised that you're getting downvoted for, quite
| literally, asking for open standards in new tech. I would have
| thought HACKER news would be more receptive when, on the first
| page, there are stories about having trouble getting young
| people to maintain open source projects and linux distros.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| Meta is on such a roll. Consumer electronics, based. Non cookie-
| cutter social media, based. Open source projects, based. AI,
| based. One of the very few FAANGs you should feel incredible
| proud to work at. Goated run as CEO zuck!
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Sorry what are they doing in the social media space? As far as
| I can tell they are THE cookie cutter by which all other
| platforms cut themselves.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| just go on reels comments and tell me that's cookie cutter.
| there's a deliberate choice to allow raunch, and i love it.
| ben_w wrote:
| When they say "holographic display", do they mean "wave
| interference patterns" (true hologram) or just "Pepper's ghost"
| type stuff?
| teraflop wrote:
| It's hard to say for sure because this write-up is much more
| marketing than technical, but they probably mean it uses
| holographic optical elements.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holographic_optical_element
|
| These are more or less "true" holographic elements, because
| they rely on wave optics and interference. But the pattern is
| fixed at manufacturing time, not varying with the image that's
| being displayed. And the image being displayed _to each eye_ is
| still 2D, not 3D.
|
| Basically, an HOE can act like a system of lenses and mirrors
| for collimating the image from each eye's display and making it
| appear at a comfortable viewing distance -- but is much smaller
| and lighter.
| dmarcos wrote:
| No true hologram afaik. They mentioned waveguides. Looks same
| tech lineage than hololens / magic leap.
|
| I think Microsoft was first using holographic buzz word for
| these non-holographic displays
|
| https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/hololens
|
| "holographic device"
| modeless wrote:
| The displayed images are not light fields, just regular stereo
| 3D. However, the waveguides are holographic. So it's
| technically correct. And the displayed images will look like
| the hologram projectors seen in popular movies like Star Wars,
| so it's not misleading either.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| The two "thumbnails" in the Featured News sidebar on this page
| are two 720p GIFs, totaling about 32MB. There is another 7MB GIF
| that I don't even see used anywhere. The result is 40 MB burned
| on peripheral junk and I never get to see how goofy the glasses
| look because the pictures in the main article never manage to
| load.
|
| edit: Oh wait, they are actually _animated WEBPs_ , just renamed
| to .gif.
| 0x00000000 wrote:
| Showcasing a product where visual fidelity is the entire
| experience with embedded 12fps gifs is definitely a decision.
| epolanski wrote:
| Lol, if it was Apple announcing a similar prototype HN would be
| crazy and this thread would have 3000 comments already.
|
| But since it's meta, it's mostly negative.
| barbazoo wrote:
| > But since it's meta, it's mostly negative.
|
| Same with other companies actively damaging the world around
| us. Tobacco, Weapons, etc.
| epolanski wrote:
| Yeah, Apple meanwhile makes it better.
| hightrix wrote:
| There's a good reason for that. Ad companies don't get much
| love from HN.
| timeon wrote:
| Interesting that Meta is using Wordpress.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| Just remember, these are $10000 prototypes.
|
| Two more silicon nodes (36 months 2027) and these will be the
| same size as regular sunglasses
| hightrix wrote:
| I've heard this promise so many times that I'm just a bit
| skeptical.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| Is it so unimaginable today that a 2x shrinkage is possible?
| rnk wrote:
| But we keep seeing these devices after multiple generations
| and they keep using more and more silicone so they're not
| shrinking that much.
| tippytippytango wrote:
| I've been trying some of the smart glasses on the market and the
| optics don't agree with me, almost instantly they cause me severe
| eye strain and eventually headaches. Which is strange because I'm
| alright with VR for 45-60 minutes. I really want to use these
| devices for portable productivity but they are so far from that
| in their current state. I hope Meta can solve these issues.
| apitman wrote:
| I'm hopeful that ubiquitous AR can be a good thing. I remember
| being inspired many years ago by the book "Rainbows End" about
| the possibilities.
|
| I am a bit concerned to see advertising companies at the
| forefront. This is a great video that demonstrates some of the
| risks: https://youtu.be/YJg02ivYzSs?si=KOQD8RtLR1Il1ZQl
| modzu wrote:
| cant wait for face ads. ubiquitous ar would be cool, but not from
| these companies
| aaroninsf wrote:
| Giving power to Meta to track what you are attentive to, where,
| with whom,
|
| is about the worst conceivable decision a consumer could make,
| technology and oo ahh notwithstanding.
