[HN Gopher] Android XR
___________________________________________________________________
Android XR
Author : dagmx
Score : 220 points
Date : 2024-12-12 16:26 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.google)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.google)
| dagmx wrote:
| And the verge blog post about it.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/12/24319528/google-android-...
|
| Seems like a very similar direction to visionOS. I'm glad Apple
| normalized the ability to run mobile apps spatially.
|
| I do wonder how this affects Meta's plans for horizonOS. Are
| access to Meta's game library more important than access to
| androids ecosystem.
| world2vec wrote:
| That Verge article has at least a rendering of some VR/AR/XR
| headset, original post doesn't show or talk about any hardware.
| jsheard wrote:
| > Seems like a very similar direction to visionOS.
|
| A crucial difference is that Android XR apparently has first-
| class support for 6DoF controllers (like Horizon OS) in
| addition to eye and hand tracking (like Vision OS) so it's
| aiming to compete on both fronts. Google thankfully didn't
| cargo-cult Apples decision to rely on eye and hand tracking,
| which is far from ideal for VR games.
| dagmx wrote:
| I think Apple picked the right direction to launch with as
| their primary interaction method.
|
| Controllers would be nice but as a secondary input.
|
| Google are apparently not mandating eye tracking or hand
| tracking. Which is nice for flexibility but you're going to
| have a mishmash of interaction models for native apps.
| MBCook wrote:
| There is a recent rumor that they have been working with
| Sony to bring the PSVR 2 controllers to work on visionOS.
|
| Given Apple has not focused on gaming I think the decision
| they made was a good one too. You shouldn't NEED special
| controllers to use the device like early VR headsets.
|
| However there are definitely things that would work better
| with controllers. Not just gaming but things where you need
| very fine input or having multiple buttons to switch modes
| or something would be good.
|
| So I hope the rumor turns out to be true.
| cube2222 wrote:
| Fwiw HorizonOS does support hand tracking (at least in the
| Quest 3 which I have) and you can navigate the UI without
| controllers. It works quite well.
|
| The Quest Pro also supports eye tracking, though not sure how
| well-integrated that is into the experience. I believe it's
| used to achieve foveated rendering with steam link, though.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| > (at least in the Quest 3 which I have)
|
| Yup and the Quest 2 and even the Quest 1 got it too! Though
| the Quest 1 is a bit behind the latest improvements though
| since it no longer receives OS updates.
|
| I have some of all 3 models :)
| threeseed wrote:
| But Apple's approach is fantastic for everything else.
|
| As it allows you to use the device without having to move
| your arms around.
| klausa wrote:
| I can't get over how much that Samsung headset is just "sure
| yeah copy my homework, just change a couple of things" version
| of Vision Pro.
| cubefox wrote:
| > Project Moohan felt like a mix between a Meta Quest 3 and
| Vision Pro headset.
|
| > In the Moohan headset, I can say, "Take me to JYP
| Entertainment in Seoul," and it will automatically open
| Google Maps and show me that building. If my windows get
| cluttered, I can ask it to reorganize them. I don't have to
| lift a finger. While wearing the prototype glasses, I watch
| and listen as Gemini summarizes a long, rambling text message
| to the main point: can you buy lemon, ginger, and olive oil
| from the store? I was able to naturally switch from speaking
| in English to asking in Japanese what the weather is in New
| York -- and get the answer in spoken and written Japanese.
| freedomben wrote:
| To be fair, a lot of the Vision Pro is a copy of all the
| AR/VR things that came before it. Even the eye tracking and
| gesture tracking is/was not new by any extent when Apple
| implemented it. That's kind of how these things work (whether
| it should or not is a different discussion). There's very
| little actual innovation because innovation is risky, and the
| bigger the company the less real appetite there is for risk
| because that's how executives get fired. The direction flows
| down from there. Most engineers at these companies who have
| good ideas and really want to innovate have to (and often
| want to) leave and do their own startup. These big companies
| are quite happy to let the startups do the innovating and
| take all the risk, and then just buying them out or ripping
| them off once there's a demonstration that there's a market.
| With increased regulatory scrutiny, the latter seems to be
| getting more common, but that's also a different discussion.
|
| Also relevant, queue the spiderman pointing at spiderman
| meme.
| philistine wrote:
| So the crappy face in the front, the pods for the sound,
| the dedicated chip for all the AR functions, and the
| separation of battery and headset are copies of everybody
| else?
|
| I do agree that the biggest innovation comes from the
| software, but come on.
| freedomben wrote:
| > _So the crappy face in the front, the pods for the
| sound, the dedicated chip for all the AR functions, and
| the separation of battery and headset are copies of
| everybody else?_
|
| Do you really consider those things innovations? I mean,
| the whole transparent eye thing is new for a production
| product like AVP, but still a pretty old idea. Maybe it
| originally came from Apple, I don't know. But dedicated
| chip for AR is definitely NOT a new idea nor innovative,
| nor is separation of battery and headset. It's definitely
| a lot more polished with those things than anything
| that's been built before, but polish != innovation
| dagmx wrote:
| It's very convenient that anything newly brought to
| market is not an innovation because it was presented as a
| concept somehwere but anything that isn't new is simply a
| copy.
|
| There's no room in that kind of discussion space to talk
| about the actual details of implementation or anything
| with nuance that differentiates products.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Its amazing how much undeserved credit Apple gets...
|
| The article just shows web pages, something that has been in XR
| headsets for long before VisionOS and in much greater numbers
| in the Quest to boot.
|
| So what has been normalized? Who is buzzing about VisionOS
| apps?
| dagmx wrote:
| Perhaps you could actually read my sentence and say that it
| allows running Android apps natively as a first class
| citizen. Which is also part of the linked press release.
|
| That they showed it with just Chrome is a presentation issue
| on their part, but it's definitely a value add when you're
| not constrained to the limited subset of the apps for a
| fledgling platform.
| jayd16 wrote:
| The meta headsets actually do run Android apps. The main
| issue is every major app uses Google Play Services.
|
| It's true that Google and Apple are in a unique position to
| leverage their walled gardens. I'm not sure that needs
| normalizing.
| marban wrote:
| I hope we don't see bloggers using it in the shower this time.
| nashashmi wrote:
| Anyone know of low priced glasses that can extend monitor into
| virtual displays in VR? So far I see the lenovo VR set able to do
| this.
| jamespo wrote:
| https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2024/12/11/immer...
| announced very recently
| nashashmi wrote:
| Yes my research showed that Meta can do this via partnership.
| And that makes me wonder do others need partnerships as well?
| jayd16 wrote:
| There are a few remote desktop type apps for the Quest. The
| partnership is primarily a branding exercise, I would
| assume.
| verdverm wrote:
| https://visor.com and https://immersed.com
|
| Immersed works with lots of VR headsets, Visor is their bespoke
| HW shipping in '25
| Philpax wrote:
| In theory. In practice, they have failed to demonstrate a
| single fully functional headset to any external media, and
| their marketing strategy is borderline predatory ("lock in a
| better price for your subscription before it's too late!")
|
| I'll believe it when I see it.
| verdverm wrote:
| The day after the botched demo they had a few of the
| community members over to their AirBnB for a more hands on
| demo. Those people have spoken in the discord on their
| experience
|
| They have been keeping with updates as best they can,
| production lines are starting up, but they also have large
| orgs like Qualcomm dictating how much they can share. They
| are not keen to upset their suppliers
| perdomon wrote:
| I love the navigation video example. It's so much better than
| staring down at a cell phone. At the end of the day, however, it
| all comes down to style (looking at you, Apple Vision Pro).
