6 ms·

> One of Google's big tactical mistakes, imo. It's entirely plausible that AR ends up being a dead end. It's 5 years later and still not really a big market.

beenBoutIT 7y ago
True, although you could say the same thing about jpegs back when chatting online involved reading descriptions and guessing what the OP looked like. It takes time for new technologies to become widely adopted and utilized. The difference is that any sighted person can view and appreciate pictures, while there's an IQ requirement of some kind for a person to understand and appreciate what's going on spatially with AR. There's some chunk of society that isn't mentally tall enough to ride and messing with it will just frustrate them.
- leadingthenet 7y ago
  > while there's an IQ requirement of some kind for a person to understand and appreciate what's going on spatially with AR. Could you expand on this, please? I didn't realise this was a significant concern until now.
  - beenBoutIT 7y ago
    Can a young child utilize AR on a handheld device? Maybe, although before a certain age 'y' the answer will typically be 'No'. That age y should tend to be more advanced than age 'x' when a typical young child would be able to utilize a picture, say of a cow or a chicken on the same handheld device. Spatial intelligence, IQ, having the full use of one or both hands, etc. are all part of the requirements that determine whether or not any given individual will be able to fully appreciate what's going on with AR on a handheld device. It's entirely possible that adults with different issues will be unable to satisfy these requirements and fully appreciate AR, which should in turn reduce the market for AR on handheld devices.
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago
  > There's some chunk of society that isn't mentally tall enough to ride and messing with it will just frustrate them. What kind of elitist nonsense is this? The reason AR isn't taking off isn't because the users aren't good enough for AR, it's because AR isn't good enough for the users. > It takes time for new technologies to become widely adopted and utilized. My point is some technologies just end up not being very useful, ever.
moron4hire 7y ago
flat-screen AR on phones and tablets, absolutely. It's just about impossible to design a good experience that takes advantage of the technology without too much compromise. Headsets, I think the current devices are just a preview. I'm skeptical that transparent displays are strictly necessary for AR headsets, and I have seen some industry speculation that the HoloLens 2 is probably at the limit of what can be done with waveguide displays. Unfortunately, waveguide displays are just about the best sort of transparent display tech available for this particular use case, so we need to either shift to pass-through-camera displays or invent a whole new display technology. I'm betting more on pass-through. I think the tech is already available, what is at issue is decades of software cruft in modern operating systems making low latency through put too difficult to achieve.
- TuringTest 7y ago
  > so we need to either shift to pass-through-camera displays or invent a whole new display technology. Did you miss the recent Five Tilt Kikstarter?[1] It is a new display technology, that I'm eager to try next summer if they manage to deliver. It needs a reflective screen somewhere in the room, so it won't work as mobile; but for anything room based (games, teaching and office stuff) it gets a lot of bullent points right, and I think it could replace a lot of use cases for VR as well. [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tiltfive/holographic-tabletop-gaming https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tiltfive/holographic-ta...
  - moron4hire 7y ago
    Tilt Five. No, I didn't miss it, I even backed it and am very excited for it. But it's the retroreflective mat system is not scalable to "wherever you go in the world".
    - TuringTest 7y ago
      You made me think of portable reflective whiteboards, with foldable stands... :-P
- OnlineGladiator 7y ago

beenBoutIT 7y ago

True, although you could say the same thing about jpegs back when chatting online involved reading descriptions and guessing what the OP looked like. It takes time for new technologies to become widely adopted and utilized. The difference is that any sighted person can view and appreciate pictures, while there's an IQ requirement of some kind for a person to understand and appreciate what's going on spatially with AR. There's some chunk of society that isn't mentally tall enough to ride and messing with it will just frustrate them.

leadingthenet 7y ago
> while there's an IQ requirement of some kind for a person to understand and appreciate what's going on spatially with AR. Could you expand on this, please? I didn't realise this was a significant concern until now.
- beenBoutIT 7y ago
  Can a young child utilize AR on a handheld device? Maybe, although before a certain age 'y' the answer will typically be 'No'. That age y should tend to be more advanced than age 'x' when a typical young child would be able to utilize a picture, say of a cow or a chicken on the same handheld device. Spatial intelligence, IQ, having the full use of one or both hands, etc. are all part of the requirements that determine whether or not any given individual will be able to fully appreciate what's going on with AR on a handheld device. It's entirely possible that adults with different issues will be unable to satisfy these requirements and fully appreciate AR, which should in turn reduce the market for AR on handheld devices.
OnlineGladiator 7y ago
> There's some chunk of society that isn't mentally tall enough to ride and messing with it will just frustrate them. What kind of elitist nonsense is this? The reason AR isn't taking off isn't because the users aren't good enough for AR, it's because AR isn't good enough for the users. > It takes time for new technologies to become widely adopted and utilized. My point is some technologies just end up not being very useful, ever.

moron4hire 7y ago

flat-screen AR on phones and tablets, absolutely. It's just about impossible to design a good experience that takes advantage of the technology without too much compromise. Headsets, I think the current devices are just a preview. I'm skeptical that transparent displays are strictly necessary for AR headsets, and I have seen some industry speculation that the HoloLens 2 is probably at the limit of what can be done with waveguide displays. Unfortunately, waveguide displays are just about the best sort of transparent display tech available for this particular use case, so we need to either shift to pass-through-camera displays or invent a whole new display technology. I'm betting more on pass-through. I think the tech is already available, what is at issue is decades of software cruft in modern operating systems making low latency through put too difficult to achieve.

TuringTest 7y ago
> so we need to either shift to pass-through-camera displays or invent a whole new display technology. Did you miss the recent Five Tilt Kikstarter?[1] It is a new display technology, that I'm eager to try next summer if they manage to deliver. It needs a reflective screen somewhere in the room, so it won't work as mobile; but for anything room based (games, teaching and office stuff) it gets a lot of bullent points right, and I think it could replace a lot of use cases for VR as well. [1] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tiltfive/holographic-tabletop-gaming https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tiltfive/holographic-ta...
- moron4hire 7y ago
  Tilt Five. No, I didn't miss it, I even backed it and am very excited for it. But it's the retroreflective mat system is not scalable to "wherever you go in the world".
  - TuringTest 7y ago
    You made me think of portable reflective whiteboards, with foldable stands... :-P
OnlineGladiator 7y ago