|
| They have not only proven durably resistant to even their own
| tepid self-constraint, hostile to oversight, entirely willing to
| violate the law, and disinterested in basic moral restraint,
|
| the story--literally today--is about Zuckerberg's now open
| disregard for ethical action, under the tutelage of Thiel.
| kirykl wrote:
| Great now its even easier to join video meetings from my desk at
| the office
| nathias wrote:
| I just want glasses to replace screens, so I can make a proper
| cyberdeck.
| fudged71 wrote:
| I notice the gesture armband in the last product photo, great way
| to offload some of the sensing of the device.
| smileson2 wrote:
| It's a cool concept, I do like the idea of something like this as
| a sort of hud for some tasks
|
| I also wanted that from HoloLens and hololens2 which I worked
| with for a bit but both of those were just painful for me to use
| and I wasn't a fan of the display
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Complete ass move by Meta to use OpenAIs next gen models
| wslh wrote:
| Technically, it's impressive, a real evolution in the field.
| However, from a business perspective, it's impossible to predict
| who the winners will be in this space. Companies like Apple,
| Samsung, and others could enter the AR/VR market with a similar
| device when the time is right. I assume they want to build a more
| appealing brand for software engineers.
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| Even Realities pair of glass seem like the right compromise at
| the moment.
| CapeTheory wrote:
| One day someone will create an AR/VR product which doesn't look
| ridiculous - but it is not this day.
| sharpshadow wrote:
| It's been 20 years since they're promising me a naked scanner
| app.. it's almost here.
| Jayakumark wrote:
| Getting Amazon Fire Phone Pre release Vibe with those users
| comments who were wearing it.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcLBzZuovo8
|
| While the tech is great, It should be affordable and usable, On
| the Interface
|
| Voice - More and more, i feel like Voice is not a good interface
| as not many wants to speak aloud to get things done (see Alexa
| and Google home - only used as timers mostly) except for
| dictation.
|
| Hand Tracking - We all know usable how touch screen on a laptop
| or big screen monitor is , the time and distance for travel with
| hand is too high compared to a mouse.
|
| Eye Tracking - Seems to Lacks precision
|
| Neural Link - Not sure how neural link is for using keyboard and
| stuff. Until we get neural link to read our thoughts, we may rely
| on keyboards and using multiple fingers are the fastest way.
| dmitrygr wrote:
| Does not seem to properly address the fact that with this kind of
| design you cannot do occlusion of brighter real world objects.
| This makes me _SERIOUSLY_ doubt their "usable outside" claims.
| Maybe on a moonless night...
|
| The lack of any fast head movement in all the demo videos also
| makes me think that they did not at all solve the latency
| problem, and all the slow deliberate movement is to hide that.
|
| CTRL+F-ing for "occlusion" or "latency" has zero results, further
| compounding the worries
| jzacharia wrote:
| meta redemption arc incoming
| eximius wrote:
| Still feels like Intel Vault was the best iteration of AR. I
| desperately wish someone would pick that back up.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| I hadn't heard of these, they look good, but the gap between
| smart glasses with monochrome HUD and AR is quite large. Neat
| display tech though.
|
| Vaunt, not vault.
| eximius wrote:
| Hmmm that was an autocorrect I hadn't noticed. Thanks for the
| correction!
|
| My understanding was that it was on its way for true AR, just
| with limited display capabilities. e.g., if I only wanted
| augmented information, monochrome is just fine.
|
| I don't really need to be able to play pong badly to consider
| it AR.
| jzacharia wrote:
| fantastic for a prototype, meta teams are crushing it lately
| antipurist wrote:
| > the look and feel of a regular pair of glasses
|
| That's a bold claim for glasses this comically thick.
|
| If you're interested in more normal-looking glasses with a HUD, I
| suggest taking a look at Even Realities G1 [1] -- I have not seen
| them in person, but at least in photos / videos they don't scream
| "a piece of tech".
|
| [1] https://www.evenrealities.com/
| modeless wrote:
| It's an interesting product but they are 25 degrees monochrome
| half VGA resolution head-locked HUD vs. 70 degrees full color
| HD world-locked holograms. These are in completely different
| categories.
|
| You could make a case that nobody needs more than a monochrome
| HUD but I think there will be a place for both categories of
| products in the future, until eventually the hologram version
| is miniaturized enough to make the HUD version obsolete.
| poisonborz wrote:
| This will never be a real product. Putting it out as a "consumer
| grade prototype" is the pivot itself, garner the maximum PR
| impact and maybe snap a few customers who could be lured by most
| of the usability of the Vision Pro at fraction of the bulk
| (congrats for that!). But this ship has sailed for a decade now
| again.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| I met a lady once, we were in a line at DefCon. She worked on
| these and was quite concerned that they'd end up on the heads of
| children, feeding content-reaction biometrics about those
| children to people who would then use that data to manipulate
| those children in harmful ways.