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I'd wish for arrows and directive lines overlayed straight at
| eye level at the actual turning points. Basically video game
| style.
|
| In the video it's still limited to messages and map pictures in
| their dedicated box and makes me think the platform still won't
| be good enough to handle more complex overlaying.
| astrange wrote:
| For navigation to work in VR, location services have to
| accurately know where you are and which way you're facing,
| which they don't. Compasses don't work in most urban situations
| because there's too much magnetic metal around you. Visual
| localization does work but the map has to be up to date.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _It 's so much better than staring down at a cell phone._
|
| When the iPhone's App Store came out, there were a bunch of
| apps that were all about overlaying information on real-time
| real-world imaging. One of them was navigation where you'd hold
| your phone up (horizontally) and it would overlay the real
| world with lines and arrows. I wonder why that never really
| caught on.
|
| There was another great one that was an SMS app that overlayed
| your conversations on the camera feed, so you could walk and
| text at the same time without falling into a mine shaft, or
| stepping in dog poo, or whatever. With today's technology, that
| could be just a toggle. Again, for some reason people didn't
| like it.
| theonlyjesus wrote:
| I'm so excited about this, but the fact that Google's behind it
| has me worried. Android XR will be ditched 1-2 years after
| release
| cubefox wrote:
| Seems unlikely, only Meta and Apple have a comparable OS. Other
| manufacturers would have to either build their own thing or use
| Android XR.
| n144q wrote:
| Who are the "other manufacturers"?
|
| I don't see many companies interested in this area. Sony has
| almost given up, Pico has had some major setbacks, and you
| know what happened to Apple's Vision Pro. There will continue
| to be investment, but likely by the same big players. There
| just isn't a lot of money out there, and not many companies
| can afford this.
|
| Honestly, if Zuckerberg is no longer Meta's boss, they may
| have already shut down Quest entirely.
| verdverm wrote:
| I believe Immersed is using Qualcomm Spaces for the Visor,
| but maybe that is lower level and Android XR builds on that
| as well?
| verdverm wrote:
| Looks like it is close to this and Qualcomm has tools to
| simplify the migration to Android XR
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Meta licenses their OS to other hardware players just like
| Google does. Apparently Microsoft, Asus and Lenovo are
| participating.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Google and Samsung going against Meta sounds as much as a cursed
| alliance than it was with GearVR.
|
| I trust Samsung to execute excellently on the hardware and be
| ready to iterate, but will Google keep pushing the platform even
| if Meta also goes after regular android apps and crushes them
| commercially ?
|
| Now that regulators are on Google's back, Meta getting accesss to
| the whole Play Store or at least being protected from Google's
| shenanigans is realistic, and the Meta store could potentially be
| decently competitive for regular android apps as well if they
| want to.
| warkdarrior wrote:
| Let's wait and see if apps will be 30% cheaper on Meta's store.
| Cumpiler69 wrote:
| Knowing how Google shuts down or forgets about products that
| don't make them a million billion dollars, I wouldn't invest
| into Google's XR ecosystem.
|
| Do you remember Google also has an ecosystem for Android
| Tablets and Wearables? Do _THEY_ remember?
|
| Meta could sink in all that money because Zuck is really into
| that stuff.
| meibo wrote:
| What do you mean? They just released new tablet and watch
| hardware and accompanying OS updates.
| fidotron wrote:
| I worked on the launches of many Android devices and actually
| worked on the OOBE of the GearVR, and it was by far the
| hairiest of them all, including the Nexus 10, where the Google
| execs made it to like Chicago before accepting that Hurricane
| Sandy wasn't something imaginary cooked up to mess up their
| launch.
| fldskfjdslkfj wrote:
| I'll take Google and Samsung over Meta.
|
| Until Meta stops trying to force me to open an account to view
| things that should be publicly available i'll never be on board
| with them gaining more power. Not to mention that I believe
| their products are a net negative to society.
| n144q wrote:
| Most Quest users don't care about anything you said, and
| apparently their devices are selling very well.
| fldskfjdslkfj wrote:
| "Very well" is subjective - they sold only something like 1
| million devices, which is way below even Google Pixel phone
| numbers.
|
| But regardless, i stated my position, not other people's
| position.
| n144q wrote:
| Same. I am afraid this won't go even as well as Wear OS watches
| or Android tablets.
| TiredOfLife wrote:
| The hilarious thing is that Google already had a VR platform
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Daydream that they
| abandoned. Meta even offered to put Google Play on their
| headsets, but Google refused.
| not_your_vase wrote:
| They botched tablets, they botched smartwatches. I'm sure third
| time's the charm.
| Andrex wrote:
| They already botched XR twice by killing Cardboard and
| Daydream. You're right, third time's _gotta_ be the charm.
| pzo wrote:
| and from related they also killed: Google Glasses, Project
| Tango (3d cameras). ARCore also seems pretty much barely
| alive.
| ddalex wrote:
| All tablets are dying. The pixel watch 3 has excellent reviews,
| what's botched about it ?
| BudaDude wrote:
| > All tablets are dying.
|
| Highly disagree. The iPad line is very strong, especially in
| the artist community.
| fidotron wrote:
| Some of the mockups here look eerily like those from Google
| Glass. Somehow I doubt walking around with head mounted cameras
| beaming everything to the cloud is suddenly going to become OK,
| though there is definitely a generational shift on that.
| whatever1 wrote:
| The similarities with Vision OS are insane.
| verdverm wrote:
| Considering how little the difference is in phone UIs, one
| would expect XR UIs to be highly similar as well
| bnchrch wrote:
| Honestly there's no point in Android XR.
|
| We can't trust Google to maintain even profitable endeavours past
| a couple years.
