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I've got a long-standing bet with a friend that 'VR' will take off as soon as it becomes 'AR', ie transparent glasses that overlay information on the real world

I've got a long-standing bet with a friend that 'VR' will take off as soon as it becomes 'AR', ie transparent glasses that overlay information on the real world. That, IMO, is the killer feature, and once it hits takeoff, the headset era of VR will be looked back at as a necessary stepstone that was ultimately completely replaced with what ultimately will be used.

ghaff 6y ago
VR by itself is probably a thing. There are times when you want an immersive experience such as gaming or virtual exploration. But I expect it's a niche. I'm not wearing VR to your virtual meeting. AR, in the inobstrusive/genuinely useful sense is harder but seems far more interesting. Yes, there are social factors to deal with as well, but I can certainly see worn information displays becoming a thing.
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  I don't disagree! Rather, it's just that I expect AR glasses to have a fully-blacked-out mode when necessary, and those full-immersion times will just be one (small, I'm willing to bet) mode of the overall headset. As a side note, my friend and I first made this bet back in the DK2 days, and I was ~60% confident I was correct. What pushed me in to the 90%+ region was playing with an Oculus Quest. The guardian mode, freedom from wires, hand tracking, pass-through mode, etc... Everything that felt like a real step forward was also something that will ultimately apply to AR glasses. It really made me think I was on the right track.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I think the other things that's happened with VR is just the quality/size of TVs generally. No that doesn't deal with a few specific aspects of VR like flight simulators and FPS. But having a high-res 75" or whatever screen in front of you basically handles "virtual reality" for anything that doesn't involve looking around.
- StanislavPetrov 6y ago
  >I'm not wearing VR to your virtual meeting. Can we be so certain of this, especially given the events of the last year? If VR technology had been perfected at the time, it seems very likely to me that instead of a shift to Zoom at the outbreak of the pandemic, many companies, government agencies and (especially) schools would have made the move to VR. It will be interesting to see how VR is integrated into our every day lives (both voluntarily and otherwise) as it is perfected.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Because that's not how people attend meetings. Meetings are mostly not-full focus events. That's not to say that VR couldn't have a role in, say, an in-depth review of a hardware design. But, the typical meeting? People are turning their cameras on and off and are probably spending about 50% attention depending upon how relevant the current topic is to them. This of course happens in the physical world as well.
    - majewsky 6y ago
      After having spent one year in home office, there is literally no household chore that I have not done during a meeting yet. Easy tier: folding laundry, cooking, most other things Medium tier: doing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom (need to have a towel at the ready if I need to unmute) Hard tier: vacuuming (makes it hard to listen to what's being said, so I've only done it once very briefly until now)
      - _carbyau_ 6y ago
        Vacuum robot FTW! Can set it going from the web interface, direct drive it or detail zones.
        majewsky 6y ago
        Everyone keeps recommending vacuum robots to me, but they don't solve the hard parts of vacuuming. A vacuum robot will not move furniture around to get the dust in the corners. A vacuum robot will not clean the dust on my desk, or in my keyboard.
MauranKilom 6y ago
But there are already glasses like this? Google Glass, Epson Moverio, Magic Leap are the first few that enter my mind. And none of these seem to really be "taking off". Sure, there are niche applications that match the constraints of these, but it's not clear to me at what point your bet would be considered to have failed because of a lack of "taking off"...
- Baeocystin 6y ago
  The only thing that comes close is the Hololens, and if you ever get a chance to play with one (which I do recommend!) you'll see immediately why it Isn't There Yet™. The biggest killer is that the field of view is tiny- think a single A1/Letter sized sheet of paper held at arm's length. It feels less like AR and more like a view portal, and since it currently has no way to block light behind its projections, everything is washed out. Not to mention that it's closer to the headset side of things than regular glasses. It's certainly a start, but there's a long way to go.
  - robocat 6y ago
    Nitpick: you mean A4. As an aside to those who don’t get to use ISO A paper sizes, they are trés cool. The x/y edge sizes are the (edit) square root of two. A0 is 1 square metre in area. Each step (A1, A2, A3, ...) just chops the sheet in half. Edit: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html
    - type0 6y ago
      Here's fun video about metric paper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI
    - Baeocystin 6y ago
      Shoot, missed the edit window. Thanks for the heads up, though.
    - 174SIGSEGV 6y ago

ghaff 6y ago

VR by itself is probably a thing. There are times when you want an immersive experience such as gaming or virtual exploration. But I expect it's a niche. I'm not wearing VR to your virtual meeting. AR, in the inobstrusive/genuinely useful sense is harder but seems far more interesting. Yes, there are social factors to deal with as well, but I can certainly see worn information displays becoming a thing.