|
| I'm curious if people think that that's worth worrying about, or
| if the idea of optimizing ad placement based on whether it makes
| your pupils respond in the desired way is the kind of thing
| that's only effective in sci-fi.
| aniviacat wrote:
| I think that's a realistic scenario. They will certainly
| attempt to use the data accessible by XR devices to make ads
| more effective. Actually succeeding at doing so seems realistic
| to me, too.
|
| Whether the legislature has notably limited data collection for
| ad purposes by then - probably not.
| cooper_ganglia wrote:
| We already put a phone in their hands by kindergarten... I
| think any kind of flashy tech in front of kid's eyes is almost
| always bad.
| twoodfin wrote:
| I don't think ad placement for children should be the primary
| concern.
|
| Unless I'm misunderstanding the current state of the
| technology, it's possible _today_ with a little effort to put
| my biometrics in a feedback loop with (say) GPT-4o, and use
| those measurements to rapidly produce and refine an
| increasingly horrifying series of images, personalized to my
| lizard brain reactions.
|
| That's gross, but the same technique could be applied more
| subtly. Imagine the worst things people suspect about TikTok's
| algorithm, but with biometric feedback on its individual
| effectiveness.
| cedws wrote:
| It's far too late to be worrying about that, Meta has been
| hoovering up information about children for more than a decade
| now.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo
| animanoir wrote:
| Wow, more useless trash.
| bentt wrote:
| If it were any other company, I'd be skeptical. Since it's Meta,
| I'm dead set against it from day 1.
| righthand wrote:
| Each giant marketing corp gets their own generation of glassholes
| if you spread the R&D far enough apart.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Oh man. I know they have a partnership with Ray-Ban, but Gentle
| Monster's design language would have really made these work at a
| consumer level.
| Aeolun wrote:
| If feels like every builder of AR glasses falls into the same
| hole. At some point, after they make them smaller and better
| looking than the ones before it, they think "this is enough".
|
| It is not enough.
|
| While a large improvement, those are some chunky looking glasses
| that I do not imagine anyone wants on their face.
| martpie wrote:
| That is exactly what Meta acknowledged, and this is not a
| product that is going to be released to the public anyway.
| modeless wrote:
| They are explicitly saying that it's not enough...
| lazyeye wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdFB7q89_3U
| 98codes wrote:
| I like wearing chunky glasses -- they fit my face well.
|
| These things look at least twice the thickness of anything I'd
| ever consider wearing in public, in any circumstance.
| rising-sky wrote:
| > those are some chunky looking glasses that I do not imagine
| anyone wants on their face
|
| You realize this is a prototype and not available for sale to
| the general public... right?
| didyouread wrote:
| It feels like most people aren't actually reading. They are
| showcasing the current technological improvements. They did
| explicitly say its not enough and are just a prototype to
| showcase what they have so far.
| mystified5016 wrote:
| I mean, these things are probably close to the physical limit
| for how small and light they can possibly be.
|
| Without relying on a tether, there's only so much you can do.
| You have to put some compute, battery, and optics _somewhere_.
| The optics in particular will always be fairly large just due
| to the physics of light and lenses.
|
| The only way I can see us sidestepping these problems is by
| putting the optics somewhere else and using a fiber optic
| tether. Even then, you still need some optics in the glasses to
| project onto the display lenses.
|
| Maybe someone will figure out how to do a transparent OLED
| display on the lenses directly. Even then, you've cut the bulk
| required for optics but you still need somewhere to put the
| electronics. A tether is really the only way to go if your
| concern is form factor.
| paxys wrote:
| > they think "this is enough"
|
| That is literally the opposite of what Meta is saying. In fact
| they aren't even releasing this pair because they know it's too
| chunky.
| peppertree wrote:
| Missed opportunity to name it Milhouse.
| packetlost wrote:
| Am I the only one that wants AR to effectively be an extension of
| my phone? Like, give me video game HUDs with handoff from a
| handheld similar to CarPlay/Android Auto, please.
|
| The killer feature of AR is that it can be omnipresent in your
| FOV, which enables a whole class of apps that just otherwise
| aren't possible.
| lazyeye wrote:
| I'm waiting on real-life english subtitles regardless of
| language.
| yobid20 wrote:
| Lol google glasses v2, no thanks.
| znkynz wrote:
| Great look if you want to look like Brains from Thunderbirds.