|
| And an investment in AR/VR hardware and software is likely over a
| decade long initiative.
|
| IMO They're already showing there weak amount of determination by
| making this a partnership out of the gate.
|
| Thats a bag of misaligned incentives, diluted returns and 2x as
| many execs who could kill the project.
| herval wrote:
| this is getting downvoted, but it's not a bad take. Google has
| proven, over and over, that it's unable to execute on any long
| running initiative like this - including 3 past botched XR
| initiatives
| xnx wrote:
| Endeavors like this have failed before, but at some point (soon
| would be my guess) the utility of having an AI assistant with
| vision capability will just be too useful to resist putting an
| always available camera in glasses.
| criddell wrote:
| I'm not sure I trust Google enough to walk around my home
| wearing their cameras. The last thing I want to see are ads
| based on the contents of my home or specific details of my
| family.
|
| The police might like it though. They could find out from
| Google the layout of a home or see if they know of any guns in
| a home before they SWAT it.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| But (odds are) you trust them enough to walk around your home
| wearing their microphone. Letting them listen in on all your
| conversations and show you ads based on those, if the
| conspiracy theories are true. (Unless if you're an iPhone
| user, then you trust Apple - and make no mistake, they're
| building the exact same product, they just pathologically
| avoid talking about prototypes)
|
| It's boiling the frog. Unthinkable, until everybody is doing
| it and it's normal.
| acdha wrote:
| The number of people buying Apple devices for privacy
| suggests that quite a few people do not trust them, and
| while the rumors have flown around for years they've never
| been confirmed. That's a contrast with, say, smart TV
| content recognition so it seems unlikely that Android
| phones are secretly monitoring what you say without anyone
| noticing the data being transmitted or the battery drain.
| elcritch wrote:
| > so it seems unlikely that Android phones are secretly
| monitoring what you say without anyone noticing the data
| being transmitted or the battery drain.
|
| Ah! So that's why Androids always have bigger batteries
| than iPhones. ;)
| acdha wrote:
| I get the joke but it actually works the other way: since
| Android devices had a 2-5 year lag behind Apple for CPU
| performance it would be harder to hide some hypothetical
| always-on analysis, especially on the cheaper and slower
| devices where most of the global growth had been.
| sroussey wrote:
| The conspiracy theories of phones listening is not true.
|
| TVs absolutely do that however, and it's the first thing to
| disable in settings for a smart tv. I even block the TV
| from internet since I use an Apple TV for the streaming.
| LorenDB wrote:
| I used to agree with you, but unfortunately the
| conspiracy _is_ true (or at least was at one point):
|
| https://www.pcworld.com/article/2450052/do-smartphones-
| liste...
| acdha wrote:
| The source of that article is very clear that the device
| types are not known:
|
| https://www.404media.co/heres-the-pitch-deck-for-active-
| list...
|
| Given that this a slide deck for a cable company's
| advertising arm, it would be entirely plausible that this
| data comes from the hardware they give customers which is
| completely customized for their needs. If they were using
| phone apps, for example, we'd see people asking why the
| Cox cable app is using their iPhone's microphone.
| bsimpson wrote:
| I asked someone who had done high level work at TikTok what
| he thought of the CCP conspiracy theories driving the
| Trump/Biden ban pushes. He said something to the effect of
| "ByteDance isn't coordinated enough to pull off being that
| evil."
|
| Google has been incomprehensibly big for decades at this
| point. They know regulators are watching. Mistakes like the
| SSID logging controversy in Germany get interpreted as
| malice, and company-wide trainings go out drilling into
| people not to log more than they have a contemporaneous
| business reason for.
|
| If there's anyone I trust to be honest and upfront about what
| data they're collecting and how it might be used, it's
| Google. They have the experience, motivation, and resources
| to do it right.
|
| Companies with a lower pedigree - either from countries that
| don't take individual rights seriously, or from small teams
| that don't have the resources to cover all their bases - are
| the ones that give me pause.
| criddell wrote:
| What does your contact at ByteDance think the CCP staff
| does in the ByteDance offices all day? Why does the CCP
| need a board seat?
|
| These companies are coordinated enough to keep out mentions
| of Tiananmen Square or Xi as Poo from Chinese users. If
| they can drop politically sensitive content in particular
| regions, they can boost political content in other regions,
| right? Whether or not they actually try to put their thumb
| on the scale today doesn't really matter. That's the nature
| of a security risk.
|
| The Conversation had a pretty good article earlier this
| year on how (in some ways) there's no real separation
| between the government and companies in China.
|
| https://theconversation.com/is-tiktoks-parent-company-an-
| age...
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I thought I would bother me with meta, but it doesn't really.
| I leave my sex toys out and I really just don't care if it
| sees them :P
|
| I think personal conversations are much more revealing than
| the space of my home. But as I live alone I would never speak
| to anyone while I use the quest.
| tootie wrote:
| I genuinely don't think this will ever be useful. UIs based on
| voice and gesture are not precise enough Even if they capture
| words accurately, it's just not as expressive or precise as tap
| or click. Most people don't want to talk to their devices out
| loud in public. There's precious few use cases where I want
| data to be in front of what I'm trying to look at. We've been
| trying for so very long and nothing has stuck. The last coup in
| AR was Pokemon Go. We've had a Meta Quest for years and it's
| primary use is still Beat Saber. It just isn't going to happen.
| Scene_Cast2 wrote:
| Eye tracking adds that precision.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I kinda doubt that. I think Apple is on the wrong track
| there. Maybe for now it makes sense but I don't think it
| will stay as the tech improves. It's pretty annoying having
| to look at everything you interact with. It's unnatural.
| Also, typing by looking at each individual key will be
| exhausting and slow.
|
| Gesture tracking on the quest is very hit and miss but this
| is just due to the tech not being up to snuff yet. I think
| eventually you will just be able to type on a virtual
| keyboard. You can even do it now, it's just that the
| forward/backward tracking is pretty inaccurate still (it's
| pretty much the worst usecase because your fingers are not
| well visible to the headset cameras and moving
| forward/backwards which is also the most difficult to
| interpret. But I think this will get solved.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| > We've had a Meta Quest for years and it's primary use is
| still Beat Saber. It just isn't going to happen.
|
| Try Metro Awakening. It's a really "full game" story-driven
| experience, I'm surprised they managed to get so much out of
| a mobile processor. Even on my old Quest 2 it runs
| impressively well.
|
| I personally don't like the arcade style gameplay (eg beat
| saber) at all so I mostly play PCVR but it's really nice to
| see some real full games are making it to the platform now.
| contrarian1234 wrote:
| Is it going to be open like Android or closed like Google Play?
