5 ms·

Might have completely missed something, but I thought AR/VR was (and still is) a solution looking for a problem. Have they finally stumbled into something peopl

Might have completely missed something, but I thought AR/VR was (and still is) a solution looking for a problem. Have they finally stumbled into something people want to do with them, beyond games and porn?

CuriouslyC 3y ago
AR will take off like crazy when they develop lightweight, clear goggles than can display color with a range of opacities. A million jobs are begging for HUDS that guide the worker, but the current equipment isn't there yet.
- pipo234 3y ago
  > A million jobs are begging for HUDS that guide the worker [..] I have a pretty dull, comfortable desk job and lack the imagination to come up with any. Can you name some? (I've been wrong before when I was skeptical when everyone was hyped about iPad, Deep Learning, etc. so please convince me about Apple Vision, Mark's metaverse, or google's glasses and paint what might be in 5 years.)
  - proamdev123 3y ago
    Here’s one: a warehouse worker with HUD that guides picking and/or packing visually. The HUD could overlay SKU, product description, weight, volume, etc — directly onto the actual item in the storage rack.
  - sheepscreek 3y ago
    Oil drill worker. Industrial worker on the factory floor. A car mechanic. A surgeon… Even an artist (make a sketch, blow it up a 100x using AR on a wall, trace paint to keep proportions right - heck the artist doesn’t even need to do it themselves, they could hire an associate to do it).
  - mecsred 3y ago
    This is something I've worked on so I can comment a bit. The most popular use case I've seen so far is AR manuals, with the sell that you can have technicians up to speed on a piece of equipment without needing human coaching or training. I was shown a demo in the context of robotics recently where you look at a robot and explanations of signals in the wiring harness were shown, hydraulic connections, wear parts, etc. It was visually pretty impressive but quite telling that the two most interested people were my manager and the CEO. The engineers just kinda sat looking at each other with a non verbal "Must have been a fun project to build huh? I'll stick to PDFs".
    - rcxdude 3y ago
      given the general state of most documentation, I really struggle to imagine who would actually maintain manuals like this.
  - spookie 3y ago
    The US military has researched on using it for vehicle mechanical repairs. This way a soldier without such knowledge would be able to perform on field repairs. For 3D artists it presents as a more intuitive way to sculpt models. For automotive designers, it allows a cheaper and faster means of iteration, given that such a task requires a much better sense of scale than the one given off of a monitor. Same goes for architecture, which when coupled with a game engine, also allows the customer to preview their future house. (props for being open to ideas btw)
  - JimtheCoder 3y ago
    "I have a pretty dull, comfortable desk job and lack the imagination to come up with any. Can you name some?" Security guard at the mall, Power Rangers, etc...
  - vmladenov 3y ago
    Work: A 3D room-scale representation of GDB would help me keep a lot more of a program’s state in my head. Fun: I want a HUD for skiing that marks where my friends are and warns me of rocks / cliffs / incoming weather.
- substation13 3y ago
  Stacking shelves in a supermarket is a perfect example. 1000s of products means that a bit of experience is required to know where everything goes in order to quickly stack. With a HUD, workers become productive much faster (and are more inter-changeable) - which is something large enterprises love.
  - SoftTalker 3y ago
    A shelf stacking robot is even better at knowing where things go and won't get a backache and file a worker's comp claim.
  - arrrg 3y ago
    Knowing where to stack things is something humans are capable of rapidly learning. It’s not a big part of the workload of stacking shelves. The actual physical effort dominates the work.
schaefer 3y ago
For some of us, the hope is to use AR/VR for productivity. It might sound mundane, but the hope is that one day slipping on a pair of glasses outperforms conventional monitor technology.
spookie 3y ago
I believe in a lot of potential for the area, primarly from AR. As for the VR side of things, I've seen people go through therapy in VR after loosing the ability to walk IRL, and being able to go into a forest again meant the world for them. The field tends to attract a lot of the... hype people to it, and it gives off a bad image as a whole. Nevertheless, its a pretty liberating research field.
JohnFen 3y ago
> Have they finally stumbled into something people want to do with them, beyond games and porn? Most people don't want it for games and porn either -- although those two things are the only obvious mass-market applications. There are lots of other real uses, but they're all niche. It's hard to come up with a real, mainstream use that would drive adoption in the general public.
- momojo 3y ago
  Agreed. During my time at an AR startup, most of our interest was from niche players or one-offs. Current company (biotech, data) is genuinely interested in VR + rendered anatomy data for client reports: https://www.syglass.io/ https://www.syglass.io/