Baeocystin 6y ago
I don't disagree! Rather, it's just that I expect AR glasses to have a fully-blacked-out mode when necessary, and those full-immersion times will just be one (small, I'm willing to bet) mode of the overall headset. As a side note, my friend and I first made this bet back in the DK2 days, and I was ~60% confident I was correct. What pushed me in to the 90%+ region was playing with an Oculus Quest. The guardian mode, freedom from wires, hand tracking, pass-through mode, etc... Everything that felt like a real step forward was also something that will ultimately apply to AR glasses. It really made me think I was on the right track.
- ghaff 6y ago
  I think the other things that's happened with VR is just the quality/size of TVs generally. No that doesn't deal with a few specific aspects of VR like flight simulators and FPS. But having a high-res 75" or whatever screen in front of you basically handles "virtual reality" for anything that doesn't involve looking around.
StanislavPetrov 6y ago
>I'm not wearing VR to your virtual meeting. Can we be so certain of this, especially given the events of the last year? If VR technology had been perfected at the time, it seems very likely to me that instead of a shift to Zoom at the outbreak of the pandemic, many companies, government agencies and (especially) schools would have made the move to VR. It will be interesting to see how VR is integrated into our every day lives (both voluntarily and otherwise) as it is perfected.
- ghaff 6y ago
  Because that's not how people attend meetings. Meetings are mostly not-full focus events. That's not to say that VR couldn't have a role in, say, an in-depth review of a hardware design. But, the typical meeting? People are turning their cameras on and off and are probably spending about 50% attention depending upon how relevant the current topic is to them. This of course happens in the physical world as well.
  - majewsky 6y ago
    After having spent one year in home office, there is literally no household chore that I have not done during a meeting yet. Easy tier: folding laundry, cooking, most other things Medium tier: doing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom (need to have a towel at the ready if I need to unmute) Hard tier: vacuuming (makes it hard to listen to what's being said, so I've only done it once very briefly until now)
    - _carbyau_ 6y ago
      Vacuum robot FTW! Can set it going from the web interface, direct drive it or detail zones.
      - majewsky 6y ago
        Everyone keeps recommending vacuum robots to me, but they don't solve the hard parts of vacuuming. A vacuum robot will not move furniture around to get the dust in the corners. A vacuum robot will not clean the dust on my desk, or in my keyboard.

MauranKilom 6y ago

But there are already glasses like this? Google Glass, Epson Moverio, Magic Leap are the first few that enter my mind. And none of these seem to really be "taking off". Sure, there are niche applications that match the constraints of these, but it's not clear to me at what point your bet would be considered to have failed because of a lack of "taking off"...

Baeocystin 6y ago
The only thing that comes close is the Hololens, and if you ever get a chance to play with one (which I do recommend!) you'll see immediately why it Isn't There Yet™. The biggest killer is that the field of view is tiny- think a single A1/Letter sized sheet of paper held at arm's length. It feels less like AR and more like a view portal, and since it currently has no way to block light behind its projections, everything is washed out. Not to mention that it's closer to the headset side of things than regular glasses. It's certainly a start, but there's a long way to go.
- robocat 6y ago
  Nitpick: you mean A4. As an aside to those who don’t get to use ISO A paper sizes, they are trés cool. The x/y edge sizes are the (edit) square root of two. A0 is 1 square metre in area. Each step (A1, A2, A3, ...) just chops the sheet in half. Edit: https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/iso-paper.html
  - type0 6y ago
    Here's fun video about metric paper https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI
  - Baeocystin 6y ago
    Shoot, missed the edit window. Thanks for the heads up, though.
  - 174SIGSEGV 6y ago