| They seem to be evasive about licensing
|
| I also don't quite get why AI needs to be on the OS level (AI
| seems to make more sense on an app level) and what connection it
| has to XR. They're also very vague about what tangible OS
| integration they're planning. Sounds like a buzzword soup. They
| just forgot decentralized crytocurrencies
| freedomben wrote:
| I suspect we agree, but to try to steelman here there is a
| signficant and increasing need for hardware to support on-
| device AI, and anytime you're talking hardware there has to be
| a baseline level of support in the OS.
|
| My guess though is that they are doing it because it's easier
| to just move AI stuff to the OS than have to do the hard work
| of modularizing and isolating, defining APIs and such. Also
| worth remembering that many of the Android decision makers
| don't seem to actually like Android and want to make it more
| like their iPhones. Android seems determined to erase (or bury
| to the point of impracticality) all the things that I
| originally loved about it. It's getting more and more closed
| and "the user is a security threat" with every release. I would
| guess that somebody is loving the amount of power and control
| that they can gain by doing it this way, and as long as the
| people continue to reward behavior like that we're going to get
| more of it. The iPhone being a textbook example.
| tredre3 wrote:
| It has essentially nothing to do with AI, they seem to have
| thrown that in for bonus PR points. Sure, ML is plenty involved
| behind the scenes for both actual use cases (AR and VR) but
| it's not relevant and not what people think of when they read
| AI.
|
| Reading the dev blog or the actual documentation was more
| informative to me:
|
| https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2024/12/introducin...
|
| https://developer.android.com/develop/xr
| msabalau wrote:
| Alternatively, maybe Alphabet actually came to understand
| that while it would have been a pointless waste of time to
| flush money away on AR and VR in the manner of Apple and
| Meta, AI use cases and work on stuff like like Gemini
| streaming and Project Astra (both prominently highlighted
| yesterday) convinced them that AR might actually have some
| general use in the future.
|
| So they decided to put some more effort and attention behind
| this rather than, say, shutting it down to invest more in AI,
| or simply keeping it on a back burner as tech portfolio
| hedge.
|
| Sometimes corporate communications actually contain a bit of
| meaning, as shocking as that might seem.
| n144q wrote:
| It just feels a closed collaboration between Samsung and Google
| at this time. And there is too much unknown.
|
| Meta apparently isn't onboard, and they don't need to. Meta
| knows they can't rely on Google or trust Google, so they built
| their own Android based platform.
|
| There really are just a few big players in the VR world, most
| of which build their own platform. Meta focuses on the lower
| end, Apple and a few others focuses on the higher end (I am
| still not sure that's a real market where there is money), and
| Sony has just about abandoned their platform. That's it.
| Philpax wrote:
| There are other Android XR headset manufacturers:
| https://www.uploadvr.com/sony-lynx-xreal-android-xr-devices/
| grokx wrote:
| Right, most probably closed-source just like Android wear.
| Even manufacturers may not have access to the source code,
| they would just put their stuff in the vendor partition.
|
| A good friend of mine works for a manufacturer that make
| watches running on Android Wear, and closed-source system
| updates pushed by Google turn OS-level regressions (like
| battery consumption issues) into nightmares. So they are
| switching back to their own AOSP-based OS.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| I wonder how society is going to adapt to everyone literally
| having a camera pointed at them all the time by the people they
| interact with. You can say 'there are cameras everywhere' or
| 'cameras are on phones', but it is different when the camera is
| on someone's face that you are talking to. Imagine every social
| interaction being on video, or at least not knowing if it is. We
| will have to adapt to that, probably by being overly cautious
| about what we say and do.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I wonder how society is going to adapt to everyone literally
| having a camera pointed at them all the time by the people they
| interact with._
|
| I wonder if VR cameras can be blinded by IR emitters like we
| used to do to digital video cameras in movie theaters. My IR
| LED-studded headband won't look any stranger than someone
| walking around in public with a VisionPro strapped to their
| head.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Many VR systems rely on IR light for controller tracking, but
| if the camera is doing hand tracking, it might filter it out.
| tummler wrote:
| My initial thoughts:
|
| - Some cool ideas at the OS/UXD level. Genuinely impressed the
| thinking behind them seems more thoughtful and innovative than
| what Apple did with VisionOS. (Not surprising given that Apple
| doesn't understand or believe in XR from the top down.)
|
| - Not looking forward to continued knee-capping of their
| products/services on other XR platforms but c'est la vie.
|
| - I have zero faith they'll actually invest resources in this
| long-term, given how they treated their previous XR efforts. As
| an XR dev, I doubt I will bother to build anything for their
| platform until I see a serious long-term investment in the space,
| and decent momentum / market share.
| rkagerer wrote:
| "We started Android over a decade ago with a simple idea..."
|
| _< cough>_ You mean, you _bought_ Android.
| acdha wrote:
| ... and did a massive pivot to copy the iPhone when that
| launched in 2007. It made sense from the perspective of
| protecting search but let's be honest about the real
| motivation.
| jsheard wrote:
| To be fair the Android they bought was trying to be a
| Blackberry clone, Google did the legwork on turning it into an
| iOS clone.
| rkagerer wrote:
| I wish they'd been more inspired by PalmOS.
| _bent wrote:
| I'd hope for Meta to support these new Jetpack APIs for the Quest
| / horizonOS, as their SDK is currently basically limited to Unity
| / Unreal / Native, with no primitives for building regular apps.
|
| Two competing XR platforms build on Android may not be too bad if
| apps just run on both.
|
| There are some warts on horizonOS for true XR experiences like
| the guardian system effectively locking you into a
| predefined/scanned room or the camera feeds not being accessible
| (would be useful for scanning QR codes or copying IRL text),
| hopefully some competitive pressure can move Meta here.
|
| Right now there are quite a few Quest 2 & 3 devices on the market
| and not a single new Samsung XR glass. Any developer building a
| new XR app would want their app to run on Quest
| jsheard wrote:
| > I'd hope for Meta to support these new Jetpack APIs
|
| They did deprecate their original proprietary VR APIs in favor
| of the cross-vendor OpenXR standard, so maybe there's hope for
| them playing ball.
| MikeTheRocker wrote:
| Meta actually has a native SDK for apps that appears very
| similar to what Google announced today with Android XR.
|
| https://github.com/meta-quest/Meta-Spatial-SDK-Samples
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I'd bet on Meta because XR is Zuckerberg's Moby Dick whereas
| it is 20% of a 20% priority at GOOG. Meta is watching
| competitors (Vision Pro) but also keeping an eye on cost
| conscious consumers. It's so refreshing to see "Big Tech"
| taking such a pragmatic approach.