| Geee wrote:
| Imo this "mobile AR" is a stupid product category. This category
| is like Apple Watch on your face. You get to look at
| notifications, AR popups, messages and so on. It's mostly for
| consuming light-weight content on the go. First product in this
| category was the Google Glass. This category focuses on mobility,
| instead of pushing computing capability.
|
| In another category, we have PCVR and Vision Pro, which are
| optimized for high-end computing experiences, and compete with
| high-end PCs with multiple displays in terms of capability. This
| category pushes the boundaries of what's possible to do with
| computers, and has the chance to elevate productivity to a
| completely new level. There aren't yet any devices / software
| that do this, but the idea is there.
|
| These two categories might converge into a similar form factor
| somewhere in the far future, but as of now they represent the
| polar opposites of computing experience. However, I simply don't
| want the "mobile" experience in my life at all, and I don't think
| anyone wants it.
|
| When I'm moving or spending time with friends, I try to put away
| all devices, and expect everyone to do the same. Also, I hate
| notifications and pop ups, and definitely don't want them on my
| face. On the other hand, when I'm alone, I want to immerse myself
| in CAD, programming or games, and I want to use the most capable
| devices and software. Only PCVR and Vision Pro are devices which
| might elevate the experience beyond of what we have today.
| PKop wrote:
| >This category pushes the boundaries of what's possible to do
| with computers, and has the chance to elevate productivity to a
| completely new level.
|
| It probably has something to do with mass-production for a mass
| audience (not that they'll even succeed here). Look at the
| success of smartphones and compare their capabilities to full
| powered computers. They want to make it up on volume, so you
| have a quantity over quality dynamic of iOS-ified lowering of
| productive capacity.
|
| >When I'm moving or spending time with friends, I try to put
| away all devices, and expect everyone to do the same. Also, I
| hate notifications and pop ups, and definitely don't want them
| on my face. On the other hand, when I'm alone, I want to
| immerse myself in CAD, programming or games, and I want to use
| the most capable devices and software. Only PCVR and Vision Pro
| are devices which might elevate the experience beyond of what
| we have today.
|
| Yea, very respectable usage of technology and I relate
| completely, but our type is a minority of the addressable
| market. So toy-computers is what will be produced. This is the
| pessimistic reality of "democratization of technology". It
| makes you miss the glory days when the main target market for
| computers was more advanced users. Offerings for that segment
| could be a larger portion of sales and would thus get focus
| from product development that would lack today's lowest-common-
| denominator designs.
| noemit wrote:
| I guess I'm the only one, but I love these. They seem so fun. I
| would definitely rather have glasses than to carry a phone around
| with me.
| mlsu wrote:
| I would love to have that neural wristband released as a
| standalone product. I could imagine it acting as a sort of
| third/fourth/fifth shift key. Easy extra few degrees of freedom
| for an input device, for regular computer use.
| didip wrote:
| Very good form factor. Good job to everyone on Meta.
| cebert wrote:
| This is amazing technology, but I have a hard time trusting
| FB/Meta having this much additional information about my personal
| life.
| spencerchubb wrote:
| why?
| benreesman wrote:
| I've long been a huge skeptic of the whole Metaverse
| project/undertaking, I think I've called it a smoking crater
| where ten billion dollars used to be.
|
| But this is really interesting: it sounds like the display works,
| and it sounds like the puck is workable, and it sounds like both
| can squeak above the line in terms of battery life. If those
| things are true I may turn out to have been completely wrong.
|
| I don't know the first thing about silicon carbide display
| substrate thingy yields, so I can't remark on whether or not
| that's a "scale will make cost acceptable", but I bet some mega
| geniuses at Meta think so or they probably wouldn't be showing
| this much.
|
| If it turns out that I was dead wrong on this I'll be glad I was,
| it would be really cool if it works.
| ein0p wrote:
| No normal person will be caught dead wearing anything AR related,
| especially if it's made by a company whose main source of revenue
| is mass surveillance.
| auggierose wrote:
| > We don't think people should have to make the choice between a
| world of information at your fingertips and being present in the
| physical world around you.
|
| What a weird mission statement.
| bryan0 wrote:
| While still pretty clunky, I think I'd rather wear these for
| extended periods of time than Vision Pro glasses (100g vs 600g).
| This is the type of v1 minimalist design I was hoping Apple would
| go for. I assume Apple investigated this path but realized they
| would be cost prohibitive? (although when has that ever stopped
| Apple before?)
| precommunicator wrote:
| One step closer to AI headbands from Ell Donsaii world
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I think where these products fall flat is the fact that people
| don't want a computer strapped to their faces.
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