5 ms·

I don't know if you remember Google Glass was a thing, and turned out that wearing glasses on your face 16 hours a day is far more annoying than those "little h

by slver 5y ago

I don't know if you remember Google Glass was a thing, and turned out that wearing glasses on your face 16 hours a day is far more annoying than those "little hand-held glass display" you're trying way too hard to be dismissive of. Google Glass didn't die because it wasn't AR, it died because wearing glasses all the time wasn't practical. Not practical technologically in terms of battery life, weight, and not practical in terms of simply that you don't need to interact with some digital UI every waking moment of your life. Also while in our imagination we can conjure up virtual displays in AR and use them for complex UIs, actually waving your hands in empty air, aside from being super weird, is also super inconvenient, compared to handheld multitouch glass. You're not making AR predictions based on "current trends". You think you are. Instead you're trying to draw a straight line from the present reality to your favorite sci-fi movies that have shaped your idea of what the future is going to be like, while also skipping over all the pesky details that can trip up that idea from concept to realization. In other words, same reason why everyone was dead set flying cars are coming. And yeah, the generic "no one believed in XEROX PARX and no one believed in trains and car engines, no one believed in airplanes" argument was brought up about flying cars. Turns out that this argument is not an automatic win for believing whatever you wanna believe is coming. Just because someone didn't believe in airplanes doesn't mean I can't roll my eyes at predictions that faster-than-light travel is just around the corner.

fossuser 5y ago
Google Glass died because the hardware sucked, the UI and utility were not there. The general magic device was also a failure, but mobile computing is obviously not. The timing has to be right and the hardware has to be possible - if you're too early it won't work. Flying cars is a bad comparison - they mostly don't exist in widespread use because of reasons not related to computing. Risk, fuel, control, etc. - even then rich people do have helicopters (though that's mostly different). Pointing out failed predictions does not imply that all predictions are similarly wrong. In computing - the examples I showed (and there are others) are more relevant.
- slver 5y ago
  > Google Glass died because the hardware sucked, the UI and utility were not there. And nothing has changed about that. > Pointing out failed predictions does not imply that all predictions are similarly wrong. In computing - the examples I showed (and there are others) are more relevant. Most predictions are actually wrong. Let's see the hardware that "doesn't suck", let's see the UI and utility that "are there" and then I'll tell you if we have a winner or not. Right now we have nothing except bold fantasies powered by sci-fi movies full of cheap hologram VFX.
  - fossuser 5y ago
    > And nothing has changed about that. Yet - it's a prediction based on the capability of future hardware that seems plausible. > Let's see the hardware that "doesn't suck", let's see the UI and utility that "are there" and then I'll tell you if we have a winner or not. Yeah sure, it's way easier to make predictions in hindsight after other people have already built it. Even then - when the iPhone launched in 2007 it was largely panned in a similar way to what you're doing now. Making accurate predictions is hard - I agree with that. If you dismiss everything you'll be right a lot of the time, but you'll also miss every big and interesting change until someone else builds it.
    - shirhan 5y ago
      Comparing the launch of the iPhone with the "launch" of a prediction blog post void of any idea how said AR device is even going to work is honestly absurd.
    - Supermancho 5y ago
      > it's a prediction based on the capability of future hardware that seems plausible. And nuclear fusion reactors are only 20 years away. That's a concrete goal and it's more likely than some vague new "metaverse". I promise, you'll still be posting on HN when anything resembling a shadow of this is released.
- kmonsen 5y ago
  I remember the one time Sergei Brin said helicopters are surprisingly affordable. Sure if you are like 9th richest in the world that might be true.
fnord77 5y ago
> wearing glasses on your face 16 hours a day I do this every day of my life.
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  Me too, but I've never posted photos of myself wearing them in the shower.

by slver 5y ago

fossuser 5y ago

Google Glass died because the hardware sucked, the UI and utility were not there. The general magic device was also a failure, but mobile computing is obviously not. The timing has to be right and the hardware has to be possible - if you're too early it won't work. Flying cars is a bad comparison - they mostly don't exist in widespread use because of reasons not related to computing. Risk, fuel, control, etc. - even then rich people do have helicopters (though that's mostly different). Pointing out failed predictions does not imply that all predictions are similarly wrong. In computing - the examples I showed (and there are others) are more relevant.

slver 5y ago
> Google Glass died because the hardware sucked, the UI and utility were not there. And nothing has changed about that. > Pointing out failed predictions does not imply that all predictions are similarly wrong. In computing - the examples I showed (and there are others) are more relevant. Most predictions are actually wrong. Let's see the hardware that "doesn't suck", let's see the UI and utility that "are there" and then I'll tell you if we have a winner or not. Right now we have nothing except bold fantasies powered by sci-fi movies full of cheap hologram VFX.
- fossuser 5y ago
  > And nothing has changed about that. Yet - it's a prediction based on the capability of future hardware that seems plausible. > Let's see the hardware that "doesn't suck", let's see the UI and utility that "are there" and then I'll tell you if we have a winner or not. Yeah sure, it's way easier to make predictions in hindsight after other people have already built it. Even then - when the iPhone launched in 2007 it was largely panned in a similar way to what you're doing now. Making accurate predictions is hard - I agree with that. If you dismiss everything you'll be right a lot of the time, but you'll also miss every big and interesting change until someone else builds it.
  - shirhan 5y ago
    Comparing the launch of the iPhone with the "launch" of a prediction blog post void of any idea how said AR device is even going to work is honestly absurd.
  - Supermancho 5y ago
    > it's a prediction based on the capability of future hardware that seems plausible. And nuclear fusion reactors are only 20 years away. That's a concrete goal and it's more likely than some vague new "metaverse". I promise, you'll still be posting on HN when anything resembling a shadow of this is released.
kmonsen 5y ago
I remember the one time Sergei Brin said helicopters are surprisingly affordable. Sure if you are like 9th richest in the world that might be true.

fnord77 5y ago

> wearing glasses on your face 16 hours a day I do this every day of my life.

DonHopkins 5y ago
Me too, but I've never posted photos of myself wearing them in the shower.