| tummler wrote:
| If any Android interoperability happens, I doubt it will be
| because Google is encouraging or allowing it.
|
| They've refused to officially support Play Store apps on Meta
| HW, intentionally released the most barebones versions of their
| products on Meta platforms, etc.
|
| They don't seem willing to play nice and now that they have
| their own platform to push, I can't imagine that would change
| for the better. But would love to see it.
| Zigurd wrote:
| That's going to be complicated for no particularly good reason.
| It will turn out kind of like Android in Kindle Fire devices:
| No Play Store, but some app compatibility. Google won't drop
| their compatibility requirements, and Meta won't give up their
| own development path for an AOSP based product.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I can understand the camera feeds not being accessible to every
| app. Tbh that makes _total_ sense. Do you trust every app
| developer to look around in your home? I would trust random app
| builders even less that I do meta :) I don 't even care that
| much personally but I'm sure many people will.
|
| The guardian system doesn't apply when you are in passthrough
| mode. You can walk around and leave screens in different rooms,
| you will see them through walls even :) So that's not a problem
| anymore. Meta has improved passthrough mode a lot since the
| Vision Pro came out.
| refulgentis wrote:
| > That makes _total_ sense. Do you trust every app developer
| to look around in your home?
|
| Strawman; n.b. iOS solved that in 2009.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| iOS isn't constantly recording. When it is you notice. It
| also doesn't have the battery life to do so.
|
| On a VR headset multiple cameras are constantly recording.
| refulgentis wrote:
| Interesting, thanks --
|
| Let's say iOS was recording in one app.
|
| Can other arbitrary apps record without user
| intervention?
|
| If not, how does a user enable an iOS app to use the
| camera?
|
| Could that same solution be applied to vision Pro?
| Miraste wrote:
| The problem is that camera feeds are not accessible to _any_
| app, even with user permission. Quests have no vision
| capabilities because of this.
| ethernot wrote:
| Last thing I want is Google, Qualcomm and Samsung looking over my
| shoulder all day.
| cubefox wrote:
| Last thing? So you prefer Horizon OS (Meta) or visionOS (Apple)
| instead?
| ethernot wrote:
| I'm not sure why you could infer that from my answer. _Last
| thing_ is a figure of speech not an ordered set with my point
| being the tail item :)
| mike_ivanov wrote:
| I think they are implying that eventually you'll be forced
| to choose from those three options, and it will be kind of
| mandatory.
| ethernot wrote:
| I can't see that happening at all. The idea gives little
| utility over the top of the last big leap (smart phones)
| with a lot of additional costs and problems.
| n144q wrote:
| The vast majority of people in the world don't own any VR
| device as of today, and likely never will. I don't see
| there is a "be forced to" thing happening.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| They inferred it because those companies were left out of
| your category of the "last thing you'd want". Anything left
| out would be categorized as "not the last thing you'd want"
| when there are parallels in the omitted yet well known
| offerings.
| ethernot wrote:
| That would assume that it was possible to rank them,
| which I made no statement about.
|
| Anyway this discussion is starting to sound like Slashdot
| circa 1999...
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| You don't have to make a statement about ranking them
| when you said "the last thing you'd want". Figure of
| speech or not. It seems telling to the reader when
| discussing XR to leave them out, that's all. You could
| have just clarified and called it a day.
|
| The fact that we're being so pedantic now instead of
| discussing our actual opinion is making me more certain
| that your purpose was not to have a discussion so I'll
| shutup now.
| ethernot wrote:
| My initial point was a really that there are terrible
| privacy implications and poor track record of actually
| treating the customer well, as if that wasn't obvious.
|
| As for the rest, I'm just pissed off with people throwing
| their words into my mouth. Oh there we go again.
| yamazakiwi wrote:
| Fair enough, let me know when you want to provide more
| opinions you don't want to discuss :)
| poisonborz wrote:
| The market already answered for the time being: none of them.
| This is space is an R&D sinkhole, all what companies do is
| make land grabs for an imagined future.
| no_wizard wrote:
| It would be a great thing if some unknown company cracks
| all of this before any of the big ones do.
|
| Seemingly feels unlikely, due to the cost perhaps, but it
| would upend things a bit, put these bigger companies on
| their toes.
| taco_emoji wrote:
| Stop trying to make VR happen, it's not gonna happen
| ThrowawayTestr wrote:
| Have you tried it?
| taco_emoji wrote:
| No, I have no interest
| verdverm wrote:
| You're missing out on some pretty awesome experiences
| meiraleal wrote:
| It'll definitely happen, we just don't know when (unless
| nuclear war).
| figers wrote:
| I want AR glasses, not VR helmets!
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The current paradigm of outward facing digital cameras
| passing through to screens is idiotic IMO.
| verdverm wrote:
| Yeah, the Hololens 2 is still my favorite device and
| experience. Quite upset Microsoft axed the project and team
| ncruces wrote:
| Everyone does. This is another step towards that. The top
| comment says Google has been stop-and-go about this. Well the
| tech was never there to do it. But they never really stopped
| playing with the idea. Since 2013.
| lordswork wrote:
| Why is there no pictures of the actual headset anywhere?
| cubefox wrote:
| That's probably announced in a separate Samsung press release.
| jayd16 wrote:
| There is no actual headset. Its an OS they're offering to
| hardware partners.
| umeshunni wrote:
| The verge review has a picture of the headset:
| https://www.theverge.com/2024/12/12/24319528/google-android-...
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| This is cool, but I'm mostly sad the future of computing is so
| closed. I can already see that you're not going to be allowed to
| do a lot of things on these devices to the point that they're
| useless, like iPhones.
| cubefox wrote:
| Android (XR) is a lot more open than iOS (visionOS).
| jayd16 wrote:
| Is there any information on this or you simply mean they're
| working with out of house hardware?
| gumby271 wrote:
| Google's announcements around these things always scare me. So
| many references to Google Play and their own services, its hard
| to tell if this will be open like Android itself or some locked
| down appliance like the Vision Pro. Its no surprise Apple chose
| to follow the iPhone model since it's so profitable for them,
| I'm not sure Google has the same incentives so maybe they wont
| copy that part.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| It seems like even Android being "open" these days is an
| incomplete story, as it's almost more like a barebones Linux
| kernel build with some bare UI and libraries now, rather than
| a mobile OS distribution with standard apps that vendors can
| build on.
|
| You seemingly have to do everything yourself, which begs the
| question why not just go full blown Linux distribution, and
| throw on some sort of Android app emulation?
