4 ms·

Agree, the popular idea of AR going around - wide FOV, fancy graphics, good occlusion of incoming light, tiny footprint - is unlikely for a long time due to opt

by npunt 7y ago

Agree, the popular idea of AR going around - wide FOV, fancy graphics, good occlusion of incoming light, tiny footprint - is unlikely for a long time due to optics. I think it’s foolish to try to execute that vision now, and why I’ve always thought Magic Leap’s 'do it all' approach was completely wrong (and demonstrated they didn't really have a clear vision for what would make AR mainstream). The only way to achieve that vision for AR is to increment toward it over a long time. I see v1 as a simple narrow FOV heads up display in glasses frame with very focused use case around place based notifications and heads up information. No input at all, except Siri. Display only turns on when necessary. iPhone is used for input and config, much like Watch was initially. Even getting to this v1 is going to be a huge challenge in such a small form factor, but a chip with this density will help with power budget. This node consumes 30% less power and fits in an even smaller space.

mook 7y ago
That sounds vaguely like Google Glass; I wonder if a comeback would be on the horizon now that voice assistants are more widespread.
- npunt 7y ago
  Could be, but I don't believe in Google's ability to create a category-defining consumer product. They're an enterprise company that thinks they're a consumer company, there's a lack of understanding humans in everything they do, and they never put enough wood behind each arrow.
  - hinkley 7y ago
    They’re not even enterprise! They’re an advertising company that believes they are changing the world. They are right, just not for the reasons they tell themselves. Microsoft was an operating system and word processor vendor who wanted to be many other things. The only other thing that ever turned a clear profit in a decade was their hardware division, which I gotta say was well deserved. But all of their money came from tech, and selling that tech. Google isn’t even that.
simias 7y ago
There's also the non-technical aspect that Google, Facebook or some other advertising giant would probably co-opt the technology immediately to stuff it with ads. That alone turns me off the concept completely. It's a sad state of affairs. With Google Glass on one hand and Facebook's Oculus on the other it's pretty clear that they're aware of the potential of such technologies.
- npunt 7y ago
  Sure, but that's a bit of a theoretical argument. The ability for at tech to be co-opted isn't something that prevents a v1 launch. That's something that happens later. Google isn't going to be the one that creates breakthrough AR because that both requires sustained effort over long periods of time and being savvy about what mix of capabilities and details consumers will like. Google is structurally disadvantaged in both of these, which is why Glass has been a failure to date. Facebook could make the hardware, they have a good research group. But they're at a big disadvantage for meeting core use cases because they lack any maps team, and place-based info is critical to early AR success. And as a company they're engagement-oriented, not really usefulness-oriented. AR is fundamentally a usefulness product, not an engagement product. VR is much more about engagement.
SirHound 7y ago
Siri-only input would make it a joke device. A device like that should be multi-input. Voice, mouse, keyboard, your watch, phone, ipad etc.
- baybal2 7y ago
  From what I heard, the one they work on are more of a pure VR goggles, without AR component besides basic depth perception, and transparency.
- npunt 7y ago
  What I meant was input via the device itself. You can't expect people to press buttons on their glasses to get things done, that'd be a bad experience. The only other hands-free input method is gaze tracking, which would be great, but it may not make it into a v1 product. Obviously there's input possibilities from other devices, and I mentioned iPhone. Unlikely mouse and keyboard input for a long time - AR's unique offering is freedom of movement, not being tethered to a desk. Again, a v1 really has to be a minimal product that is first and foremost a heads-up display for a narrow set of use cases. Else it'll be too bulky or awkward - just look at the rest of the AR devices out there.
mortenjorck 7y ago
I’m still half convinced that Apple's AR wearable won’t need any optical breakthroughs, because it won't use optical compositing. If there’s one thing Apple's mobile engineering is uniquely good at, it’s building a low-latency pipeline. I think they could get the camera-to-screen latency low enough that they could build an AR wearable that is essentially a VR headset with wide-angle cameras on the front: This would enable the high-fidelity compositing that you already see on iPads and iPhones, basically leapfrogging everything else in the AR space without having to invent novel optical solutions.

by npunt 7y ago

mook 7y ago

That sounds vaguely like Google Glass; I wonder if a comeback would be on the horizon now that voice assistants are more widespread.

npunt 7y ago
Could be, but I don't believe in Google's ability to create a category-defining consumer product. They're an enterprise company that thinks they're a consumer company, there's a lack of understanding humans in everything they do, and they never put enough wood behind each arrow.
- hinkley 7y ago
  They’re not even enterprise! They’re an advertising company that believes they are changing the world. They are right, just not for the reasons they tell themselves. Microsoft was an operating system and word processor vendor who wanted to be many other things. The only other thing that ever turned a clear profit in a decade was their hardware division, which I gotta say was well deserved. But all of their money came from tech, and selling that tech. Google isn’t even that.

simias 7y ago

There's also the non-technical aspect that Google, Facebook or some other advertising giant would probably co-opt the technology immediately to stuff it with ads. That alone turns me off the concept completely. It's a sad state of affairs. With Google Glass on one hand and Facebook's Oculus on the other it's pretty clear that they're aware of the potential of such technologies.

npunt 7y ago
Sure, but that's a bit of a theoretical argument. The ability for at tech to be co-opted isn't something that prevents a v1 launch. That's something that happens later. Google isn't going to be the one that creates breakthrough AR because that both requires sustained effort over long periods of time and being savvy about what mix of capabilities and details consumers will like. Google is structurally disadvantaged in both of these, which is why Glass has been a failure to date. Facebook could make the hardware, they have a good research group. But they're at a big disadvantage for meeting core use cases because they lack any maps team, and place-based info is critical to early AR success. And as a company they're engagement-oriented, not really usefulness-oriented. AR is fundamentally a usefulness product, not an engagement product. VR is much more about engagement.

SirHound 7y ago

Siri-only input would make it a joke device. A device like that should be multi-input. Voice, mouse, keyboard, your watch, phone, ipad etc.

baybal2 7y ago
From what I heard, the one they work on are more of a pure VR goggles, without AR component besides basic depth perception, and transparency.
npunt 7y ago
What I meant was input via the device itself. You can't expect people to press buttons on their glasses to get things done, that'd be a bad experience. The only other hands-free input method is gaze tracking, which would be great, but it may not make it into a v1 product. Obviously there's input possibilities from other devices, and I mentioned iPhone. Unlikely mouse and keyboard input for a long time - AR's unique offering is freedom of movement, not being tethered to a desk. Again, a v1 really has to be a minimal product that is first and foremost a heads-up display for a narrow set of use cases. Else it'll be too bulky or awkward - just look at the rest of the AR devices out there.

mortenjorck 7y ago

I’m still half convinced that Apple's AR wearable won’t need any optical breakthroughs, because it won't use optical compositing. If there’s one thing Apple's mobile engineering is uniquely good at, it’s building a low-latency pipeline. I think they could get the camera-to-screen latency low enough that they could build an AR wearable that is essentially a VR headset with wide-angle cameras on the front: This would enable the high-fidelity compositing that you already see on iPads and iPhones, basically leapfrogging everything else in the AR space without having to invent novel optical solutions.