CuriouslyC 3y ago

AR will take off like crazy when they develop lightweight, clear goggles than can display color with a range of opacities. A million jobs are begging for HUDS that guide the worker, but the current equipment isn't there yet.

pipo234 3y ago
> A million jobs are begging for HUDS that guide the worker [..] I have a pretty dull, comfortable desk job and lack the imagination to come up with any. Can you name some? (I've been wrong before when I was skeptical when everyone was hyped about iPad, Deep Learning, etc. so please convince me about Apple Vision, Mark's metaverse, or google's glasses and paint what might be in 5 years.)
- proamdev123 3y ago
  Here’s one: a warehouse worker with HUD that guides picking and/or packing visually. The HUD could overlay SKU, product description, weight, volume, etc — directly onto the actual item in the storage rack.
- sheepscreek 3y ago
  Oil drill worker. Industrial worker on the factory floor. A car mechanic. A surgeon… Even an artist (make a sketch, blow it up a 100x using AR on a wall, trace paint to keep proportions right - heck the artist doesn’t even need to do it themselves, they could hire an associate to do it).
- mecsred 3y ago
  This is something I've worked on so I can comment a bit. The most popular use case I've seen so far is AR manuals, with the sell that you can have technicians up to speed on a piece of equipment without needing human coaching or training. I was shown a demo in the context of robotics recently where you look at a robot and explanations of signals in the wiring harness were shown, hydraulic connections, wear parts, etc. It was visually pretty impressive but quite telling that the two most interested people were my manager and the CEO. The engineers just kinda sat looking at each other with a non verbal "Must have been a fun project to build huh? I'll stick to PDFs".
  - rcxdude 3y ago
    given the general state of most documentation, I really struggle to imagine who would actually maintain manuals like this.
- spookie 3y ago
  The US military has researched on using it for vehicle mechanical repairs. This way a soldier without such knowledge would be able to perform on field repairs. For 3D artists it presents as a more intuitive way to sculpt models. For automotive designers, it allows a cheaper and faster means of iteration, given that such a task requires a much better sense of scale than the one given off of a monitor. Same goes for architecture, which when coupled with a game engine, also allows the customer to preview their future house. (props for being open to ideas btw)
- JimtheCoder 3y ago
  "I have a pretty dull, comfortable desk job and lack the imagination to come up with any. Can you name some?" Security guard at the mall, Power Rangers, etc...
- vmladenov 3y ago
  Work: A 3D room-scale representation of GDB would help me keep a lot more of a program’s state in my head. Fun: I want a HUD for skiing that marks where my friends are and warns me of rocks / cliffs / incoming weather.
substation13 3y ago
Stacking shelves in a supermarket is a perfect example. 1000s of products means that a bit of experience is required to know where everything goes in order to quickly stack. With a HUD, workers become productive much faster (and are more inter-changeable) - which is something large enterprises love.
- SoftTalker 3y ago
  A shelf stacking robot is even better at knowing where things go and won't get a backache and file a worker's comp claim.
- arrrg 3y ago
  Knowing where to stack things is something humans are capable of rapidly learning. It’s not a big part of the workload of stacking shelves. The actual physical effort dominates the work.

schaefer 3y ago

For some of us, the hope is to use AR/VR for productivity. It might sound mundane, but the hope is that one day slipping on a pair of glasses outperforms conventional monitor technology.

spookie 3y ago

I believe in a lot of potential for the area, primarly from AR. As for the VR side of things, I've seen people go through therapy in VR after loosing the ability to walk IRL, and being able to go into a forest again meant the world for them. The field tends to attract a lot of the... hype people to it, and it gives off a bad image as a whole. Nevertheless, its a pretty liberating research field.

JohnFen 3y ago

> Have they finally stumbled into something people want to do with them, beyond games and porn? Most people don't want it for games and porn either -- although those two things are the only obvious mass-market applications. There are lots of other real uses, but they're all niche. It's hard to come up with a real, mainstream use that would drive adoption in the general public.

momojo 3y ago
Agreed. During my time at an AR startup, most of our interest was from niche players or one-offs. Current company (biotech, data) is genuinely interested in VR + rendered anatomy data for client reports: https://www.syglass.io/ https://www.syglass.io/