| gumby271 wrote:
| I largely agree, especially when focused on consumer
| devices. Professionally I'm building a product built on top
| of AOSP, and it's been really nice to have a standard
| target and all the tooling that Android brings. It could be
| better but the base AOSP does have a lot of value as a
| general purpose OS.
|
| I'm in the midst of debating moving us to just Linux or
| sticking with Android, and the list of things to replace
| isn't insignificant.
| rangestransform wrote:
| you can blame the FTC for that, google is getting antitrusted
| because they built android as an open ecosystem and then
| tried to monopolize it, whereas apple gets mostly free reign
| over their walled garden. it reads to me that the message
| from the FTC is to vertically integrate and wall off
| everything, and open nothing.
| acdha wrote:
| That's a weird way to say the FTC is being consistent.
| Google marketed Android as open but didn't mean it, while
| Apple never promised otherwise. While I'd like both to be
| more open, there seems to be a clear message that you need
| to give consumers what you sold them.
| xwall wrote:
| 3rd day of announcements from Google, looks like Google is also
| celebrating 12 days ship-mas anonymously.
| ghjfrdghibt wrote:
| I am guilty of not seeing the point of the internet when it first
| came about, so I fully expect I'm wrong again. But I don't get
| these wearables beyond games, and potentially in the context of
| museums. I certainly don't think I'll be using these things.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I use my Quest almost daily for exercise. It's a game changer
| in that regard. Especially, in MR, which is more aligned with
| the XR in this post.
| ghjfrdghibt wrote:
| Never even considered that. How does it work? I don't
| exercise with earphones or a phone because I don't like
| things on my head/ears while exercising. I don't like wearing
| jewelry, even watches. I'm aware this is fairly unique.
| hnuser123456 wrote:
| There's a game called beat saber where you have to swing
| light swords at blocks that fly towards/past you in sync
| with music. It will get you sweating pretty fast while
| having fun and not noticing how hard you're exerting
| yourself.
| bogwog wrote:
| > I use my Quest almost daily for exercise. It's a game
| changer in that regard.
|
| I exercise almost daily without a VR/AR headset. How would
| that technology improve my workouts? My impression is that
| it's a gimmick that is not worth the costs (discomfort,
| increased risk of injury, sweat, privacy issues).
| crazygringo wrote:
| Gamification, fun, and variety.
|
| Exercise can get really monotonous for some people.
|
| But if you practice in a boxing app that also makes it a
| game of skill, which you enjoy more, why _wouldn 't_ you?
|
| Also, I'd guess you're much more likely to injure yourself
| with heavy weights in the gym, then during the more
| aerobic/cardio type of exercise you do in VR.
| jamesy0ung wrote:
| I'm interested in using it for exercise, what apps do you
| use?
| nixosbestos wrote:
| SynthRiders. Like Beatsaber but better IMO. Hard to put
| down once I start. I always leave sweaty. It has a decent
| community and decent custom tracks.
| LordDragonfang wrote:
| So, for the VR stuff it's unclear, though I think everyone is
| underrating just how good the social aspect is - being able to
| have a "face to face" conversation with your friend who lives
| across the country is incredible (it's nothing like a video
| call, the 3rd dimension really tricks your brain)
|
| However, sticking to the XR stuff, it helps if you think of it
| not as a new class of device (though it is) but as a new class
| of screen.
|
| Think of it as the monitor version of what smartwatches are for
| cell phones. Sure, smartwatches don't let you do anything _new_
| , but they're extremely popular because they let you interact
| with your personal all-device without taking it out of your
| pocket- at the cost of being on a tiny screen. XR devices
| expand on that, making the whole _world_ your screen, letting
| you spawn as many 4k monitors as you want or tiny displays
| wherever.
|
| They have a few added features, like overlays on things you
| see, but just like the health stuff on smart watches, that's an
| added feature that can grow the market and help a person
| justify it, not the core of the product.
| 01HNNWZ0MV43FF wrote:
| I'm holding out for Android One
| HaZeust wrote:
| With the iPhone XR being an existing namesake and "Android" being
| first understood to many as a type of phone, I don't think this
| was a good naming convention idea for a completely different
| category of product.
| rodiger wrote:
| I don't think most consumers are familiar with the iPhone XR.
| They know iPhone, and _maybe_ iPhone X, but I don 't think the
| naming will be an issue here.
| HaZeust wrote:
| I guess we shall see.
|
| https://i.imgur.com/3HqLMma.png
| dagmx wrote:
| XR is common as a name for the space.
|
| OpenXR, WebXR. Even visionOS is actually xrOS if you look at
| the SDK.
| iAMkenough wrote:
| From a developer perspective, that's true. I don't think the
| average consumer shares the same perspective.
| dagmx wrote:
| True but does the average customer care that it's running
| Android either?
| HaZeust wrote:
| https://i.imgur.com/3HqLMma.png
|
| I guess we'll see.
| ryandvm wrote:
| Don't worry, it will be abandoned and recreated multiple times
| in the next 10 years anyway.
| typeofhuman wrote:
| It'll be sunsetted before then.
| prophesi wrote:
| My first impression was that they're bringing back something
| similar to Cardboard/Daydream. Agree that the naming is
| confusing on several levels, whether you're familiar with XR as
| nomenclature for VR/AR or not.
| askafriend wrote:
| > With the iPhone XR
|
| Enough time has passed that this doesn't feel like a real
| concern.
| cube2222 wrote:
| Nice, I'm excited for more development and adoption in this area,
| as I enjoy gaming on VR!
|
| I've recently got a Quest 3 (previously had a Valve Index) and
| I'm frankly blown away by the progress over the last 5 years, and
| also how well streaming games over wifi works - and generally,
| cable-less PCVR - I wasn't aware it's gotten so good by now!
|
| Though I think there's still a long way to go, ergonomics-wise,
| until I'm happy to wear goggles all day long to work in them.
| OnionBlender wrote:
| Was Android XR announced before this? I remember seeing a job ad
| for Android XR on Google's job board.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| I see that they have added many of the visionos window /
| volumetric design language which is good if you want to target
| both devices especially if you have a Unity project.
|
| I actually expected visionos 2 to have at least some of the AI
| features that AndroidXR has or even what was launched with Apple
| Intelligence. But, looking at both releases of XR applications it
| is a huge buy in with developers. I've been trying to learn
| visionos and it is difficult. If I want to develop with Android
| XR you always have to worry about the possibility that they will
| stop supporting the project if the current devices don't do as
| well and also Google tried to do XR already.
|
| I really do like that there is competition in the space. What is
| even better is that AndroidXR does have familiar window
| management so users don't have to learn things twice. I want to
| have this be successful.
| poisonborz wrote:
| I see no other reason for this than to show to investors "yeah
| can also do the Apple thing" - most probably to not have to sink
| something that was probably developed head to head with Vision
| Pro before.
|
| Expect to not really hear from this again.
| OnionBlender wrote:
| Hopefully Google won't follow Meta by forcing developers to
| create an account just to develop apps for the device. On Quest 2
| you can just enable developer mode and use adb, but on Quest 3
| you have to create an account and have a companion phone just to
| enable developer mode.
| tokioyoyo wrote:
| Like a Google account? I've always been curious if that
| actually had ever been a showstopper for anyone other than very
| niche tech circles.
| a2128 wrote:
| On Quest 2 it's the exact same process, you have to create a
| developer account (sometimes verify a credit card or phone
| number) and have a companion phone to enable developer mode. In
| fact you need to have a companion phone to use either headset
| at all. I had problems pairing my Quest 2 headset with my phone
| initially and the headset was just a useless brick until it's
| set up with an account through a phone app and a brittle
| pairing process.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| For the Quest 1 too. It's always been this way.
| skgough wrote:
| It would super cool if they eventually make this a part of the
| phone OS and all you would need to do is buy a headset and plug
| it in over USB-C. Same idea as Dex, different display form
| factor, but same computer.
|
| Then with Android Auto, Dex, and XR, you would just need a single
| computer you can carry with you.
|
| Seems like the end state for personal computing. Instead of
| buying separate computers, you buy human interface devices and
| plug them in over USB-C.
| Thorrez wrote:
| What about wireless? Wireless earbuds popular. People might
| find it a UX downgrade to need a cable running from their
| glasses to their phone in their pocket as they walk down the
| street (the demo shows AR navigation as someone walks down the
| street).
| elcritch wrote:
| WiFi 6 does ok for VR. The current limitations IMHO are the
| hardware on glasses / headsets in terms of compute and power.
| Not too dissimilar to how wireless earbuds just weren't
| practical til what 5 years ago?
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I had a very weird day and I thought about this.
|
| Cloud sessions for everything, one unified OS for your phone,
| VR, PC, TV, etc.
|
| Built from the ground up, it both runs on a 30$ phone and a 6k
| computer. Do it on Risc V or another open source architecture.
|
| Then I came back to earth and realized this would cost hundreds
| of billions to build and market.
|
| Android is close. But ultimately you can't run any PC apps on
| it( although Dex + Remote Desktop to a Microsoft Cloud PC can
| fake it).
|
| In my dream we don't even need USB C, your just limited to
| whatever device your currently using. For example you're TV
| could probably play the Sims, or use cloud gaming. Your PC
| could also play the Sims, but AAA games as well.
|
| We'd have to build a new OS( probably a Linux distro) which is
| heavily dependent on cloud services.
|
| I'd be hyper aggressive with the marketing. A 50$ mini Risc V
| PC gets you started.
| greatgib wrote:
| The Google vaporware of 2025 to be discontinued in 2026...
| yathern wrote:
| Google's VR/XR strategy has been very stop-and-go, between
| Cardboard, Daydream, and a host of their VR applications they
| invested into 8 years ago (Poly, Earth, TiltBrush). It's obvious
| they don't want to be a leader in the space - just want to hedge
| their bets in case it becomes a viable market. If they maintained
| a steady presence in the space, I think Daydream could be
| competitive as a lower-entry-point alternative to the Quest
| headsets - which - since they run Android, would be potentially
| mutually beneficial.
| askafriend wrote:
| > If they maintained a steady presence in the space
|
| Problem is no one gets promoted for that. That would require a
| vision and strong leadership.
|
| Something both Apple and Meta have but Google does not.
| CountHackulus wrote:
| That's basically Google's strategy on everything.
| throw0101d wrote:
| >> _Google 's VR/XR strategy has been very stop-and-go_ [...]
|
| > _That 's basically Google's strategy on everything._
|
| https://killedbygoogle.com
| cush wrote:
| Exactly. Had you asked me yesterday if Android XR already
| existed, I would have assumed yes they built it like 10 years
| ago... Remember Google Cardboard? Google Glasses?
|
| I look forward to their definite announcement of Pixel Glasses
| in the coming months, as this certainly won't be something they
| completely forget about by next quarter
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| I'm a little sour about Google Cardboard. It was and still is
| the greatest accessible 3 DoF VR implementation in my opinion.
| What a fantastic concept.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| It would be a nice use of "old" phones as well. Load up some
| old phones with Virtual Virtual Reality and other games.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| Yeah I think it was a huge missed opportunity. The idea was
| great, the barrier to entry was really low, and it worked
| really well for stuff like street view / google earth.
|
| I showed it to my daughter the other day and she was really
| impressed. There's only one remaining app that can use it
| afaik.
| kfarr wrote:
| This x100, I wrote a similar message on a WebXR forum. They've
| started and stopped so many times it's hard to take this effort
| seriously. Is this just exec FOMO trying to catchup to Apple
| and Meta? Or do they really believe in this? I don't think it's
| the latter.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| All of this boils down to internal incentives at Google to
| get promoted
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > Is this just exec FOMO trying to catchup to Apple and Meta?
|
| Google doesn't work like this.
|
| People can almost autonomously spawn up small projects.
|
| If it looks promising they keep getting more resources until
| it either has explosive growth and profits or someone higher
| in the chain thinks there isn't a current viable path for
| THAT version of the project to profitablity.
|
| Google might believe in XR and keep funding these small
| projects, but if none of them display evidence that that
| particular approach is going to be huge, then they move on.
|
| It's not top down.
|
| Sundar doesn't say, we need more XR. Team, go find me the
| most promising options, and then we'll fund it to the moon.
| And then a month later he gets bored and says, no, never
| mind, kill that. Let's chase another hype bubble. Only to
| then months later come back and say, team, we need more XR!
| pjmlp wrote:
| Watching Google talks at GDC throughout the years, convinced me
| that they don't have any idea how to deal with game studios,
| exactly the ones relevant to VR/XR.
|
| They mostly talk about PlayStore analytics and marketing
| approaches, seldom about game technology or design.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| I think of what a missed opportunity Stadia was because they
| didn't have a culture where people who are knowledgeable
| about game dev were listened to.
|
| _Titanfall_ was a game that couldn 't be made until the
| cloud and _Stadia_ could have done the same for game
| streaming -- any new platform needs it 's _Super Mario
| Brothers_ that makes you rethink what games can be, otherwise
| players will ignore it.
| marksomnian wrote:
| > Titanfall was a game that couldn't be made until the
| cloud
|
| What do you mean by this?
| PaulHoule wrote:
| See https://www.engadget.com/2014-03-10-titanfall-cloud-
| explaine...
| pjmlp wrote:
| Definitely, imagine coming to game studios talking them
| into rewriting into Linux/Vulkan, using command line and
| gdb, when the culture is using Windows and Visual Studio,
| including the devkits plugins for Sony and Nintendo
| consoles.
|
| This with Google's background in long term investments.
|
| And to come back to my point, many of the talks I was
| referring to, were in the context of Android games and
| Stadia, most still available online.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| If you had to define one characteristic of Google, it is
| "they just don't listen". I think it comes from a
| viewpoint of social status in which "high status people
| talk and low status people listen" and they think they
| can maintain high status if they only never listen.
| (Wouldn't want to become a low-status company like
| Microsoft that listens sometimes)
|
| I'd contrast that to Meta which has been through various
| waves of scathing criticism and often comes across as
| responsive, for instance they've listened a lot to devs
| about weaknesses in the Quest platform.
| acdha wrote:
| I was also thinking about how MS Flight Simulator used all
| of that satellite imagery. You can't tell me that someone
| couldn't find an awesome game using their maps and street
| view horde which by now includes 3D models of a ton of
| places, but I don't see anyone betting on Google for a
| critical dependency until they have a new CEO and
| convincing culture change.
| 1986 wrote:
| Geoguessr is the kind of thing the old Google would have
| built internally and released as a "just for fun" or
| April Fool's thing
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| They demoed some pretty cool tech that is really only
| possible via streaming and then nobody leveraged it so
| Stadia was just another boring game streaming service.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| To be specific: Google could have deployed large games to
| large cloud services with a large number of GPUs
| attached. Such a system could support a world with a
| working set of 128GB or more and draw all the graphics
| for all the players with everything closely coupled (like
| very big couch multiplayer with multiple screens!)
|
| Wargaming it though there is no such thing as a "128GB
| world" from the player's perspective and for a long time
| high-end games have used many tricks to shoehorn huge
| worlds into small boxes such as
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Auto:_San_Andre
| as
|
| which was released for the PS2 with just 36MB of RAM! A
| "128GB world" that is cheaply developed could probably be
| crunched into a 8GB world that looks good enough with an
| expensive development process (you need much more out of
| your systems programmers and artists.) To make something
| that's truly a different experience you need a "2TB
| world" shoehorned into a 128GB world which would be an
| expensive proposition.
|
| I don't think Google could have talked any game dev shop
| capable of that sort of thing into doing it, it was
| something Google was going to have to do itself. They
| could have afforded it. And they could have entirely
| changed people's expectations about games.
| Miraste wrote:
| It's going to be years before game studios even consider
| working with them again after the Stadia disaster.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Pro tip: did you know that there are certain words and phrases
| that make people's glaze over? Many authors of press releases
| don't. "XR" is one and "Gemini" is another. Use more than one in
| the same headline and your audience concludes the message is
| "move along folks nothing more to see here"
|
| (at least they avoided 5g and blockchain... for now)
| shatsky wrote:
| Looks like a chance to finally have modern standalone HMD with
| unlocked bootloader. Meta and ByteDance ones are locked down and
| full of spyware
| 0x457 wrote:
| Are you suggesting that a company where ads are a major revenue
| source going to release a product that doesn't spy on you?
| floren wrote:
| I really wish Glass-style HMDs had taken off... I've built my
| own, but it's useless if the sun is out at all. I just want
| something unobtrusive and inexpensive that I can drive with a
| real computer.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| I have a glass enterprise edition and it's ok with the sun
| out. But unobtrusive it is not. I'd rather have something
| like the Vuzix Blade.
|
| The device is completely abandoned by google by the way, but
| at least it can run normal Android apps so it can still be
| useful.
| floren wrote:
| Vuzix Blade would be fine too, just something that has a
| display you can look at when you want to and ignore when
| you don't. The Blade is way too damn expensive, though.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| Yes it is :(
|
| I got the glass second-hand super cheap but that was way
| too expensive new as well.
| therealmarv wrote:
| They should create their own glasses with this new Android and
| name it:
|
| Google Glass
| cush wrote:
| Google is struggling to catch up so hard that they're only now
| just working on their metaverse play
| mattlondon wrote:
| Happy that quantum computing breakthrough and AI 2.0 launches
| came out "first". Happy for "metaverse" to be a distant distant
| distant 3rd.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| Can't wait for Google to abandon this in 6 months and shut it
| down in two years!
|
| Let's all get invested... not.
| runjake wrote:
| Watching their videos makes me sea sick after a few seconds and I
| wonder if they should have posted those as 60 fps videos.
| eqvinox wrote:
| Okay, but... Who's gonna buy this, and when? *R seems to have
| been cooling for quite some time, AI is cooling among reports of
| negative workplace productivity gains and poor private customer
| acceptance...
|
| And, timing wise, this being just announced... is it gonna ship
| straight into a market collapse?
| thih9 wrote:
| > reports of negative workplace productivity gains
|
| Is this anecdotal or is there a source? I'd be interested to
| learn more.
| eqvinox wrote:
| Off the cuff, I remember https://www.forbes.com/sites/torcons
| tantino/2024/09/12/77-of...
|
| I thought there was also a report from one of the big
| consultancy firms but I need to search for that.
| ozten wrote:
| Google as a first class partner is a massive liability. Example:
| Stadia was amazing and they snuffed it in the cradle.
|
| Samsung should license Google App store, but retain full control
| for executing a product launch.
| onlyrealcuzzo wrote:
| > Example: Stadia was amazing and they snuffed it in the
| cradle.
|
| You can be amazing and not make money.
|
| Google is in the business of building good products AND making
| money.
|
| Stadia was a good product.
|
| It didn't look like it would ever make money.
| yalogin wrote:
| Is there a real market and revenue to be made with these mixed
| reality headsets like Quest and AVP? If so what does mass market
| adoption even mean for these? I suspect the peak is not far from
| where we are now. Thoughts?
| fixprix wrote:
| AR is still very much a gimmick as we are surrounded by screens
| right now and we don't need anything on our face to see them.
| They're also easier on the eyes as headsets like AVP have a
| fixed focal plane.
|
| VR on the other hand like the Quest, lots of people use
| everyday for games, exercise, media and socialization.
|
| Unfortunately big tech thinks VR is for children, and keeps
| plowing money into AR because that's what adults want. Meta's
| best demos for AR was annotating prices on pieces of fruit.
|
| Apple, Meta and now Google are like lemmings jumping one after
| the other off the AR cliff.
|
| At least Meta made a decent headset. They could probably make
| some money off of if if the software was better and the store
| better curated, but they are way over extended on hardware
| people in AR lala land as their VR software just crawls along.
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